Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 6:
I Have Altered the Deal

Transcript by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)

Note – Laura’s character Xianna’fan speaks in an accent. Most of her soft I’s sound like “ee,” and most of her TH’s sound like Z’s. Example: “this and that” = “zees and zat”

## Intro

NICK: Hi everyone, and welcome to Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire actual play podcast. I’m Nick, your game master. Every other Thursday, our story follows a thief, a bounty hunter, a fringer, and a slicer as they explore the galaxy helping a mysterious benefactor and each other.

I just wanted to take a second to thank MolarDuck for his very kind iTunes review. Only two more to go and we get to release our secret art. Please get out there and review the show.

We hope you enjoy the episode.

##

NICK: Hello, everybody, and welcome to Episode 6 of Tabletop Squadron. I’m your host, Nick. I’m gonna go around the table, and everybody introduce yourself and your character, and if you spent any experience since last time please tell the audience what you did. Starting off with Laura.

LAURA: I’m Laura. …

NICK: Hi Laura.

LAURA: (light laugh) I play Xianna, she’s a Twi’lek, and I bought another rank in the skill Underworld.

NICK: Because you have Streetwise.

LAURA: Well, I already have Streetwise. This is Underworld. It’s an Intelligence skill. Streetwise is a Cunning based skill.

NICK: Right. Of course.

LAURA: In case you wanna know how this game works.

NICK: Yeah. If you wanna know how the game works, look at our Instagram. We have all the rules.

CAMERON: Tabletop_Squad

NICK: Yeah. That’s gonna be in the outro. And next, Steven.

STEVEN: Hello.

NICK: Hi Steven.

STEVEN: Hi, I’m Steven.

NICK: Hi.

STEVEN: Hi. I am playing the Togruta, Sabos, and also doing what I can to make Nick’s life harder.

NICK: Of course you are. Great. Have you spent any experience?

STEVEN: Oh yes, yes I did. See, this is the part of making it harder I was talking about. Yeah, I upgraded my Survival, which is a Cunning skill, to 2.

NICK: Ooh, smart.

STEVEN: No, Survival.

(laughter)

NICK: And, next up we have Hudson.

HUDSON: Hi. I’m Hudson. It’s great to be here, Nick.

NICK: Great. Good to have you.

HUDSON: I’m playing a Gigoran named Tink. I did not use any of my experience points, opting to hoard them.

(laughter)

LAURA: Like some sort of fluffy dragon.

HUDSON: Yes.

NICK: Great. Last up, but not least, we have Cameron.

CAMERON: Hello~

NICK: Hi!

CAMERON: I’m Cameron. I play Karma. She’s a Nautolan bounty hunter, and I upgraded my Cool skill to Rank 2.

NICK: Nifty keen. Alright, let’s go ahead and do the Destiny Roll.

STEVEN: Sure. Why not?

HUDSON: No…

STEVEN: Okay. We’re going good so far. One dark side.

CAMERON: Agh.

STEVEN: Okay, another dark side.

LAURA & STEVEN: And another dark side.

NICK: Oh, am I gonna win the game?

STEVEN: I’m gonna try to save y’all here. And another dark side! We did great!

NICK: Yes. Excellent!

LAURA: These dice didn’t listen to us. We tried to get the bad rolls out…

CAMERON: It didn’t work.

LAURA: …and then we primed the dice by putting the two light sides up to encourage it and let it know what we expect out of it.

NICK: How did that work out for you?

LAURA & CAMERON: Not well.

STEVEN: We have lots of dark side.

CAMERON: None of us rolled two dark sides, so…

NICK: Well, there you go. Mediocrity. Wonderful.

STEVEN: I mean, we did pretty good at failing, just not as good as we could have.

CAMERON: Four dark side.

NICK: Great. I’ll be happy to use those this session. I’m sure it’ll come up.

CAMERON: Great.

STEVEN: I’m sure you will.

NICK: So, if you remember, last time we went on an adventure into the jungle, a little bit of a man hunt. You got into a gun fight with Lira and Williams, the stormtrooper and the officer. You murdered Lira by having a tree eat her, proving that Mills was not crazy, and that the trees actually are alive and extremely dangerous, and you opted to let Williams go and fake his death without Mills noticing. Then, you loaded a corpse into the back of your speeder and you are headed back to the outpost. We’ll pick up there.

STEVEN: What model of speeder?

NICK: It’s a big one.

CAMERON: (laughs)

STEVEN: Good.

NICK: A six-seater with off-road skids.

HUDSON: Say it’s the Model T Ford, may the trouble, may the people wanna go, wanna get, wanna get, wanna get up and go!

LAURA: No!

(laughter)

STEVEN: I’m liking where this is going.

NICK: Ah… Alright. We open on a jungle treetop with the reddening late afternoon sun overhead. You hear the drone of a single speeder beneath the trees. one of the trees groans and begins to lean, but another tree whips its branches around tangling with the trunk. The trees snap at each other. There’s the sound of a blaster rifle being fired. Bolts blast up through the trees which stop moving, and some strange monkey creatures with lobster tails go skidding along the canopy.

Our viewpoint drops through the trees into the dim jungle. A speeder is whipping through the undergrowth, dodging fallen logs and underbrush. Occasionally, the elevation changes and the speeder lurches upward on the metal skids that cover the bottom, designed for just that purpose.

Inside the speeder we see our heroes, with Mills, their companion. The speeder roars past the camera, and from the rear we see a large crate affixed to the back. The speeder hits a bump, and a bloody arm in stormtrooper gear falls out of the trunk swaying back and forth in the momentum of travel.

So, you are driving back.

CAMERON: Did we pick up Spark Duelson when he died, or did we just leave him lying there? I don’t remember.

NICK: That’s a good question. You never really mentioned it.

CAMERON: I looted his body, behind the speeder… I’m going to say I tossed him up on the back of the speeder.

LAURA: I would not have.

NICK: Okay. Is he just like Weekend At Bernie’s in the backseat right now?

CAMERON: Yeah. I just felt bad. I mean, I’m sure he has a mom somewhere who’s worried about him, and this is really gonna hit her hard that her son was both a failure in the Empire and is now dead. So, you know…

NICK: Mm-hmm. So, I know Tink is driving, we settled that last time, Mills is in the seat next to him, and then who’s stuck in the backseat with the corpse?

CAMERON: Sabos.

LAURA: Yeah.

STEVEN: It’s touching my fourth head tail.

(laughter)

LAURA: In case you haven’t noticed, Xianna likes to call things, and she almost certainly saw Karma putting the body into the backseat and immediately was like “Middle seat! I call middle seat! I do not want to sit with the dead body…”

STEVEN: “I don’t want to either.”

LAURA: “Yes, but you see, I called it first. So, that is how that works.”

HUDSON: “Those are the rules.”

NICK: Mills slots his blaster rifle into the little cubby under the dashboard, and you all have those big helicopter earphones on with the wrap around microphones so you can talk to each other over the noise of the speeder. He says, “Well, that was interesting. I’m glad you got to see what the plant life of this planet can really do.”

LAURA: Do any of us have ears…?

CAMERON: (bursting laughter)

LAURA: Like, real ears? Are these made for human ears? I have ear cones, so they probably would stick out on the ear cones, and thinking about it, no one knows if Togrutas and Nautolans have actual ears or what, and he’s just fur… so I’m sure he has ears somewhere in there.

HUDSON: They’re buried in there, though.

CAMERON: He probably knows where they are though, so if he was putting on a headset…

LAURA: He just like smooshes them in and sways them side to side.

NICK: He just has them strapped to his nipples in the front, that’s where Gigorans hear from.

CAMERON: Oh, weird…

HUDSON: Not quite. (laughs)

LAURA: I’m sure they’re on his head, and he just has to like circle them around to get the hair out of the way, but the rest of us are probably having them awkwardly positioned around tentacles and ear cones to try and make them fit.

CAMERON: Yeah. So, I have a com link, and I have one of the ear ones that’s hidden so it’s not like on my wrist, but it’s just somewhere up in my tentacles with wherever the ear is… So, I probably have a couple of tentacles in front of them and a couple behind them and they’re weirdly far back on my head.

NICK: This is great. So, everybody’s wearing their earphones just kind of at a weird angle.

CAMERON: Yeah.

STEVEN: It makes my first and fourth head tail more prominent, because it pushes it up.

CAMERON: Well, how do yours work, because you have the montrals on top?

LAURA: That’s not where your… I don’t think he understands how the head tails work. (laughs)

STEVEN: Yeah, I don’t know. (laughs)

CAMERON: You have them, like, to go in between the two pointy bits you have like one on your nose and one on the back of your head. (giggles)

STEVEN: It’s tough.

LAURA: No, it’s probably angled so that the band that connects them is on the forehead.

STEVEN: It’s just on my forehead. Yeah.

CAMERON: Or he’s one of the super cool guys that—

STEVEN: Yes.

CAMERON: –who has the band below his chin, and it’s like a beard.

STEVEN: It’s special headphones with cut-outs for…

NICK: These are just standard.

CAMERON: No. we’re at an Empire outpost. They don’t particularly like aliens. None of these were made for anyone with tentacles.

NICK: Yeah. They’re definitely designed for humans.

STEVEN: Eh. Eh…

NICK: Do you guys have anything you want to debrief about while you’re on the speeder back?

CAMERON: I’m leaning against the wall of the speeder with my head in my hand breathing deeply. I don’t look too good.

NICK: Yeah. You got shot a whole bunch last episode.

CAMERON: Yeah. I’m looking a little green.

NICK: Ah… ha ha.

LAURA: Haaa…

CAMERON: But it’s because I’m a Nautolan, not because I’m sick.

NICK: There are some char marks going down the side of the inside of the speeder from rubbing off of the massive wounds that you have.

CAMERON: Both in the back, I think. I think I got shot in the back twice.

NICK: Yeah.

CAMERON: Yup. So, I’m kind of leaning away from the back of the seat, too, so I’m not leaning against the wounds. I don’t look particularly chatty at the moment.

LAURA: I do look at Sabos, and go “You owe me four stim packs.”

STEVEN: “I’ll get right on that.”

LAURA: “I healed you. You should owe me.”

STEVEN: “I don’t disagree.” I shuffle through my bag, looking through my inventory, it does not include any stim packs.

LAURA: “Then buy them.”

STEVEN: “We’re not at a store right now.”

LAURA: “We will be.”

STEVEN: “Noted.”

LAURA: “That is why I said you OWE me. Future tense.” (giggles)

HUDSON: “Sabos, I think she wants you to get some stim packs for her.”

STEVEN: “I will get some stim packs as soon as I get enough credits to buy the stim packs.”

CAMERON: “You all sound like my kids.”

STEVEN: (laughs)

NICK: (smiling) We’ll use that as the transition.

LAURA: (laughs)

NICK: So, the speeder goes whipping off through the trees, and we have a swipe cut. The speeder goes right to left on the screen and the transition swipes with the speeder to reveal the clearing for Outpost 4. As you pull in to the clearing you see that there are three stormtroopers posted outside of the Afternoon Delight, your Starwind pleasure yacht. While they are obviously on guard duty, they don’t react as you burst out of the final growths of the jungle and into the clearing around the outpost. There are two more scout troopers by the main gate which is still open, and they wave you through without incident after a hand signal from Mills.

He has taken off his bandana and is using it to wipe the camouflage paint from his face. He says, “Park us in the square. I’ll take the body to the morgue, and you go report to Falx.”

CAMERON: “Bodies.”

NICK: “Oh. Right. Sparks.”

CAMERON: “Yeah.”

NICK: “Yeah, okay, I’ll take the bodies to the morgue.”

CAMERON: “Thank you.”

NICK: So, the speeder, Tink, I guess you set it down in the square in the middle of the outpost?

HUDSON: Yeah. Throw the keys in.

NICK: Okay. Mills immediately piles out and detaches the big crate that’s on the back and just starts dragging that off to the side, and then remembers Sparks and goes back. “Well, that’s the third one this month…” and grabs the guy and starts dragging him towards a low sloped building off towards one of the barrier walls. You hear him mumbling about having to make multiple trips, and he doesn’t seem particularly enthused.

CAMERON: “I’m not surprised they don’t last long if that’s the level, the caliber of people they’re at.”

LAURA: “Only three a month?”

CAMERON: I’m trying to get out of the speeder. (laughs)

LAURA: “That seems low.” (giggles)

STEVEN: Have you seen those trees?

LAURA: Like yeah, those trees!

HUDSON: “Karma, do you need some help getting out of there?”

CAMERON: “Yes, please.”

HUDSON: I picked up Karma.

NICK: You just pick her up?

HUDSON: I pick her up to bring her wherever we’re going.

STEVEN: Her blood soaking into your fur, staining it forever.

HUDSON: Not forever, I have space Tide.

(laughter)

LAURA: He’s got some space bleach.

NICK: He’s got a Tide pen that’s a laser.

HUDSON: In the future Tide pods are actually edible.

(laughter and groaning)

CAMERON: Oh no.

NICK: Okay. You head toward the mansion, I guess?

HUDSON: Yeah. We head toward the mansion to report back.

LAURA: Before we go in, Xianna does look at Sabos and Tink, and points at both of them. “Neither of you two talk. Be quiet. Be seen but not heard.”

HUDSON: “What did I do?”

STEVEN: “Nothing happened.”

LAURA: “You two are bad at the talking.”

CAMERON: (laughs)

HUDSON: “What?!”

STEVEN: ‘I’m a really good driver.”

LAURA: “Sure. Sure you are, yes, but the talking you are not good at. Please let me talk, and maybe Karma. She can talk.”

STEVEN: “So should we not mention how we got the…”

LAURA: “No.”

STEVEN: “Oh.”

LAURA: “Do not talk. Do not say anything. Look pretty. Okay?”

HUDSON: “She can’t talk because she’s bleeding to death in my arms. I should be able to talk because I’m fine.”

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: “No. No no no. Just be pretty, do not talk, okay?”

HUDSON: “I’m covered in blood. I’ll neither be pretty nor will I refuse to talk.”

LAURA: “(defeated sigh)”

CAMERON: “I don’t look very pretty right now either, Tink. It’s alright.”

NICK: With that, we’ll cut to the next thing. There’s a star wipe. Why not? We’ll do a star wipe.

CAMERON: Ooh.

NICK: It cuts to the group standing in a well-appointed office. It’s all fur and dark wood. Falx is leaning back in a chair behind a large desk with his feet up. He’s wearing a black Imperial uniform that seems to have been tailored to make him look athletic and imposing. He takes a sip from a martini glass and gestures for you to speak.

STEVEN: “Falx!”

NICK: “Well hi! It seems like you made it—Whoa. What happened to your fishy friend?”

LAURA: “Oh, do not worry about her. She will be fine.”

NICK: “I could call for a medic or something.”

CAMERON: “Yes. Yes, please. Yes, please.”

STEVEN: “She might—“

LAURA: “Ye— That would be good. Thank you.”

HUDSON: “Do that.”

NICK: Alright. He reaches under the desk and presses something, and a little while later you see someone in what looks like an officer’s uniform, it’s all white and has a little red cross on it. That person says “Lean the patient over here, please. Put her down in this chair. I’ll see what I can do.” There’s a chair, and he folds the back down so it’s more of a stool. As Karma sits on it he starts to take out bacta and peel back the armor, and probably helps you out of the outer layer and starts stitching you up and doing random medical things.

CAMERON: Fun.

NICK: Could somebody make me a check with three greens and a yellow, please?

CAMERON: What difficulty?

NICK: Just a simple check. This is for the medic. Medic checks are simple.

CAMERON: Four successes, two advantages.

NICK: Great. You’re gonna get 4 health back. Then, he also uses a bunch of bacta on you so you get 10 additional health back, because bacta packs are awesome.

CAMERON: Oh yeah.

NICK: So, you should be back to full, but that’s gonna be over the course of the scene. You’ll be under medical attention for the whole time.

CAMERON: Okay.

NICK: You hear the medic kind of mumbling to himself as he sees under the armor about how he’s having to use all this bacta, and who knows when the next shipment will be, and he starts stitching… It hurts, but this has happened before. You’re pretty used to this.

CAMERON: Yup. No biggie. It’s better if you don’t move.

NICK: So, Falx kicks his feet back up onto the desk and takes a sip of his martini. “So, it appears that you met some resistance. What happened?”

STEVEN: “Did you know the trees move?”

NICK: “Oh yeah, unfortunate feature of our lovely home, Unroola Dawn. I probably should’ve told you about that beforehand.”

LAURA: “Well, yes, but… The people we were sent to obtain, they fought back a little bit, and they are both dead.”

NICK: “Wow… Okay.”

LAURA: “One of the bodies was together enough to bring back. The other one, just some little bits.”

NICK: “Did you bring the little bits?”

LAURA: “I think so.” (giggles)

CAMERON: I feel like Karma has them in her pack.

NICK: Okay. Do you show them?

LAURA: I’m pretty sure we got the hat and his insignia.

CAMERON: We got the hat, some bloody uniform, and his… rank thing.

LAURA: Yeah, his rank insignia.

STEVEN: “The tree claimed most of the little bits.”

CAMERON: I try not to move, and I just pull a pouch that has them in it off my belt and gently toss it to Xianna, because I’m being stitched.

LAURA: Xianna kinda pulls back, like “Ew.”

CAMERON: “It’s in a pouch.”

LAURA: Still, she’s like ‘ick,’ and like picks it up with two little fingers and puts it on his desk. “I threw a grenade… Sorry.”

NICK: Falx opens the bag and very nonchalantly pulls out the bloody scraps of fabric. “Ew. Gross.” And puts it back in the bag.

LAURA: (laughs) ‘I know.”

NICK: “I’ll have to ask Sparks about exactly what happened. Where is he?”

CAMERON: (seethes)

LAURA: “Oh, by the way… Sparks is also dead. One of those weird furball scorpion crab thingies got him while we were being attacked by the trees.”

STEVEN: “Tasty creatures, but feisty.”

NICK: “Y-Yeah… Wow. Racked up quite a body count on this pretty simple job.”

LAURA: “We were not aware the trees were murderous.”

CAMERON: “Your five troopers are dead, too.”

NICK: “Yeah. That’s why I sent you all.”

LAURA: “Mills also seemed to have some sort of war flashback and ran off into the trees for a bit.”

NICK: “Ha-ha! Oh, that Mills, such a card. He was probably testing you. He does that to me from time to time.”

The camera cuts to Mills in the morgue, and he’s just dumping Spark’s body into a freezer container but it looks kind of like a dumpster, and one of the legs is sticking out at a weird angle. “Man, someday I’ll have to stop doing this…” and he’s like hitting it down with a broom to try to get it into the freezer, and the camera cuts back to you all.

(nervous laughter)

HUDSON: Wow…

CAMERON: I’m glad none of our characters saw that.

NICK: “So, there’s no one to collaborate your story.”

LAURA: “Mills was there when I accidentally blew up Williams. He also saw Lira get murdered by a tree.”

HUDSON: “Did you say collaborate the story?”

NICK: “Co-oberate the story.”

HUDSON: “Corrob— Ah.”

(shushing)

NICK: “Corroborate.”

(laughter)

NICK: “Ah! Tink! You finally speak!”

LAURA: She’s like poking Tink, and she’s like, (whispered) “No…”

HUDSON: I glare.

NICK: “I thought from all the blood stains that maybe you’d been wounded.”

HUDSON: “Oh no, just carrying Karma.”

NICK: “Ah—Oh… Right. Well, I’m glad you all made it back. I kinda sent you on a suicide mission, and then right after you left I felt sort of bad, which is weird for me.”

LAURA: “Um, thank you?”

(laughter)

STEVEN: “Yeah… We’ll just take the payment.”

NICK: “Right. Yeah, we can probably make that happen. So, just to recap: The officer I trusted died beforehand, and the two people I sent you to get died, and one of them you brought back a hat, and Mills who honestly is not the most reliable of fellows will have to answer this later. Did I miss anything?”

LAURA: “Um… Wait. Duelson was a trusted officer? I thought he was like, a private. He was, like, so young.”

NICK: “By trusted I mean he was too scared of me to lie to me.”

LAURA: “Oh. I understand now. (giggles)”

NICK: “I don’t know if you could tell, but he was my snitch, my patsy, the one to tell me what was going on.”

LAURA: “Oh no. it is never good when you lose your snitch.”

CAMERON: Karma thinks back on all the information that Spark Duelson told us before he died about secret codes and leaving the base and everything, and is like yeah, I could see how he’d be a good snitch, but says it silently to herself.

NICK: Mm-hmm. I’m gonna need a Deception check probably from Xianna and one other person.

LAURA: Can do!

NICK: Tink or Karma can help, because you two were the ones that talked the most.

STEVEN: That’s good, because I don’t deceive.

CAMERON: Do you have any Deception?

HUDSON: No, I have none.

LAURA: What’s the difficulty?

NICK: It’s gonna be three purple.

CAMERON: Are we both making checks, or am I helping Xianna?

NICK: It’s an assistance.

CAMERON: Okay. Take a blue, because you’re better at Deception than me.

STEVEN: Everything I said was 100% true, weird monkeys, weird trees.

CAMERON: Phew.

LAURA: Three successes.

NICK: Alright. He thinks for a minute and scratches at one of his head spikes. “Well, sounds pretty trustworthy to me. Glad you made it back in one piece.”

STEVEN: “Are you?”

NICK: “Yeah! I think we’re friends.”

LAURA: “Yes. Yes we are.” Xianna smiles.

CAMERON: Karma gives a pained look as something happens to her back.

STEVEN: You got shot a lot.

NICK: Yeah. The medic kinda tugs on one of your head tentacles.

CAMERON: (seethes)

NICK: “Stand still.”

CAMERON: “I’m sitting.”

NICK: “Or sit still.” He’s got a lot of blood, probably up to his elbow as he’s digging around in there.

CAMERON: “And I’m not moving, you’re wiggling.”

NICK: “Look, we could do this the easy way or the hard way. Either way, it’s gonna hurt.” You flinch again as he digs deeper in there. You’re not sure why he’s digging in there, because it wasn’t bullets, so there’s nothing in there to dig out…

LAURA: Tree bark.

NICK: Could be. Making sure it’s not infected… with his hands.

STEVEN: Aren’t there weird tree spores and shit?

NICK: Yes, there are.

CAMERON: (laughing) Yes, that’s true. He’s disinfecting.

NICK: Oh, speaking of the weird tree spores, in the office you notice one of those humming heat lamp things that they use for them is hanging from the ceiling. You didn’t notice it at first because it was behind a light fixture, but it’s the same kind of technology. It’s the kind of thing where Falx, in his home setup, would basically be able to be decontaminated constantly, all the time.

“Well, this would be a well-executed mission except for a couple of small things.” He presses a button under his desk, and you see the pudgy quartermaster from before walk in. Falx says, “Why don’t you tell my good friends what you told me, quartermaster?”

The pudgy quartermaster goes, “(huffs) Okay. So… I was thinking back about these transactions that these people made with me and realized I recognize that Togruta.” He points at Sabos. “When I was the quartermaster at Outpost 2, he’s the one that came and tried to make some trade agreement for his little colony.”

STEVEN: “Not little. Well, I mean, smaller than… Okay, fine.”

LAURA: The moment he starts talking Xianna immediately sighs, because in her head she’s like (exasperated) you always deny everything, you stay silent, you deny, you ask for a lawyer!

STEVEN: “You mean (muffled speech) Osaron?”

NICK: “Yeah. That’s the stupid place. Look, he said they were going to trade exotic goods for basic supplies, and we sent a good faith payment, and he never sent anything back. It happens from time to time. Then, that idiot came back.”

STEVEN: “I assure you I did send my side of the deal back. I sent one of my best pilots.”

HUDSON: … Roll Deception?

NICK: Yeah.

CAMERON: (laughs) Did you, actually?

STEVEN: No. (laughs) I don’t have anything at all.

LAURA: At this moment, Xianna’s leaning over to Karma and whispers to her. “Wait, is he actually a con artist? That would make so much more sense.”

STEVEN: How hard is it?

NICK: Three purple.

CAMERON: Karma whispers back. “He’d be better at lying.”

NICK: Also, two black die because he’s already done a bunch of research on this ahead of time.

STEVEN: Sure.

HUDSON: If you pass this check, I’ll like, get naked and do cartwheels.

NICK: Oh, and wouldn’t it be cool if you had some light side points to flip, which you don’t, so let’s go ahead and flip a dark side point.

STEVEN: Damn it. This isn’t Streetwise or Knowledge. That sucks. (laughs nervously)

LAURA: (groans) That is a sad, sad roll.

STEVEN: Okay, this is fine.

CAMERON: Three greens, two black, two purple, and one red.

STEVEN: “I totally sent your shipment with one of my best pilots…”

CAMERON: You did not…

STEVEN: Okay, so there’s a lot of advantages, but I did end up failing a couple times. I have two failures and two advantages. “Uh, I’m lying. It was not actually one of my best pilots.”

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: Yeah, so be thinking about how you want to spend those advantages, and it’s not that you can make people believe you. Falx’s smile gets real wide. “That’ll be all, quartermaster.”

The guy huffs. “Thanks for using my lunch break,” and wanders out.

Falx says, “So, obviously, you owe the Empire quite a bit of money. Standard support package, that’s about 100,000 credits.

LAURA: “What?!”

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: Xianna previously had her elbow on an armchair, like forehead in her hand, just sighing down, and then immediately goes, “What did you do with that?”

CAMERON: Karma hisses again.

STEVEN: “Let’s just say, I was busy executing other trade deals, and uh, well I haven’t yet come up with my side. As soon as I get back to Osaron, I promise I’ll do it. What type of thing would you be interested in?”

NICK: “We’ll deal with that here in a second. There’s gonna be an easier way to repay your debt.”

STEVEN: “Oh. I’m happy.”

NICK: “But before that…” He presses something under his desk and you see a holo-camera pop up. He presses a button. There’s like the little dialing tone which is like a little spinning Imperial gear logo, and then a hologram of a guy’s torso facing towards Falx shows up. You can see a reflection in the window behind him, so you can see the whole guy.

It is a large gentleman with a little bit of a paunch wearing a black Imperial uniform, very similar to Falx’s, and he’s got bushy hair and really big mutton chops that also look like his hair. He has kinda like Whoville looking hair if it was combed down and then big mutton chops, and then he has a big eyepatch that takes up about a quarter of his face.

“Ah yes, Regional Governor Silpin. I remember you sent me a missive a little while ago. Could you explain to me again about that robbery last year? I may have found a lead for you.”

LAURA: (quietly) “Oh shit…” (laughs)

NICK: Silpin starts talking, and he has a low but kind of whiney voice. “Well, you know that we had this problem a while ago with some sort of Twi’lek con artist thief, and she came in and she seduced me, and she stole a whole bunch of documents that should not ever see the light of the sun, and then she stole all my wife’s jewelry. She almost left me because of that. I had to spend so much money to get it back. It was a purple Twi’lek, and I don’t remember her name, but it was pretty bad. She wore this big coat, and she was real pretty, and look what happened to me now. I used to be stationed somewhere nice, and now I’m here on Unroola Dawn because of the embarrassment. You know all of this. I’m sure you’re just trying to make fun of me, but if you do have any information I will kill the heck out of that person and have them tortured for a very long time. I’ve been developing torture droids specifically for this.”

Falx says, “Tell you what, my friend, I’m gonna dig into that a little more and get back to you,” and he slides the camera back down into its compartment.

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: The moment he puts it down, Xianna holds her finger up. “Okie, in my defense, the wife gave me most of the jewelry. I don’t think he wants to know that I also was seducing her.”

NICK: “I think in the long run that may be a little irrelevant.”

LAURA: ‘It may actually make things worse, now that I think about it. He might not appreciate that fact.”

NICK: Falx pulls a few tumblers up from under his desk. His desk is pretty much clear, but for some reason all the storage seems to be just under it. He pulls some tumblers out and pulls a decanter of blue, clear fluid, and pours in a circle. It spills on the desk a little but it fills up the glasses. He kind of taps them towards you all.

Karma, at this point the medic kind of slaps on your back, and it doesn’t hurt because of all the bacta, it’s pretty numb and cold. It kind of feels like when you put that aloe gel on a sunburn, where it’s cold and a little stinging but mostly numb.

CAMERON: Mmm. Nice.

NICK: The medic says, “That’s the best I can do,” and he walks out of the room. You realize that his face never changed at all during that whole process, like he’s very practiced at not listening or at least not reacting to these things, and he’s gone, and you can put your armor back on.

Falx says, “You might as well have a drink, because we have a lot to talk about.”

STEVEN: “I like your style, Falx.”

NICK: “That’s great. I don’t particularly like yours. You don’t seem to be very good at this.”

STEVEN: “Well, I’m doing the best I can for my small little colony.”

LAURA: While this is happening Xianna takes a glass for her and then takes one and hands it to Karma, and like shoves it into her hand, and has to like pull her hand up into the glass to hold it.

STEVEN: I’ll take a drink off the desk, pretty immediately.

HUDSON: I take the drink off the desk.

CAMERON: Karma leans back into the armchair, keeps on holding the drink but doesn’t drink it.

NICK: Okay. If you take a sip of it it’s teeth-hurtingly sweet. You can’t taste alcohol in it at all, but your vision lags slightly. It’s very, very, very strong.

HUDSON: I pour a little bit of it onto the blood on my fur and rub it around to see if it gets the blood out.

NICK: It turns purple, because of the red-brownish blood it turns this weird purple sludgy kind of color, and just kind of stains you like a Teletubby.

HUDSON: “Can I get a towel?”

(laughter)

NICK: Falx shakes his head to himself and says, “Lovable scamp.” He claps, and the protocol droid from the night before waddles out with a really nice napkin, like before.

He says, ‘Oh, you rang?”

Falx says, “Give him the napkin.” The droid, whose face doesn’t move, still manages to look mortified and hands it over, hangs his head, and then waddles out of the room.

HUDSON: I wipe the blood off and thank Falx.

STEVEN: I see him do that, so I dip my head tail in the glass too, just to see what happens.

HUDSON: (snorts)

NICK: Um… It’s like… dipping your forehead in Windex. It’s blue and drippy.

STEVEN: Yeah…

CAMERON: Why? (laughs)

LAURA: The moment they start doing this, Xianna just looks down into her glass… and then just downs the whole thing.

NICK: It’s good. It is very good. It is extremely strong. You’ve had it before. What is it called?

LAURA: Ooh! Okay…

CAMERON: You said it’s blue?

NICK: It’s blue and clear.

LAURA: It’s blue, and it’s strong… Hmm.

STEVEN: It’s not the star thing, is it?

CAMERON: No.

LAURA: A Naboo Sky.

NICK: A Naboo Sky? Because yeah, Falx is the kind of guy who keeps named mix drinks in a decanter. That makes sense.

LAURA: Yeah.

CAMERON: He’s got a thermos with martini in it.

LAURA: Well, they’re the kind of alcohol mix drinks that are all alcohol, so you can just keep it in a decanter.

NICK: Yup.

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: So, you have A Naboo Sky. You know that these things are like, if you wanna get super drunk you have one, and he just poured out quite a bit. He finishes his martini, pours some of the blue drink into it, and has a sip of that. “So, obviously the deal has changed. It’s a pretty strange coincidence that you all are here, but at the same time the galaxy seems to work in mysterious ways. I could have you killed. I could have you detained. That doesn’t really serve my purposes. So, here’s what we’re gonna do.”

He points to a large crate by the doorway with a briefcase on top of it. You didn’t really notice it on the way in. “That large crate contains the Stone Breaker. Take it. Do whatever you need with it. I wouldn’t be able to sell it anyway. I’m sure Sentinel will get in touch with you pretty soon after you’re out of here. Here’s the catch, before you do whatever you’re supposed to do with him, I need you to deliver that briefcase to some of my business associates.” He reaches under the table and pulls out a small data pad and slides it on the desk to where you can reach it easily.

“The coordinates are on here. You make this payment for me, and do it quickly, and I’ll ignore some of these other coincidences that have popped up. You delay my delivery, force me to get involved with the people that want that briefcase, and I call back Regional Governor Silpin, give him all the knowledge I have, and tack on the money that this Togruta owes the Empire to help him finance a task force. He’s a boring man, but tenacious. I’m sure you know all about that.” He winks at Xianna.

LAURA: Xianna’s like, “Hmm. Very boring. Yes.”

NICK: “I’ll give you a head start, but it would be inconvenient, maybe fatal, for you all to rebel.” He leans back in his chair.

LAURA: Xianna is nodding, takes the data pad. “I understand. We will do your briefcase delivery first, ASAP.”

STEVEN: “What’s in the briefcase?”

NICK: “I wouldn’t worry about that.”

CAMERON: Karma’s now worried about it.

NICK: (laughs)

LAURA: Xianna’s fine because it’s a briefcase, so there’s probably no people inside of it.

CAMERON: That’s why Karma’s worried.

HUDSON: “Just to make sure we don’t know these business partners, who are the business partners?”

NICK: “Oh, it’s just a small crime syndicate from the outer rim, some people who have done some runs for me in the past. You know, what comes around goes around.”

LAURA: “The briefcase, it does not have volatile materials, does it? Should it not be near an open flame? Should we not move it around too much?”

NICK: “Well, you may notice that’s pretty nice bantha leather. I’d prefer you didn’t burn up the briefcase. You could use that again. Otherwise, the material’s fine.”

LAURA: “Okie. I was making sure it was not like a bomb or something that we would need to be careful with.”

STEVEN: “Yeah. You’ve seen my style for how I like to roll into planets.”

CAMERON: Gosh. Karma starts running through a list of all the members of crime gangs from the outer rim that she’s turned in.

NICK: There’s a lot.

CAMERON: Yeah.

NICK: Most crime syndicates and gangs know about you, do not like you.

CAMERON: Yup.

NICK: The good news, I would imagine being an alien in the Star Wars universe, even one that’s fairly popular, unless you have a really obvious calling card, since most species don’t recognize each other with a ton of detail they’re not gonna see somebody and be like ‘oh, that’s Karma.’ The reason people all recognized Jango and Boba Fett is because they have super obvious Mandalorian armor so they can be recognized. Most people aren’t gonna be like ‘hey, that lady with the antenna is Aurra Sing,’ although that’s not a great example because she’s the only one that looks like that.

LAURA: Because she literally is her own thing, and they won’t release what her race is, because she is a hybrid that’s just there!

NICK: Yeah. A better example would be if you see a giant Wookie walk into an area, unless you’re very familiar with a certain Wookie you’re not gonna be like oh look, that’s Chewbacca, that famous Wookie.’ You’re just gonna be like, that’s a Wookie. So, yeah, it’s possible if you personally arrested somebody, they would probably recognize you, but if someone had just heard about you, you’d probably be okay. So, not the best of situations, but not an obvious faux pas.

CAMERON: Okay.

NICK: “So, you all onboard? Tink my man, you willing to deliver my briefcase?”

HUDSON: “Doesn’t look like we have a choice.”

NICK: “Yeah. This is why me and you understand each other. You’ve done this kind of thing before.”

HUDSON: “Wait, is this gonna come into some weird story that brings back my past?”

NICK: “Um, I don’t know why you would think that. It shouldn’t.”

HUDSON: “You sounded foreboding.”

NICK: “Oh, well yeah. I’m an Imperial governor working against the law. Of course I sound foreboding from time to time.”

HUDSON: “It wasn’t a complaint. It was an observation.”

NICK: “And you’re quite an observant fellow. So, anyway, I’ll give you a pass out of here. I would recommend against coming back, seeing as you left and then Imperials ended up dead, but I’ll delay the full investigation until after you’re gone. I’m seeing some confused looks. Even if they were deserters, you killed Imperials. Probably not great.”

STEVEN: “The trees killed Imperials.”

LAURA: “Um, yes. To be fair, the one, the trooper, was killed by a tree.”

STEVEN: “A monkey killed one.”

LAURA: “Me killing the officer was an accident. I saw he had a gun, I accidentally threw a grenade. You know how these things happen. My bad.”

CAMERON: “And the monkeys got Duelson.”

NICK: “Wait a minute. Did you say you quick drew a grenade? You were in a gunfight and you threw a grenade?”

LAURA: “It was what I had in my pocket.”

NICK: “That’s concerning.”

LAURA: “I didn’t have my gun at the moment.”

STEVEN: “Yeah, we actually didn’t have guns in the gunfight.”

CAMERON: That’s not even a deception. That’s actually true. (laughs)

LAURA: That’s actually what happened! (laughs)

CAMERON: She set her gun down. She had grenades. That’s what she had.

LAURA: “I did not have my gun. So…”

NICK: “So, um, I don’t know how familiar you are with the Imperial Justice System, but speaking as someone with a pretty high place in it, my organization is super racist. It probably doesn’t matter what you did.”

LAURA: Xianna is just kind of staring at him, like, you realize you’re talking to someone whose planet has been occupied, for like ever.

CAMERON: Karma’s look says, ‘you realize you’re an alien, right?’

LAURA: Wait! We are all aliens! (laughs)

CAMERON: None of us in this room are human. (laughs)

LAURA: Karma and Xianna are both having this at the same time. ‘You realize you’re talking to aliens?’ Xianna has the, ‘I’m from Ryloth…’ and then, looking around, ‘wait, we’re ALL aliens.’ (giggles)

NICK: So, he just kinda waggles his eyebrows at you all. He gets it, and still. He has realized how to work within that structure and has been pretty successful.

STEVEN: Yeah.

NICK: He says, “So, you’re mostly patched up, you have your particularly important package, so be gone, or whatever.”

LAURA: Xianna has the data pad with the coordinates, and then she goes and takes the briefcase, and is kinda looking between Karma and Tink, back and forth, and then slowly starts handing it to Karma.

CAMERON: Karma takes the briefcase.

STEVEN: Aw…

NICK: Sabos reaches for the briefcase, and then looks sad that he doesn’t get it.

STEVEN: Yup. I take the data pad.

HUDSON: I take the data pad, because I’m actually driving.

(laughter)

LAURA: How are you guys getting the data pad? I am holding it, and it is probably in a pocket. Do you wanna search my coat?

HUDSON: It wouldn’t be the first time. Oh wait—Never mind.

STEVEN: No…

CAMERON: (laughs) No, wait, it would be, hold on.

HUDSON: Cut! Cut! It would be the first time.

LAURA: I mean, if you wanna try, go for it.

HUDSON: “Could I have the data pad, please””

STEVEN: “Can I have the data pad? I’m a better pilot.”

LAURA: I’m assuming you both say it at the same exact time…

STEVEN & HUDSON: Yeah.

CAMERON: And then Sabos adds, ‘I’m a better pilot.’

LAURA: (reluctantly) Xianna takes it out…

STEVEN: “And I’m from the outer rim.”

LAURA: Like, is it just coordinates that are pulled up?

NICK: Nothing’s pulled up, it’s blank, but if you tap through it, it’s pretty much a ‘Welcome to your new technology’ pop-up screen. You can see one file on it that’s just coordinates. This is a very cheap throwaway data pad.

LAURA: Okay. Since it just has coordinates, she begrudgingly hands it to Sabos.

STEVEN: “That’s right.”

LAURA: Because she thinks he is capable of flying.

STEVEN: I am. (laughs)

CAMERON: Oh yeah. (laughing) She’s not sure if he was flying or not.

LAURA: She’s still not sure. She doesn’t like Sabos that much right now, but she thinks he can fly.

STEVEN: I take it and nod assuringly.

HUDSON: I turn and go, “Really?! Really…?”

LAURA: “You are not the pilot! Unless… Are you the pilot?”

HUDSON: I am the pilot!”

STEVEN: “Do you have any Astrogation abilities at all?”

CAMERON: (laughing) Karma turns to Falx.

LAURA: Xianna turns to Karma. “Wait, which one is the pilot? I thought Sabos was flying with you. Is Tink now flying with you?”

CAMERON: Karma turns to Falx. “So, what are the names of the people, or call signs if they don’t go by names, that we’re trying to find? That kind of hid us this time. I’d like to avoid it.”

NICK: “Yeah. That makes sense. I don’t really operate like Sentinel does. I’ll straight tell you. You’re gonna be wanting to meet up with Quiggle the Quarren.

(giggling)

STEVEN: Oh god.

NICK: “It’s him and his small crew of smugglers.”

STEVEN: That was, that was out of character, just, oh god.

(laughter)

NICK: “I don’t know why you’re laughing. Quiggle the Quarren is a perfectly respectable name.”

CAMERON: “… Yup.” (laughs)

LAURA: “His name is… ‘Quee-gell’?”

NICK: “No. No sweetness, like this. ‘Quiggle’!”

LAURA: “Quigell!”

NICK: “Quiggle!”

LAURA: “Quee-GELL!”

(giggling)

NICK: “Closer. Closer.”

CAMERON: “Anyway. The coordinates, are they taking us to a warehouse, a club, do they know that we’re coming?”

NICK: “Well, they’re expecting us shortly, and by us I mean you, because I’m not going. Those coordinates lead to a small asteroid belt in the middle of nowhere towards the outer rim. They probably are waiting now, which is why you need to go there first. If you make them wait too long, they’re gonna come to me, I’ll be forced to kill them, lose a business avenue, and then I’ll be sending our good friend the Assistant Governor out to go find you.”

CAMERON: “Yeah, that seems rough.”

STEVEN: “Is he governor the gorren, gig, giggle, the governor…”

NICK: What?

CAMERON: What…?

LAURA: (laughing) What? No!

STEVEN: I’m trying to make up names, damn it.

CAMERON: Nope. Different, different, different.

STEVEN: There’s Quiggle and giggle… (musically)

NICK: “Oh, you’ll remember that the governor’s name was Regional Governor Silpin.”

STEVEN: ‘Oh!”

CAMERON: “We like, just heard from him.”

STEVEN: “Yeah…”

NICK: “He was the guy with the eyepatch, and the sick mutton chops.”

HUDSON: “He doesn’t pay attention.”

STEVEN: “I didn’t have any business with him.”

LAURA: “No. I did, but do not worry. We will go to this asteroid belt right away, and drop off your briefcase first.”

NICK: “Wonderful.”

HUDSON: “Thanks for fueling up our ship before we go.”

LAURA: “Why would you say that? Just why?”

(laughter)

STEVEN: Oh, I love it. That’s wonderful.

NICK: “Yeah. We totally did that. Just don’t check your fuel levels.”

CAMERON: (giggling) I heard feeling up our ship. Thanks for feeling up our ship before we leave! And I was like, what?!

LAURA: Oh, wait! Is that not what he said? Oh!

MULTIPLE: Fueling!

LAURA: Oh! I straight up just heard ‘feeling up our ship,’ and that is why I said ‘why would you say that?’

(laughter)

HUDSON: That would make a lot less sense than fueling.

LAURA: I thought he was referencing the fact that, they like,

LAURA & CAMERON: They searched the ship.

CAMERON: Yeah.

LAURA: That’s what I thought you were saying, because you’re you!

NICK: “Well, to be fair, we did feel up your ship, but we did not fuel up your ship.”

STEVEN: “It’s a nice ship.”

HUDSON: “Aw… Well, how are we gonna get off this planet?”

NICK: “You’ve got enough fuel. Star Wars doesn’t have rules for gas.”

STEVEN: (laughs)

CAMERON: That’s true.

LAURA: Yeah. Until a ship breaks down, because he decides. Then we have to figure it out.

NICK: “The only time you’ll run out of fuel is when it’s helpful for the story!”

HUDSON: (laughs)

NICK: He turns his swivel chair around and gazes out the back window over the sunset that’s going over the jungle of Unroola Dawn, and we get a nice camera angle of you all silhouetted looking at his silhouette looking out the window in this pretty office. Was there anything else that you all wanted to do in Outpost 4 before you leave?

HUDSON: No.

STEVEN: Not particularly.

LAURA: Nn… No.

CAMERON: Did Tink want to try and fix the ship again before we leave?

HUDSON: I thought they fixed it.

NICK: They did. They did fix it.

CAMERON: They did fix it? Okay, cool. Never mind.

NICK: They sent those engineers to investigate the ship slash duct tape that piece back down.

CAMERON: Fabulous.

HUDSON: Yeah, because I told them that it was basically, maybe fixed. Right? Yeah? Maybe? And then like, they fixed it.

CAMERON: Cool.

LAURA: Okay. Xianna is going to go through her room when we get back on the ship, just to do a thorough search of if they took anything, because I did have a few things in the room still, and like if they left anything.

NICK: Yeah. So, the camera cuts to you all getting back on the ship. It opens with Sabos in the pilot seat looking really proud of himself, flipping all the overhead switches to On, fiddling with do-dads, turning a wheel that doesn’t seem to be attached to anything…

STEVEN: Yes.

NICK: …and the ship making the whooshing, charging noises as it cycles up.

CAMERON: Karma’s going right behind him and flipping off the ones that don’t actually need to be turned on for the ship to work. (laughs)

NICK: It’s Sabos going (repetitive plinking noises), and Karma coming behind and like on every fourth one going flip, flip, adjusting the ship to normal levels. That’s great. Cut to Xianna in her room, looking around. What are you all specifically worried about?

LAURA: I’m gonna check the weird mask in a box thing that I have. Just, you know, making sure that’s still a mask inside a box. And, I just wanna go through everything to make sure they didn’t leave any trackers or listening devices or anything.

NICK: Sure. What a great idea to check your room for trackers or listening devices. Make me a Skulduggery check, please.

LAURA: Can do! What’s the difficulty?

NICK: Hard, because you’re doing a deep search.

LAURA: Hey. That is a full triumph, that has its success, and then two advantages.

NICK: Okay. How would you like to spend that triumph and the advantages?

LAURA: Okay. I would like to find if they put anything, first of all.

CAMERON: (giggles)

NICK: Well yeah, that goes with the success.

LAURA: If they put anything, I would like to find that. I would like to figure out the vent, that I previously thought was a vent, is actually a garbage disposal.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: Aww.

LAURA: I would like to know that. I would like to accidentally press a button and hear it whirl, and be like, “Oh! Ooh, good thing I did not put anything inside of there.” And then like shout out, “Everyone! This vent here is not a vent. It is a garbage disposal. Be careful.”

NICK: So, what that is, you open it just to see if anything’s in there, and as you open it you hit the little button on the side and you actually see the grass below the ship, down below, like behind your ray shield, and you go ‘oh, that’s what that does.’ So yeah, now you know that’s a direct, like, get this out of the ship chute.

LAURA: Good.

NICK: Okay. You could use your triumph on that, since that cancels out the despair that you had earlier. That’s a bummer. I had plans for that, but that’s fine.

LAURA: Ha-ha!

NICK: You do find one tracking device slash surveillance unit. It’s pretty big, and they had it up under the bed, hooked into the material that makes the bed spin. On it in Sharpie basically it says ‘You can’t blame us for trying,’ and has a little signature that looks like Falx’s name.

LAURA: I toss it down my newly discovered garbage disposal, and then shout out to everyone. “Uh, you should check your bedrooms. If you are not good at the searching, I will help, but they probably put tracking devices, or maybe recording devices. Check the refresher. They maybe put video cameras in that one. They do that sometimes. Is funny.”

CAMERON: You hear from the cockpit where Karma is doing damage control on Sabos trying to turn the ship on. “Hey Serene, could you please check out my room while I’m up here with the Togrutan?”

NICK: We’ll fast-forward through any rolls that’ll happen there. You were successful enough. There is a video camera under the toilet seat of the refresher pointed straight up.

(laughter)

LAURA: The moment Xianna finds it, Xianna just holds her arm out and shouts for the rest. “See! I told you! It is always a camera in the refresher!”

NICK: That’s pretty much all you find. It seems like, to you, with how successful you were, the engineers definitely put stuff in there but did not try very hard, and that it was mostly because Falx had to follow those procedures, not that he was actually all that interested in tracking you, especially considering that if they track you to his illegal dealings you may have some problems, so it was pretty obvious.

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: Like, you could see the camera when you lifted the toilet seat. It was right there. Is anybody else doing anything on the ship before you take off?

STEVEN: I’m gonna pilot.

NICK: Okay.

HUDSON: I’m in the engine room, and I’m kind of muttering to myself, upset that I’m not piloting the ship. That’s all I’m doing.

STEVEN: Since I can listen to the engine room, I say down to the engine room, “You’re a better engineer than I am, so stay down in the engine room.”

HUDSON: “Someday I will pilot.” That’s all I say back.

NICK: (laughs) You shake your fist at the sound of the Togruta.

HUDSON: I shake my fist up at the piloting area, cockpit.

STEVEN: I say, “You very well might,” and turn off the feed.

CAMERON: Karma flips it back on.

NICK: Okay. (laughs) The ship takes off. I’m not gonna make you do a Piloting check for a basic takeoff.

STEVEN: Good.

CAMERON: (laughs)

NICK: Uh, yeah. Very good.

STEVEN: That’s awesome.

NICK: You fly up, and the camera cuts to you all in orbit as you’re starting to do an Astrogation check on where you’re going to go…

STEVEN: Sure.

NICK: …and you see a little alert saying that you have an incoming message, but that instead of being routed to the cockpit it’s routed to the holo-theater in the Afternoon Delight.

LAURA: Ooh.

STEVEN: Oh…

NICK: It’s showing on the dashboard, there’s a little blinking light. After looking at it for a minute you figure out that it means there’s something in the holo-theater right now.

CAMERON: I hit the acknowledge button and say, “You got this,” and I walk back to the holo-theater.

LAURA: Yeah, Xianna’s gonna be in there, too.

HUDSON: I go in there.

CAMERON: We’re in orbit, so it doesn’t matter.

NICK: You’re in orbit. It’s the equivalent of being parked. You can go if you want.

STEVEN: Yeah. Yeah, why not.

NICK: Okay. You all go to the holo-theater. It’s kind of set up like a planetarium. It’s round and has a domed ceiling, and it has those weird step benches that you see in the auditoriums where you sit on them but they’re just big, too-tall steps, and they’re carpeted in thick, red, shag carpeting, and there’s some gold highlights running through the ceiling.

LAURA: Nice.

NICK: As you all sit down, a holo-projector pops on, and you see a full body image of Sentinel. He’s sitting in a chair and he has a brown, shapeless robe on. He has his gray hair slicked back. He says, “Ah, so you managed to complete the first part of your task. Wonderful. Well, I guess you need to know what happens next, don’t you?” And he eyes the camera. That’s where we’ll end the episode.

(all make dramatic noises)

HUDSON: (musically) The longest time, the longest time…

## Outro

CAMERON: Thanks for listening to Tabletop Squadron. If you enjoyed our show please consider logging into iTunes and giving us a five-star review. Five-star reviews will help new listeners to find the show.

Xianna’fan is played by Laura Penrod. She can be found on Twitter at @cheerio_buffet.

Tink is played by Hudson Jameson and he can be found on Twitter at @hudsonjameson.

Karma Nailo is played by me, Cameron Robertson. You can find me on Twitter at @midnightmusic13.

Sabos Nix was played by Steven Schroeder. He… does not exist on the internet.

Our game master is Nick Robertson, and you can find him on Twitter at @alias58.

Our intro song is Space Jam by Pablo Ribot.

Additional music by James Gunter.

Follow the podcast on Twitter and Instagram at @tabletop_squad. For real! We’re real people and we wanna talk to anyone who listens to the show. Reach out! See you next time.