Popcorn is essential for any entertainment viewing, but it’s especially important if you’re watching an underground fight match. Xianna acquires a bucket of popcorn in Episode 21 to snack on while Tink fights a Wookiee.
This Curry-Carrot Popcorn recipe is perfect for all your death match needs.
Underground Fighting Ring Popcorn is simply popcorn popped in coconut oil that’s then tossed in carrot powder, curry powder, and salt.
So let’s start with the weirdest component of this recipe: the carrot powder. It’s made by taking dehydrated or freeze-dried carrots and putting them in a spice or coffee grinder until they’ve become a fine powder. If you can’t find dried carrots substitute it with extra curry powder and a small sprinkle of sugar.
Next, the curry powder. Storebought curry powders are perfectly fine, but homemade curry powder will pack a bunch of extra flavor. Ours combines coriander, cumin, fenugreek, black pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, arbol chilis, turmeric, ginger, and salt. Fenugreek seeds can be found at most Indian grocery stores, but you can substitute mustard seeds if you can’t find them. You can find our recipe after the main popcorn recipe.
For the main event, you’ll heat up coconut oil and 3 kernels in a large saucepan or wok. Once those 3 kernels have popped you know your oil is hot enough. Add the rest of the kernels and cover with a lid. Make sure to shake the pan once the kernels begin popping to prevent burning.
Once the popping slows to 5 or more seconds between pops remove the pan from the heat. Be careful when removing the lid, sometimes a rogue kernel decides to pop a bit late.
Pour the popcorn into a large bowl or container with a lid and immediately toss with the curry powder, carrot powder, and salt.
Underground Fighting Ring Popcorn
4 tablespoons coconut oil
1/2 cup popcorn kernels
1-2 tablespoons curry powder, store bought or homemade (recipe below)
2 tablespoons carrot powder
1 teaspoon salt
Heat the coconut oil in a large heavy saucepan or wok on medium-high heat. Allow the oil to melt.
Add 3 popcorn kernels into the oil. Once all 3 kernels pop add the remaining kernels. Cover the pot immediately.
Once the kernels begin to pop gently shake the pan back and forth to prevent burning.
When the popping slows to 5 or more seconds between pops, remove the pan from the heat.
Pour the popcorn into a large bowl. Immediately toss with the curry powder, carrot powder, and salt.
Curry Powder
2 Tbsp coriander seeds
1 Tbsp cumin seeds
2 tsp fenugreek seeds (or mustard seeds)
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
1 stick cinnamon
1 tsp cardamom seeds
1-2 arbol chilis, deseeded
1 Tbsp ground turmeric
2 tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp salt
Place the coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds (or mustard seeds), black peppercorns, cinnamon, cardamom seeds, and arbol chilis in a spice grinder. Grind until fine.
Add the tumeric, ginger, and salt. Grind for 2-3 seconds to combine.
Word document download: Episode 9 The Wonderful Oracle of Ithor- Tabletop Squadron
PDF download: Episode 9 The Wonderful Oracle of Ithor
Read in browser:
Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 9:
The Wonderful Oracle of Ithor
Transcript by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)
Note – When voicing Ithorians, Nick uses an incredibly low, deep, drawn out voice and often pauses in the middle of sentences.
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.
Not a lot of announcements this week, but I would be remised if I didn’t mention that we’re pretty close to our next review goal. If you write us a review, even a short one, you can help new listeners find the show. When we get to 20 reviews we’ll release a flashback with Karma’s family. It’s a fun adventure, and we’ll release it on off-week so you’ll get double the Tabletop Squadron.
Thanks for reviewing, thanks for listening, and we hope you enjoy.
##
NICK: Hello, and welcome to Episode 9 of Tabletop Squadron! I am your host, Nick. I just realized I probably didn’t introduce myself in the last episode, but oh well. I’m Nick. You’re on Episode 9, you should know it by now. We’re gonna go around the table, and also things that you know, we’re going to introduce you to the people that are playing and their characters. We’re gonna start with… Cameron.
CAMERON: Hello. I’m Cameron. I’m playing Karma Nailo the Nautolan bounty hunter.
NICK: Great. Good work. Now we’re gonna go to… Steven.
STEVEN: Hi podcasty friends. I’m Steven. I’m playing Sabos the Togruta who isn’t dead.
NICK: Fantastic, and now we’re gonna go to… Hudson.
HUDSON: Oh hi. I’m Hudson. I’m playing Tink, a Gigoran slicer. (dramatically)
NICK & CAMERON: Whoa~!
STEVEN: Slicey, slicey.
NICK: And, last but not least, we’ve got… Laura.
LAURA: Hi. I’m Laura. I play Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler.
NICK: Great.
LAURA: Yep.
NICK: Sweet! Before we get started, let’s do the Destiny Roll!
LAURA: Two light side!
CAMERON: Yas.
HUDSON: One dark side.
NICK: Listeners at home, please keep track of how many times Hudson’s rolled dark side, because I’m pretty sure it’s most of it.
HUDSON: Most of it times.
CAMERON: Two light side!
STEVEN: One dark side.
CAMERON: A few episodes ago Hudson and Laura rolled light sides and me and Steven rolled dark sides.
LAURA: Yeah.
STEVEN: There was like five or six.
NICK: I didn’t say every time.
CAMERON: I know, I’m just saying there’s at least one recorded incident of him rolling a light side.
LAURA: We’re just saying your theory is bad and you should feel bad.
NICK: Okay great, thank you for that wonderful and constructive feedback, Laura. I appreciate it.
(giggles)
STEVEN: It wasn’t Laura, it was the Mask.
NICK: Alright. What does that bring our total score to?
CAMERON: Four light side, two dark side.
NICK: Awesome. Alright. When we last left off you were in space. You were going to deliver an item to the Oracle of the Ithorian people. They unfortunately are surrounded by a blockade, so you’re gonna have to deal with that. We are going to open on the ship coming out of hyperspace. We have a nice starry scene, and then the (whooshing noises) as the ship drops out and is there, and then the camera jumps into the cockpit where… Who is flying right now?
LAURA & CAMERON: Probably Karma.
NICK: Yeah. So, it drops to Karma flipping a bunch of switches. Ahead of you, you see the planet of Ithor which is a very beautiful, green planet. It has two small oceans on it, but a majority of it appears to be lush jungle and verdant life. In between you and that planet is a very large Imperial fleet. There are four Star Destroyers and one Super Star Destroyer. How can you tell there’s a Super Star Destroyer, you ask? Because it’s twice as big as a normal, already ridiculously large Star Destroyer. It’s a very big ship. They’re arranged around the planet in a geometric pattern. Basically any way that you would leave they’ve got a clear shot. Yeah, so as you pull out of hyperspace you have a couple of minutes as you pull closer to the ship. Is there anything last minute you all want to do?
CAMERON: “Alright. Plan wise… I think Xianna should be the one who talks.”
LAURA: “Um, but…”
HUDSON: “I’ve been working on my cockney accent.”
STEVEN: “Is Xianna George?”
LAURA: “Yes, uh, so Sabos was actually right, um… I am not a man.”
CAMERON: “No, like, he has an earpiece, I assume. You have a com, right?”
STEVEN: “Yeah.”
CAMERON: “Yeah. You can talk into his com. He says the words, but you come up with the lies.”
LAURA: “Oh. Okie, I will make the lies. You just—Okay Sabos, I will say things and you just have to repeat them.”
STEVEN: “Oh, I don’t need lies. I’m an ambassador.”
LAURA: “No, you see, but—“
CAMERON: “No no no, you’re not anymore.”
LAURA: “We are not an ambassador. We are Petty Naval Officer… What was the—“
STEVEN: “Petty Navy Officer George Jetson.”
CAMERON: “George Jetson.” (laughs)
LAURA: “No, we are Petty Navy Officer George Jetson.”
STEVEN: “Representing Ambassador Sabos Niks, I got it.”
LAURA & CAMERON: “No, no, no no no.”
LAURA: “You see, also, we figured out you are wanted. Not that much—
STEVEN: “Ohh.”
LAURA: “But enough to where maybe Sabos Niks, whatever your name is, would come up in their records.”
STEVEN: “Mm.”
LAURA: “It’s kind of like, you know how I don’t use my name when we are out and about?”
CAMERON: “Yeah, don’t say your name.”
STEVEN: “Oh, I see, so I’m George Jetson.”
CAMERON: “Yes.”
LAURA: “You Are George Jetson, yes.”
STEVEN: “Okay.”
LAURA: “Yes, and I will be your mind, and I will tell you what to say, with your mouth. Okie?”
STEVEN: “This will be fine.”
NICK: If nobody says ‘Meet George Jetson’ I’m gonna get so mad.
STEVEN: I know. (laughs)
NICK: His boy, Elroy.
LAURA: No.
HUDSON: Jane, his wife!
LAURA: No!
CAMERON: (laughs)
LAURA: Yeah, so we just set up the com, and I—
NICK: You put an earpiece in so you can coach him through it?
LAURA: Yeah, and I just like sit in a different room. No, I’m probably just still sitting in the hot tub.
NICK: (laughs) Xianna has a favorite part of the ship.
LAURA: The hot tub… is great.
STEVEN: Are you Naut—No, not Nautolan. Are you a water creature? Or are you just all wrinkly by now?
LAURA: … I get out, for periods of time.
STEVEN: Oh, okay. She hasn’t just been sitting in the hot tub.
CAMERON: We’ve been traveling for like three days. She hasn’t been in the hot tub the entire time. (laughs)
LAURA: “I have not been in here for three days!”
STEVEN: “I’d imagine you could deal with that.”
CAMERON: “I could deal with that, yeah.”
LAURA: “I cannot. Ryloth is a desert.”
CAMERON: “I’ve been taking naps in the hot tub.”
LAURA: “That is why this is so much fun. There is not a lot of water on Ryloth. Mostly sand.”
STEVEN: “Do Nautolans breathe water?”
CAMERON: “Yeah.”
STEVEN: “Oh, so you could just take a nap under the water.”
CAMERON: “Yeah, that’s what I was saying.”
STEVEN: “Oh, okay. Of course.” (laughs)
LAURA: “I mean, you don’t want to be underneath the water in a hot tub. It’s very hot.”
CAMERON: “No, it’s fine.”
NICK: (laughs)
LAURA: I actually don’t know how hot the water is…
STEVEN: Yeah. Was it even heated, or was it luke warm?
LAURA: No, I meant it as a hot hot tub, I just don’t know how hot the oceans are for Nautolans.
NICK: Okay. Time out.
CAMERON: I think the Glee Anselm’s land masses are tropical, so I would assume that parts of the oceans would be warm. I don’t know how deep in the oceans the Nautolans hang out, though.
NICK: They’re all over the place.
LAURA: Yeah, but like a warm ocean is still not 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
CAMERON: Yeah, still not quite hot tub. But it’s fine, it’s just a little warm.
NICK: I would imagine that a hot tub situation for a Nautolan is like a dry sauna situation for a human.
CAMERON: Yeah. We used to go to the volcanic jets all the time to… warm, ourselves, I don’t know. (giggles) It was the nifty place to hang out!
LAURA: All warm and bubbly. Nature’s Jacuzzi.
STEVEN: Because you’re cold blooded.
CAMERON: I don’t think we’re—No, we’re not cold blooded. No. I’m green, but I’m not a lizard.
NICK: Karma’s thinking about, ‘Why Did we go there?’
LAURA: To make out!
CAMERON: Yeah. It was the Hot place to be.
(groans and booing)
CAMERON: Ha ha ha.
(laughter)
NICK: Alright. You were drifting towards the planet under sub light drives. You get hailed.
CAMERON: I accept the hail.
NICK: Yeah. Good. A hologram, a little one in the middle of the dashboard pops up, it’s basically from the chest up. You see an older gentleman wearing this stupid navy hat that looks kind of like a sideways Burger King serving hat, and Imperial uniform obviously. He says, “This is The Vengeance paging Unknown Ship. What is your purpose here?”
LAURA: “Okie Sabos, tell them that you are a naval officer, that you are on personal leave, and you are reporting back on the planet surface for duty.”
STEVEN: “I am Petty Officer George Jetson, on personal leave, reporting back to the surface for duty.”
NICK: “Oh, wonderful. You’ll have to send your credentials over right away. We’re under a barricade as you can see.”
STEVEN: “I recall that as I left the surface of the planet on personal leave.”
(laughter)
NICK: “Good. You have passed the first test. This blockade has been here for months. It would be very strange if you did not know about it. Please send over your credentials now.”
STEVEN: “Sending now.” I make typing noises.
CAMERON: I hit the button that sends it.
NICK: There is an interminable pause of a couple minutes. The hologram turns off.
LAURA: “Well, they are not shooting us yet.”
NICK: Yeah, and you’re drifting closer. You can see that the ship’s guns are tracking you which is very intimidating because there are tons of them on the Super Star Destroyer which is the closest thing to you, and there’s also two other Star Destroyers in range, and your ship is quite small compared to these that are city sized. The hologram clicks back on. “Well, it’s an older code, but it checks out. What did you say your purpose was on entering the planet?”
STEVEN: “Reporting back to the surface for Imperial duty activities, sir, officer.”
NICK: “That’s very strange, because we don’t have a presence on the planet. We are staying on the—“
STEVEN: “Not that you know about.”
LAURA: (quietly) “Nope…”
CAMERON: (bursts out laughing)
NICK: “Are you implying that an Imperial Communications Officer on this Super Star Destroyer of Vengeance would not know where everyone is located?”
LAURA: While he’s saying that I’m like, “No no, tell them you are working with the ISB.”
STEVEN: “I’m sorry. I was doing activities with the IS… ISB. It’s been a long—It’s been a nice personal break.”
NICK: “Hmm… If you were with the ISB you’d be in the database. Stand by.” And the hologram turns off again.
STEVEN: “Indeed.”
LAURA: “Okie, so…”
STEVEN: “So, uh, slicer slicy slicy.”
(giggles)
HUDSON: I run over to the computer.
STEVEN: “Mr. Slicer, can you put me in the database? By me I mean George Jetson.”
HUDSON: I try to put George Jetson in the database.
NICK: Okay. You’re gonna put George Jetson in the ISB database.
HUDSON: Correct.
LAURA: I have to imagine that because so much of it is undercover work that they probably have very basic profiles.
NICK: Oh yeah.
LAURA: So it’s real easy to just import the same photo and a name, and like that’s all.
NICK: So, the actual getting him in, getting the database format is gonna be super easy. It’s getting into their network and dropping I in while this guy is searching it. That will be a Computers check, it’s going to be hard, and you’re still gonna have those two black dice. This is sort of becoming your specialty, dropping stuff into Star Destroyer networks.
CAMERON: I flipped a light side point to upgrade one of his greens.
LAURA & CAMERON: Yaaas.
LAURA: So, triumph with a success, two successes, and a threat.
NICK: So tons of successes.
CAMERON: Yeah, so three successes total, a triumph, and a threat.
NICK: Alright. How do you want to use your triumph?
HUDSON: Not only do I put him in the database, but suddenly he’s over the rank of the person who was on the hologram.
(laughter)
NICK: Okay. That’s good.
STEVEN: So Petty Officer is just the cover of George Jetson.
NICK: I’m gonna beat a dead horse here. That threat is you still haven’t noticed the signature, and you put it all over it but it’s like in the report. So, if there was some sort of inspector or special agent who was hunting you at some point, then this signature would be one of a long trail of Moriarty-like clues, but I’m sure that would never happen so I wouldn’t worry about it. Yeah, so the hologram clicks back on and the communications officer is sweating. You can see he’s pushed his hat back, tried to put it back, and his hair is kind of askew. “Oh, uh, Commander Jetson. My mistake.”
STEVEN: “Petty. Officer. Jetson.”
NICK: “Oh, y-yes, Petty Officer Jetson. I trust that this won’t need to be reported. I apologize for the delay, sir. If you will head down to the surface… Whatever you need, just let me know, and apologies again.”
STEVEN: “I recommend this be handled with discretion as we land on the surface, if you know what I mean.”
NICK: “Oh, absolutely. We’ll mark you as a certified civilian vessel, of course, as is protocol, Petty Officer Jetson.” He winks into the hologram. “Is there anything else that I can do for you?”
STEVEN: “Nope.” Click.
NICK: You cut him off mid-word, and the hologram disappears.
LAURA: “You should have at least said thank you.”
STEVEN: (laughing) “Nope. Nope.”
CAMERON: “I feel like that’s not really a big thing in the Empire, though.”
LAURA: “Eh.”
STEVEN: “Good job, slicer.”
HUDSON: “Thank you.”
CAMERON: “Well done, Tink!”
STEVEN: “Mr. Slicer. May I call you mister?”
HUDSON: “I mean, this wasn’t like the hardest thing I’ve ever done or anything.”
(laughter)
STEVEN: “Good job, Tink.”
NICK: So, all the Star Destroyers, they stop weapons lock with the Afternoon Delight. The Super Star Destroyer, a chunk of the cannons seem to whip around in the opposite way as fast as possible like someone went and slapped a targeting officer in the back of the head, and you are able to head down to the planet.
Here’s the thing about Ithor… Nobody lives on the surface, really. Ooh, let’s get Xenology checks.
LAURA: I have Underworld.
NICK: Nope. This is the opposite of that.
CAMERON: What is the difficulty of the check?
NICK: Average. (musically) Who knows about Ithor~?
HUDSON: I know about ether.
NICK: Not that. Not that.
STEVEN: I know about Ithor.
NICK: What did you get?
STEVEN: A success and two threats.
NICK: Mm, okay.
LAURA: I got one failure, but two advantages.
CAMERON: A success and two threats.
STEVEN: Yeaaah.
HUDSON: Three advantages.
NICK: So, with the successes: The Ithorians value the Mother Jungle kind of as their god. They worship nature, and plants, and animals, and their ecosystem, and as such they don’t live on the planet; they live on massive floating cities above the planet. Sometimes they do take a pilgrimage down to the planet, but anyone who goes to live on the planet doesn’t come back – not like they died, like they just live there now, because once you become one with the planet you can’t leave. The only people who can take pilgrimages down to the planet and return are the Oracle, which is why they’re important, they can check with people.
So, as you are relaying this information, you break down through the clouds and you see a large floating city. It is made mostly of white steel and is very pretty, and has tree lined boulevards and is very open and airy, and you see Ithorians walking around which are those weird hammerhead-looking slug alien guys from, you know, the Star Wars. You are immediately given clearance to land, and you already knew as you were coming in some of the information that you got from Sentinel which was which floating city the Oracle was on and general directions of where you were going, so you’re able to land very quickly. They actually put you on a priority landing pad, and as you land you can see that there are several Ithorians standing by, and you are on the planet, sort of.
CAMERON: Nice.
LAURA: “Okie. So, somebody is going to have to wear some sort—It’s probably going to have to be Karma.”
CAMERON: “Hmm?”
LAURA: “You should probably wear some sort of fancy cape, cloak, thing that covers your face so that maybe it looks like we actually have a human aboard, because I do not think Tink could ever pass for human.”
HUDSON: “You haven’t seen me shaved.”
(laughter)
LAURA: “True. I have not.”
HUDSON: “We don’t have the time or the tools, thankfully.”
LAURA: “Sabos’s montrals things would be too pointy.”
STEVEN: I try to flatten them down.
CAMERON: They just pop right back up.
LAURA: Yeah. I don’t know how mobile they are, but I think they’re pretty rigid.
CAMERON: He definitely doesn’t make it flat, but he can like bend the tips a little bit.”
STEVEN: “What if I push them like towards–No? Hmm.”
LAURA: “I think I am a little too short. Just a little.”
CAMERON: “Okay. Now that we’re down here why do we need to be human?”
LAURA: “Because if they have any surveillance, or if any of these Ithorians were told we were Imperials?”
CAMERON: “I don’t know if I can pass as male though.”
LAURA: “Well no, no, we just pull the hood down and we get very fancy cloaks and capes.”
CAMERON: “Oh yeah, from our costume closet.”
LAURA: “And they will be so impressed by the cape, and that is how they would know you are important, because of the fancy cape.”
CAMERON: (giggles) “Okay.”
LAURA: “Yes.”
NICK: To be fair, that is basically how Star Wars works.
CAMERON: “Yeah. If I pull it down far enough so you just see darkness and chin shadow it’s not obvious I’m green.”
LAURA: “Yes. Just do not let them see your face, and if you keep the cloak, you know, mostly together in the front they will not see that, you know, you have boobs.”
CAMERON: “Okay.” I go to the costume closet and I whip out one of those capes we have!
NICK: So, you all have one full costume change and some accessories that you can use from a triumph a few episodes ago, so yeah, there is a very nice Imperial style cape with hood.
CAMERON: Nice.
NICK: What does it look like?
CAMERON: So it’s gotta be black… but it’s more ornate, because they’re normally just very boring, but it has really nice embroidery along the edges, like silver embroidery, or no, gold, it has to be gold. Gold is my color scheme. It has gold embroidery all along the edges of it.
NICK: Okay. Does it have an Imperial logo brooch that holds the front?
CAMERON: Nope.
NICK: It’s just a plain cape?
CAMERON: Mm-hmm.
NICK: Okay, with gold embroidery.
CAMERON: Yeah.
NICK: Alright. You get one of those. It hides you. It’s a very big hood. Imagine the one that Padme wears when she’s trying to be sneaky, and you’re able to wrap up in it, and it sconces you quite well. It will be difficult to tell much about you, except that you’re wearing pretty nice combat armor.
CAMERON: As I’m walking out of our costume closet I start swooshing around all the corners with my cape feeling very self-important.
LAURA: Yes.
NICK: Great. Yes. You get +1 to self-importance.
CAMERON: Awesome!
NICK: Make sure you mark that down. That is an important stat.
CAMERON: A blue die on all self-importance checks.
NICK: Yes. Is anyone doing anything else to prepare, or are you all rolling out?
STEVEN: What do Ithorians wear?
NICK: Mostly like mechanic jumpsuits. Nothing too fancy. They have weird kind of hunched bodies that seem way too small because they’re mostly head, so they wear a lot of single colors with utility belts and things like that. I think they have two fingers and a thumb.
LAURA: I think so.
STEVEN: Yeah, that’s not nearly Ranbo enough for me. I’m gonna keep on my current outfit.
NICK: Okay. What are you wearing? I don’t remember.
CAMERON: Oh, you’ve got like a vest with no shirt underneath.
STEVEN: Yeah, it’s like a leather vest with no shirt.
NICK: Oh yeah. Now I remember. Great.
LAURA: Yeah, because you have padded armor…
STEVEN: Yes.
LAURA: Are you wearing that?
STEVEN: No.
LAURA: Okay.
CAMERON: Why not?
STEVEN: (laughs) Well, not on the ship. Sometimes, when we get off the ship, I have a nice padded vest.
NICK: You have some sort of weird ballistics property under-vest that you wear in dangerous situations.
STEVEN: Yeah.
LAURA: With a vest over it.
STEVEN: With an over-vest.
NICK: Of course. It’s the Osaronian style… to wear… Great.
STEVEN: I am the Osaronian style. I mean, yes, it’s the Osaronian style.
NICK: (laughs) I’m starting to think that Sabos is the only person who lives on that planet.
STEVEN: There’s a couple others. (laughs)
NICK: Alright. You head down the ramp. Do you come down in a specific order or in any way tactically?
LAURA: “Okie. Karma goes first. She is in charge. She is the human. She goes first. The rest of us, as dirty, dirty aliens go next, because you see the Imperials would never have non-humans in front. They do not like the non-humans. So, Sabos and I will go in the middle, and then Tink goes in the back because it is more likely he would be some sort of hired mercenary and therefore would be taking up the rear.”
CAMERON: “Do we want to take the Stone Breaker with us now?”
LAURA: “Yes.”
STEVEN: “I feel like you have ample place to hide it in your coat.”
CAMERON: How big is it? It was a crate?
NICK: It’s a crate.
STEVEN: Oh yeah.
NICK: We’re gonna have to flash back real quick to you all opening the quite large crate.
STEVEN: (rewinding noises)
NICK: The Stone Breaker appears to be made of some sort of stone.
SEVERAL: Whaaat?!
NICK: Yeah. It weighs about 20 pounds. It is about 18 inches long, and 8 inches wide, so it’s like an oversized iPad kind of situation. It’s made out of, kind of a granite, about 3 inches thick, and it looks like a solid piece of kind of a beige stone, but when you pull it out of the case it has a lot of cover and padding and stuff. If you touch it in different spots different parts seem to light up. The stone can turn semi-translucent and there’s some sort of screen interface, but it’s in a bunch of symbols you don’t really recognize.
LAURA: “Just put it back in the box. Sabos, you hold the box.”
NICK: The box is like really big. It’s like three feet wide.
LAURA: Would there be somewhere in the Afternoon Delight a smaller box that would fit it or even some sort of wrapping to cover it up?
STEVEN: I’ll put it in my padded vest.
LAURA & CAMERON: Uh, no…
LAURA: Yeah. Would there be any sort of like wrapping paper, or like brown paper, or a small box or bag?
NICK: Yeah, you can find something. It’s not gonna be super resilient, but you could put it in something. Sabos, if you’re the one carrying it, what are you gonna put it in?
STEVEN: I’m gonna put it in my padded vest.
NICK: So you’re gonna like zip your vest up and put it just between that and your skin?
STEVEN: Yes.
LAURA: Yeah, Xianna wasn’t looking so much for protective cover, just something to cover it so if we get caught on cameras you can’t see exactly what we have.
NICK: Does the padded vest have some sort of like kangaroo pouch in it that you can put stuff?
STEVEN: Just in between the vest and the skin, because the other vest is pretty tight.
CAMERON: It’s just holding it there.
NICK: Okay. Yeah. So you’re just gonna flex your abs 100% of the time and hold it in place?
STEVEN: Oh, I don’t have to flex to hold it.
NICK: Okay. (laughs)
LAURA: “Why can’t you just hold it like a normal person?”
STEVEN: “I don’t want it to be seen.”
LAURA: “But it does not matter. It almost looks better if you are holding something, because then it looks like you are some sort of errand boy.”
STEVEN: “Hmm…”
NICK: This conversation’s happening while Sabos has it like half jammed down his armor.
STEVEN: Yeah, no I start thinking about it.
LAURA: “Okie. This makes sense in my mind. You see, Karma is the human, she goes in front.”
STEVEN: “George Jetson.”
LAURA: “Then I go. They will probably just assume I am some sort of dancer, mistress-type person as a Twi’lek. Again, they are very xenophobic.”
STEVEN: “Yes.”
LAURA: “You, if you are holding something and you have the weird vest, they will assume you are some sort of hired messenger or errand boy who is just there to deliver packages or something. You are the hired help.”
STEVEN: “Ah, yes. There was once a nice tale on Shili about the four tailed—“
LAURA: “Okie, so never mind.”
CAMERON: “Oh god.”
STEVEN: “—Togruta that could weave their head tails into a basket with twine.”
CAMERON: (laughs)
LAURA: “And then Tink, being in the back and being quite large, will be the mercenary, the hired gun, that is how it is going to look. It is going to work. Trust me.”
STEVEN: “Fine.”
HUDSON: “I don’t look that scary, do I? Do I?”
LAURA: “Well, not to us because we know you, but to them you are a very, very large creature with a gigantic axe.”
HUDSON: “Oh, I should hold my axe?”
LAURA: “No no no, keep the axe on the back.”
CAMERON: “Just the fact that you have it.”
LAURA: “Yes.”
HUDSON: “Oh… Sure that’s scary enough? Okay.”
LAURA: “Yes. The giant is scary enough.”
HUDSON: “You got it.”
CAMERON: “We don’t wanna necessarily scare the Ithorians.”
STEVEN: “I’ll just carry the bag.”
CAMERON: “You’re mostly scaring in case of video cameras.”
HUDSON: “Got it.”
CAMERON: “And the assumptions that the Empire will make based on those.”
HUDSON: “I see.”
NICK: Okay, so, in that order. You got a bag.
STEVEN: Yeah.
NICK: It’s just—There’s a baguette sticking out of it.
CAMERON: Messenger bag.
NICK: No, uh…
HUDSON: Messenger baguette?
STEVEN: A messenger baguette.
NICK: Okay. You have a messenger bag with the Stone Breaker in it. Like I said, it’s surprisingly heavy for its size, but it should be fine, shouldn’t get in the way. You head down the ramp, and there are two Ithorians standing off of the landing pad. They turn and regard you quietly for a minute, and one of them raises its hand and slowly waves, like if a sloth was saying hello.
LAURA: Xianna quickly waves back.
NICK: It like does a catching gesture, and like puts it in its pocket.
LAURA: Xianna winks at him.
NICK: You can’t really tell if it’s winking because it’s eyes are so far apart and you can only see one at a time. (laughter) It might be blinking. It’s hard to tell.
So, do you approach the Ithorians?
CAMERON: Yep.
STEVEN: Yeah.
NICK: Okay. As you get there the Ithorian says, “Welcome to Ithor.”
LAURA: Before Karma says anything, Xianna is going to run in front of her, put an ear to her face, and kind of pretend like she is getting something whispered to her, and then turn around like very non-authoritatively turn around and be like, “Oh, hello. I will be talking for, uh, him.”
NICK: “Yes. We saw you break the blockade. Nobody has come to the planet. Is that an Imperial?” It’s very hard to read their facial expressions because their faces are flat and their eyes are far apart, but it does seem to be scrutinizing the group very closely.
CAMERON: Karma nudges Xianna like through the cape, just sticks her arm out. Xianna leans back in. I whisper, “Tell them something,” and then just like wave back. (giggles) And now she has to say something.
LAURA: “Um, yes, yes, um, he is with the Galactic Empire. Um, we would like to see the Oracle.”
NICK: “Well, clearly if you are finally issuing demands, the Oracle would speak with you. This way, please.”
LAURA: “Thank you.”
NICK: The Ithorian turns around and moves actually pretty quickly down the road. You see that there’s a big old main thoroughfare, and a lot of different kinds of buildings and roads and neighborhoods. This is a full city floating about a mile above the jungle, and occasionally tropical birds and things will fly by, and they’re roosting places. The landing pad is towards the edge, and you can see some very colorful birds with what look like antennas sticking out of their heads, and by antennas I mean like mechanical antennas because that’s a thing in Star Wars. Birds with mechanical antennas, look it up.
LAURA: Yep.
NICK: They’re pecking at each other, and they dive straight down off the side toward the jungle. So, that’s going on. In the distance you see, it’s like one long, low building that seems to take up a pretty good amount of this main thoroughfare, so it’s half way through the city, and it doesn’t open up into a square, the road just leads straight into some sort of covered pavilion-type thing that looks like it’s maybe a quarter of a mile wide in any given direction. He starts leading you that way, and he gestures at you. His arm gestures are very slow and waving, but his legs are moving pretty quick, and he’s moving along at a good pace.
CAMERON: I look pretty badass walking in my cape.
LAURA: It swooshes a lot.
CAMERON: It’s very swooshy, and billowy.
NICK: We get a lot of camera shots from like real low of different parts of the city with the cape brushing past it. Do you get your boots to click authoritatively as you walk?
CAMERON: Oh yeah. They do that, yeah.
NICK: Oh, they do that anyway?
CAMERON: Well, except for when I’m trying to be sneaky.
NICK: … Okay.
CAMERON: I’m not trying to be sneaky right now, so I’m being loud.
NICK: Yeah. So, there’s the ‘I’m important’ boot click, and we get camera shots of the cape flying by, and we get camera shots of the crew of the Afternoon Delight all walking except then it’ll like zoom in on the cape and play like brass hits of (Dun-dun-DUH).
Yeah, so you make it through the city without any sort of issues, and the Ithorian says, “Continue this way to the Oracle’s receiving room.”
LAURA: “Okie.”
NICK: And he stops.
LAURA: “And, we keep going.”
NICK: Great. As you go inside, it’s basically the Oracle’s pavilion. There’s a lot of life inside here. It’s been a pretty normal city, but in here it’s kind of like an arboretum. It’s got a lot of different trees, and you can see stuff clustered by region, and there’s some small animals. You don’t really get any good looks at them, but you see some rodents and things darting in and out, and there’s more of those tropical birds swinging by, and they like to peck at each other and fly off and they’re chasing each other. As you continue through, there is a… it kind of looks like a tent if you wove a tent out of trees and then lined the inside with Japanese paper, like the Japanese paper walls. It’s an interlocked, upside down basket of that, and it’s open in the front. It looks like the doors have been pushed open, and you see an Ithorian sitting there in a simple woven tunic and some pants, and it’s got it’s legs crossed, and it appears to be meditating as you arrive. As you get there it opens its eyes and says, “Outsiders. How interesting. I am the Oracle. Who… are you?”
LAURA: “Oh, um, I think we are supposed to be delivering something, and… (hesitantly) the light will never go out in the universe.”
NICK: The Ithorian sits up real straight. “Interesting. Interesting indeed. I thought that the Empire had finally decided to tell us why it is killing the Mother Jungle, and instead… I find a friend, from Sentinel. Strange. What do you have for me? I’m going to continue to talk at weird intervals.”
(laughter)
LAURA: You can see Xianna like every time he pauses like, perks up a little bit and then stop, like oh, no, oh—okay. She points at Sabos and waves him over. “Um, we have this.”
STEVEN: I just present.
LAURA: “Well, take the bag off first!”
STEVEN: “Oh, oh, right.” I still lay it flat and just slide the bag off as I’m holding it.
NICK: The Oracle chuckles to himself and takes the pad, rock, Stone Breaker, and turns it over, and as it’s fingers touch at different points it starts to light up a little bit. The Oracle says, “Oh… The Sentinel has brought us a valuable… gift indeed. Thank you… for delivering it. I must ask… that you do not tell anyone… that we have it. It will be important… that we keep this….. a secret.”
(giggles)
LAURA: “Yes, yes, secrets.”
CAMERON: “Of course.”
LAURA: “Secrets are good. Yes. Obviously. Okie, I guess we will be going now. Uh… Have a good day?”
NICK: “If there’s anything… we can do for you… please… do not hesitate… to ask.”
LAURA: “Um. Completely unrelated.” I just point at him. “He wanted to go to a specific bar but he does not know where it is, but it was recommended to us. Do you happen to know where The Gooberfish is?”
NICK: “Ah… The Gooberfish… A wonderful establishment… It serves off-worlders, so I believe it is in financial difficulties as we are in a blockade.”
LAURA: “Mm, yes.”
NICK: “If you return… to whence you came… it will be on the right.” And, there’s a much longer awkward scene that we’ll fast forward through because we’re not the jerks that stop watching this movie. There’s some directions given out. It’s basically off the main road. It’s not too bad.
CAMERON: I had another question. “Is there a good place to get medical attention for my friend?” I gesture very billowingly with the cape, keeping my green covered, toward Sabos.
STEVEN: (through coughing) “Yeah, the walking, so…”
LAURA: “Oh yes. I forgot about that. You are so injured.”
(laughter)
NICK: With the amount of time you spent on the ship you have healed a little but you’re still in pretty bad shape. The Oracle says, “Oh… Conflict has found you like it… has found us. If you will wait… I will have someone… come to you.” The Oracle stands up very slowly and stretches, and the crazy thing about Ithorians is when it stretches his whole neck expands out like a bullfrog, really far, and you can see these black strips on either side that you can kind of see through his neck. There’s a creaking of muscles, and the arboretum area seems to fall quiet for a minute, and then he collapses back into his little body and big head and then walks off rather quickly, and you are left alone in the Oracle’s pavilion for a minute.
STEVEN: I’ll wait.
NICK: Was there anything you wanted to do while he was gone? You wanna just wait until he gets back?
LAURA: We just wait.
CAMERON: Yeah. I scratch my face.
NICK: Sounds good. The Oracle comes back with a smaller Ithorian. It’s really hard to tell if they’re male or female, but this one looks like it might be female, because it’s got like a pretty teal jumpsuit on, and it says, “Please, step this way,” and there’s a bush that the woody parts of the inside of the bush have been shaped kind of like a chair, and she has you sit down, and she starts to stitch at you. You guys feel a lot of parallels to Falx’s office, because as he’s getting stitched up and she is liberally applying bacta everywhere, so that feels like the aloe gel that you would get for a sunburn so it’s very cold but you start to feel better. So, as she’s working on that, and Sabos is responding to that…
STEVEN: “Ah, yes, that’s better.” (coughing) “I mean, little, ah, yes.”
NICK: The Oracle turns to Tink and Xianna and Karma and says, “This blockade… I hope that… Sentinel has sent you for a reason… as… it is killing us… quite quickly. We are being crushed, we are unable to trade, and as food… becomes more scarce, the herdship is becoming more deserted as people head to the planet… It is great to become one with Mother Jungle, but… we cannot have the entire population leave the herdship.”
LAURA: “Um, we were just told to bring you this box thing, tablet, stone, yes. I don’t really know what you expect us to do about a blockade.”
CAMERON: “We will have to leave the planet, though, so perhaps Sentinel has some plan involved in that.”
NICK: “Well, I trust… that it will work out. Sentinel has helped us in the past… I hope that your trip to The Gooberfish is worth the journey.” The Oracle sits back down, crosses his legs, and takes up a meditative pose again. Around this time the younger Ithorian finishes up with Sabos and puts your vest back in place, and says, “That should be enough to get you on your way” and like slaps you on the shoulder, which hurts pretty bad.
STEVEN: (coughs) “Ow… Ow ow ow…”
NICK: Yeah. As you’re saying ow, she reaches for you feeling bad, and then pulls back because she knows if she touches you again it’ll hurt again, and then holds her wrist and says, “Well, sorry,” and runs off. Where are you guys going now?
CAMERON: What’s his health situation now?
NICK: Yeah, you’re good. Between the healing on the ship and the medical attention you’re at full health.
STEVEN: Wow.
LAURA: We leave and walk towards The Gooberfish, to do whatever we’re gonna do.
CAMERON: Yep. Keep my cape on. Keep up appearances.
NICK: Right. Okay.
STEVEN: Oh, I make sure to grab the bag so it doesn’t look like I dropped something at the Oracle.
NICK: Oh, smart. Great. As you head through town, it’s basically you go down the main pathway and it’s one street over, you see The Gooberfish which is a low, plain building but it does have a sign out front of the depiction of what looks kind of like a giant angler fish with big teeth. You assume it’s giant because there’s a little, tiny picture of an Ithorian also on the sign that is less than the size of one of the teeth. You go into the bar. There is pretty much no one in there. There is an Ithorian behind the bar who does the slow sloth wave as you come in, and sitting off in the corner you see one other person in the shadows. As you walk in, that person makes notice of you all you think because it sits up a little straighter, but you can’t really make out a lot of details, but they’re not an Ithorian, you can tell that.
LAURA: I kind of lean back and whisper to the group. “I think that may be our contact considering they are the only person here, so I think that maybe was what he meant by (Cameron joins) we will know them when we see them, (Cameron stops) because he is the only thing to see. Yes.”
NICK: So, as you were whispering you see that the shadowed person has stood up and is slowly inching towards a side door and like very suspiciously trying to…
LAURA: So, Xianna tells everyone else like, “Okie, stay here,” and then walks over to them and tries to walk over as politely as possible with like visible hands of, ‘hey, it’s just a Twi’lek, you can see my hands, I don’t have any weapons,’ that you know of, but you know.
NICK: Yeah. So, as you get closer, the figure stops for a second and gives you very obviously skeezy elevator eyes…
CAMERON: Ew.
LAURA: Yeah.
NICK: Everyone in the bar hears him say, “You know, uh, I kinda got a thing for tentacles,” and then—
CAMERON: Oh shit.
LAURA: “Do not say tentacles, they are leku. Tentacles is a little offensive. You can call—No, never mind. Never mind. Forget what I was going to say.”
(laughter)
STEVEN: I shake my head.
LAURA: “Anyways. Does the phrase ‘the light will never go out in the universe’ mean anything to you?”
NICK: “Uh, yeah, but I never expected to hear that from someone body guarding an Imperial. What the heck is going on?”
LAURA: (smiling) “Oh, do not worry about them, they are fine.”
NICK: “If-If you say so…”
LAURA: “That is just for appearances. Do not worry.”
NICK: “This is getting real weird.”
LAURA: “Yes.”
CAMERON: “I walk closer, but I keep my hood up until I can see who he is.”
NICK: Yeah. You see a Selonian, which is like a big otter-looking person, with kind of like a beer belly and some leather pants on.
LAURA: A dude Selonian?
NICK: Yeah.
LAURA & STEVEN: Ooh.
NICK: But he’s like kinda skeezy, he’s got some bald patches, and he’s wearing a leather jacket.
LAURA: Oh, that’s why they kicked him off.
STEVEN: Oh, I walk over because I notice that he is also a dude, and wearing a leather jacket.
NICK: (laughs) Yeah. Karma, you would recognize him as Felton Mox, the bounty that you took in during your first trip to Corellia in quite a long time, that you dropped off at Sentinel’s base on your way in. he looks to be in much better shape. He isn’t shot, so that’s good, but he doesn’t recognize that you are in the cloak.
CAMERON: Underneath my cloak I’m gonna take his heavy pistol and put it in my bag.
NICK: (laughs) Okay.
LAURA: “So, do you want to buy us drinks?”
NICK: “Uh…”
LAURA: And she winks a little bit, and she’s like, ‘ugh, this guy’s skeezy, but maybe we can get free stuff.’
NICK: “I, you know, normally being an informant people buy Me drinks, but yeah, I think I can make that happen,” and he walks past you. He gives the cloaked figure of Karma a wide birth because he still seems kind of nervous about an Imperial cloak, and he goes over to the bar and you hear him asking for beverages.
The Ithorian who is very incapable of speaking quietly says, “Beverages for your elicit meeting. Right away.” And he starts mixing drinks. Again, he moves very slowly getting situated, but once he plants his feet he starts putting stuff together pretty quickly.
LAURA: What are the driiinks?
NICK: The Ithorian is putting together kind of a mixed bag. You see several tall, thin glasses that have some sort of a bluish-greenish liquid in them, and then what looks like an Imperial ale which is like a straight beer, and—an Imperial stout.
LAURA: Imperial stout.
NICK & LAURA: Haaa.
NICK: And then there’s one copper mug that gets slapped down on the bar and has some sprig of some greenish, weird, curly plant sticking out of it, and the Ithorian says, “This should be… easy to decide… who enjoys the finer things in life.” Then he looks around, which takes up a lot of air space when something with heads this wide look around—
LAURA: Yeah.
NICK: –and makes himself scarce back behind the bar.
CAMERON: So, as Xianna starts to walk towards the bar Karma grabs her and pulls her in closer to her hood. (whispering) “So, this guy was my mark for Sentinel, so I’ma gonna keep my hood up because I’m not sure how he’s gonna feel about me.”
LAURA: “Oh! Okie, because I was thinking maybe if we figured him trustworthy we would let him in on the secret, but… Okie, no, secret stays.”
CAMERON: “Yeah, we’ll see how he’s doing. Yeah.”
LAURA: “The secret stays. Okie.”
NICK: As that conversation wraps up real quick, Felton comes back and gestures towards a round table and the booth that he was sitting at and he drops the serving tray down. The drinks kind of clatter around. He says, “Three Ithorian Bellows, an Imperial Stout, and a Flame Out for the adventurous. Take your pick.”
STEVEN: “Would you consider colonizing another planet adventurous?” I just say to the group.
CAMERON: The hooded figure nods.
NICK: He kind of looks you up and down, grabs the copper mug and just slides it towards you. Then he looks at everyone else and says, “The Ithorian Bellows is a pretty mellow beverage. It’s good for having a long talk with people.” He sits down and he waits for you all to select your beverages.
LAURA: Xianna would take the Ithorian Bellows.
CAMERON: Same with Karma, because she realizes that one of them says Imperial on it, so she’s gonna grab the Bellows.
HUDSON: I grab one of the Ithorian Bellows.
NICK: Okay. Felton looks at you all very shiftily. It looks pretty comical on his little otter face. He grabs the Imperial Stout and goes, “You saw through my crafty rouse, I see. No one’s given themselves away yet,” and he takes a long pull on the drink.
STEVEN: I take a sip of mine and kind of look for what reaction he thinks I should have.
NICK: He’s got the bottle back and he appears to be chugging it, but you notice it’s not going down that fast, it’s mostly for show, but he opens one eye at you as you take a sip like eager to see what your response will be.
STEVEN: I respond in such a way that would warrant someone looking eagerly for a response.
NICK: What the fuck does that mean?
LAURA & CAMERON: What does that mean?!
(laughter)
LAURA: Also, do you remember what this drink tastes like?
STEVEN: Oh, I absolutely remember, yeah. No, yeah, so, you know, I’ve had a lot of these on Corellia back when I was ambassadorizing, and I’m quite fond of it, but everyone—or at least Felton—seems interested, so I react as if I don’t like it, set it down, and then pick it back up and drain it.
(laughter)
LAURA: That’s like a Constitution check!
NICK: As you cough and splutter, he sets the beer down and chuckles to himself. “Yeah, those are pretty hard to—Oh.” As you just knock the whole cup back. It tastes like pepper’s angry, drunk cousin tried to strangle your uvula on the way down is basically what a Flame Out tastes like. Yeah, the Flame Out’s a pretty rough drink, but you like them and you’re used to them. So, as you do that, “Wow, oh, okay.”
STEVEN: (chuckles)
NICK: So you’re in the horseshoe booth sitting and he has the one chair and he skootches it toward the door a little bit and looks a little anxious. “So, you knew the passphrase… You’re from Sentinel, huh?”
LAURA: “Yes.”
CAMERON: The hood nods.
NICK: “He said, uh, if I gave you this information that he’d let me off scot-free, got me away from CorSec. If I hadn’t gotten shot it would’ve been a really good deal. I’m, uh, not 100% sure why I got shot. It seemed pretty unnecessary. The person who did—You know, bounty hunters, I’m just not a big fan of them.”
LAURA: “Yes. They are terrible. Just, all of them, every single one of them, just terrible.”
HUDSON: I cackle.
CAMERON: The hood nods.
STEVEN: “Yup.”
NICK: “So, Sentinel said that you would have most of the tools you need but I was to give you two more, and that is… I lost one of them, but I have the other one!” And he takes—
LAURA: “Wait, wait, what?!”
NICK: “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine!” He takes a plasteel box, it’s gray and looks kind of like a Chinese take-out container, it’s about a foot wide and a foot long, it’s like a square, and he sets it on the table and slides it to you very carefully and nervously. “Don’t, uh, open that until you’re in position, because it’s uh, not great, but…”
LAURA: “And, what was the thing that you lost?”
NICK: “Uhhh… I’m not sure. It was another box, um… but it’s gone now…”
LAURA: Xianna’s sitting there and is suddenly like, ‘Ohh, I had a box. Karma probably had a box.’ This is what Xianna’s thinking. So, Xianna’s gonna like drop it and just be like, ‘oh, never mind,’ because in her head she’s like ‘I had to go get a box, and if Karma took him in he probably had the box so she took it, so it’s okay, Sentinel has the box.’ That’s what’s going through her head. So, she’s like, “Oh, okie. It’s fine. Okie. I’m sure we will make do.”
NICK: “Yeah, so, totally didn’t lose it gambling. Uh…”
LAURA: He says that and Xianna’s like, ‘oh, wait… oh no.’
CAMERON: ‘My plan has a hole in it.
NICK: “Here’s the deal. This is a special kind of weapon and Sentinel wants you to break the blockade. This weapon is powerful enough to take down a Super Star Destroyer if you can get onboard. That’s all I know. My job was to get the weapon to whoever told me the light of the universe would never go out.”
LAURA: “Okie. Thank you.”
CAMERON: How are we seated in this booth?
LAURA: I imagine that Xianna took lead and got in next to him, and then…
CAMERON: I probably have an edge spot, because scooting in my cape wouldn’t have been the best.
LAURA: I imagine it would be, like from one end of the horseshoe to the other, it would have been like Karma, a wide space, Felton, then Xianna, then Sabos, and then Tink, guessing that Tink would have a harder time fitting in, and he probably doesn’t slide well just being all fuzzy. Probably a lot of friction.
HUDSON: I don’t. I just cause static on myself.
NICK: I can imagine if you sit on your hair and try to scoot you’re just pulling all your hair. That couldn’t be fun.
SEVERAL: Yeah.
NICK: Booths were not designed for Gigorans.
CAMERON: So, I’m just gonna go into my hood. I’m wearing gloves now so my green doesn’t show if I put my hand up. I’m gonna whisper into my com links so they can hear me, because none of them are close enough to pull over to me. (whispers) “Ask who he lost it in gambling to, because we may need to track them down.”
LAURA: “So, um, who were you playing in the gambling game?”
NICK: “Well, you know, it’s a little embarrassing. It wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve done. She’s a pretty heavy hitter in this sector, but uh… Yeah, I may have lost your other tool that you need to, uh, the Queen. Maybe you’ve heard of her. She’s a gangster from Corellia. I mean, she’s not that big a deal.”
STEVEN: “Ah yes, the Queen.”
NICK: “Oh, you’re familiar?”
LAURA: “Um, I guess so, yes. It appears.”
STEVEN: “I used to play the cards as well.” (grinning)
NICK: “You know Kettle, the Queen of Corellia?”
STEVEN: “I know Kettle.”
NICK: “Well, more power to you, man. You can try and go get it back, but I didn’t have any deal with having to do with her.”
STEVEN: “Oh, I didn’t say nothing about trying to get it back from Kettle.”
LAURA: (nervously) “Okie. We take the box now. Thank you, so much, heh, thank you.”
NICK: “Great.” Can I get Perception checks from you all?
LAURA: Can do.
NICK: This will be an average Perception check.
HUDSON: One success.
CAMERON: Karma got two successes and an advantage.
LAURA: Three successes.
STEVEN: I got one success.
NICK: You all see that he’s pretty anxious to leave, and he also looks like he feels a little guilty about it, but he’s scared and trying to get around. It’s pretty easy for you all to interpret that he had further instructions he was supposed to do to help you all out and is just trying to get out of there with the bare minimum.
LAURA: When he does that Xianna’s gonna reach into her pocket, get her blaster, and like push it towards him through her coat so that he can like feel the blaster. “Um, you seem very quick to leave. Do you maybe have something to tell us?”
CAMERON: Karma stands up menacingly at the end of the booth and just lets her cape fall.
HUDSON: I start mean-mugging.
STEVEN: I say, “Hey buddy, you got anything else for us? It’d be a shame if Kettle had to hear about this.”
NICK: “Um… Wow. This—I thought we were having a friendly drink here.”
LAURA: “Well, we were, and then you decided to get all shifty.”
NICK: “Uh, I’m a Selonian. We do shifty. That’s like our thing.” … That’s not their thing.
STEVEN: I chuckle, because that’s… (laughs)
CAMERON: Because you don’t know species.
STEVEN: Right, because I’m a Togrutan. (laughs)
LAURA: “No, no, I dated a Selonian once. They were not very shifty.”
NICK: “Uh, well, okay. Part of my contract was that I’m supposed to help guide you until you leave the planet again, but you’re all very capable. You have an Imperial. You don’t need me. You should really just let me go. I’ve got things to do.”
HUDSON: “Everyone could use a helping hand.”
CAMERON: The hood tilts.
LAURA: “Guide in what way?”
NICK: “Uh, just help you find anything you need for your assault, uh, maybe inform him once the mission’s complete. I’m supposed to be like an observer type thing, but he’s got eyes everywhere. You should really just let me go. There’s really no reason for me to…”
CAMERON: The hood shakes it’s head.
LAURA: “Where do you live?”
NICK: “On Corellia…”
LAURA: “Where are you staying currently?”
NICK: (hesitantly) “Uh, why do you wanna know?”
LAURA: “In case we do need your help later on.”
NICK: So, he perks up a little bit at that, because it sounds like you’re going to let him out of your immediate eyesight, and he goes, “Oh, I’m right above The Gooberfish. You could find me if you needed me, but you won’t. You’re all very capable.”
CAMERON: I look over at Tink, and I’m like—
HUDSON: “You’re gonna help us out.” I hold my vibro-axe higher.
(laughter)
NICK: Can you roll me a Coercion, please?
HUDSON: Great. I can do that.
NICK: It’s gonna be easy, and you have two blue dice because everyone is backing you up.
CAMERON: Oh wow, your Willpower is one?
HUDSON: Wow. Two advantages.
NICK: Is there something that you would like to spend your advantages on specifically?
HUDSON: Look more intimidating.
NICK: That’s not how that works.
LAURA: Yeah, because this roll was to look intimidating.
HUDSON: Oh, sorry. This was Coercion.
NICK: You don’t intimidate him, but you can get something else tangential out of it, if you want.
HUDSON: Oh. The bartender brings me another drink to calm me down.
NICK: Nice. Okay. The bartender runs up with two. “You seem to be a big fellow.”
HUDSON: “I am.”
NICK: “Here’s another one, on the house… and another one… that you will pay for.” He sets them down. They’re Ithorian Bellows.
LAURA: Xianna is seeing Tink, and I imagine it’s something where like Tink tries to narrow his eyes but instead they look even more cute and round, so Xianna’s like, “Okie. So I know he is very cute and fluffy, but he is very large, and he has a gigantic axe as you can see.” She like head tilts at Sabos. “That one, I do not know what that one does. Apparently he knows Kettle. I don’t know. That seems to be important.”
STEVEN: This one’s crazy,” I say.
LAURA: “And, um, also…” She points over at Karma. “The Galactic Empire, so you know, maybe, also I have a gun… Maybe you should help us.”
NICK: “Ah. I thought you were just happy to see me. Heh, heh…”
LAURA: “No…”
STEVEN: I check my head tails really quickly.
LAURA: Xianna’s just kind of shaking her head. “No, you see, I would have to say that to you because I being a woman do not do the thing you are implying. You as a male can, so you see it has to be me to you.”
NICK: “Yeah I can. Wait—“
LAURA: “No. No.”
NICK: “Oh, yeah. Oh boy.” And Felton Mox looks right into the camera and says, “Well, Felton Mox, it looks like we’re in a whole bunch of trouble.” (groans and laughter) And that’s gonna be the end of the episode!
(all make dramatic noises and Star Wars tunes)
## 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.
The crew of the Afternoon Delight have eaten many cups of instant noodles. They’re tasty, perfect for spending days in hyperspace, and you can have original or spicy. They first appear in Episode 14 when Xianna makes a few cups for everyone.
While the following “recipe” isn’t as shelf stable as cup noodles and it isn’t quite as instant, but they’re much better tasting and still pretty fast.
“Recipe” is in quotations because what follows is less of a specific recipe and more of a set of guidelines. There’s a lot of ways to customize your specific noodles.
These noodle cups can easily be stored in the fridge for a few days and handle being at room temperature for a few hours, which make them great for office lunches. You can even make them with all dry ingredients for shelf stable cups that should last at least a few weeks.
You’ll want a 16-ounce container that is heat-proof since you will be adding boiling water. Large mason jars or wide-mouth preserving jars work great.
Let’s start at the bottom with the soup base. You can use bouillon paste, a bouillon powder, or even powdered soup mix. If you want to use bouillon cubes you’ll want to smash them up a bit before adding. They dissolve better that way. You’ll want to use 1-2 servings of whatever soup base you use, depending on how strong you like your soup.
We’re using Better Than Bouillon paste in their Vegetable flavor and adding 3 teaspoons, about 1.5 servings worth.
Then you’ll want a “flavor boost”. Something to give your cup a little extra flavor and depth. This could be soy sauce, chili paste, miso, fish sauce, curry paste. Anything that will add something a little extra to the soup. You can even combine them. How much you add will depend on which you choose and personal taste. If you’re going completely shelf stable then omit the “flavor boost” and just add a bit more powered base.
Next, the vegetables. There’s a lot of options for this step. Kimchi is a great choice, carrots and peas are common in many noodle cups along with
dried shiitakes, freeze-dried vegetables are great, fresh or frozen edamame works, basically anything you can think of. You do want whatever you add to require minimal cooking, since they will only get a short soak in hot water. So raw onions may be a bad idea.
Now we’re at the strangest option: beef jerky. Since we want these sit in a fridge for a few days, at a desk for a few hours, or even on the shelf for a few weeks, raw meat is a bad idea. It also probably won’t be cooked by just a few minutes in hot water. But if you’re looking to add something meaty to your cups jerky is the way to go. It lasts for a long time, and when it reconstitutes in the water it softens up and gains a pleasantly chewy texture. You can even play around with what flavor you use. We used a “Hot & Spicy” jerky.
And now, we have come to the noodles. You can use precooked wheat noodles, such as udon, Lo Mein, or even spaghetti noodles. You can also use “fast-cooking” dried noodles, which are basically the noodles that come in ramen packages and commercial noodles cups without all the extras. Rice noodles are also a great option since most only take a few minutes to cook. There’s rice vermicelli, flat “pad thai” noodles, pho style noodles, and many more. The vermicelli styles can be rolled or folded into little nests that can fit into the jars. Long, straight noodles may have to be cut in half to fit into the container.
Finally we have green onions or chives. These add a little fresh pop that ties everything together. You can use fresh or the freeze-dried kind that you can often find in the produce section.
Then, whenever you want your noodles, simple add boiling water, close the lid, and let sit for 3-5 minutes. Then, give it a good stir and you’re all set!
Almost Instant Noodles
Per Container:
1-2 servings base (bouillon paste, bouillon powder, powder soup mix)
2-4 teaspoons flavor boost (soy sauce, chili paste, miso, fish sauce, curry paste)
Vegetables (kimchi, dried mushrooms, freeze-dried vegetables, diced, julienned, or small fresh vegetables)
Beef jerky, optional, torn into bite sized pieces
Noodles:
3-4 ounces precooked wheat pasta
2-3 ounces “fast-cooking” dried wheat noodles
1-3 ounces dried rice noodles
Sliced green onion or chives
In the bottom of a 16-ounce heat-proof container add 2 servings of the base, the flavor boost, vegetables, and jerky, if using. Place noodles on top and then the green onions or chives.
When ready to eat, fill the container almost to the top with boiling water. Loosely set lid on top and let sit for 3-5 minutes. Stir to combine.
Word document download: Episode 8 Let’s Check Spacebook
PDF download: Episode 8 Let’s Check Spacebook
Read in browser:
Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 8:
Let’s Check Spacebook
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 want to thank everyone who sent in one of our questionnaires about the show. Thank you for taking the time. We’re taking your feedback seriously to make the show better. Remember everyone, if we get to 20 iTunes reviews we’ll be releasing a flashback starring Karma and her twin boys. It was a blast to record and we wanna share it, to tell your friends to review the show.
Thanks for tuning in, and I hope you enjoy.
##
NICK: Hello everyone, and welcome to Episode 8 of Tabletop Squadron. We’re really getting into the swing of things now. Let’s go ahead and go around the table. Everybody say who you are, who you’re playing, and if you spent any experience what you spent that experience on… starting with Hudson.
HUDSON: Hi internet. I’m Hudson, and I’m playing Tink the Gigoran. I moved up two ranks in Astrogation and one rank in Coordination. I also got the Natural Programmer talent off the slicer tree that lets me reroll any one Computer or Astrogation check once per session.
NICK: Yay. For anyone wondering why he did that, he’s been hoarding experience for like three sessions.
HUDSON: In secret. It was the best kept secret.
NICK: Next we’ll go to… Cameron.
CAMERON: Hi. I’m Cameron, and I’m playing Karma Nailo the Nautolan bounty hunter. I spent some experience going up to rank two in Perception, and I also bought Toughened on my Skiptracer tree to add two to my wound threshold.
NICK: Yeah, after getting shot a bunch.
CAMERON: Apparently it’s important, yeah.
NICK: Yeah, makes sense. Next up we have… Laura.
LAURA: Hello. I’m Laura. I play Xianna who is a Twi’lek smuggler, and I believe I bought a rank in Underworld. I forgot to mark it down, but I’m like 80% sure that’s what I bought with my points.
NICK: Alright. Book keeping, the best part of RPGs. And, last up is… Steven.
STEVEN: Hi, listeners of the network formally known as Arpanet. I’m Steven. I’m playing Sabos. What’s that face?
(laughter)
NICK: I don’t get that reference at all?
STEVEN: One person might.
LAURA: Because Hudson said welcome to the internet.
NICK & HUDSON: Oh.
LAURA: It used to be the Arpanet.
NICK: Oh man.
STEVEN: I used some of my experience to purchase the Master Starhopper trait on my fringer talent tree which allows me to once per round suffer two strain to decrease the difficulty of the Astrogation check by one to a minimum of one black die.
NICK: Oh, neat.
CAMERON: Useful.
NICK: Oh gosh, you can set it to zero.
STEVEN: Yup.
HUDSON: The real question is who’s better at Astrogation. Me?
STEVEN: Probably you. I have two. I can upgrade sometime.
CAMERON: You’re smarter though, Tink.
HUDSON: I’m smarter, though.
NICK: So y’all would just be the Astrogation Bros. it’ll be fine.
CAMERON: #AstrogationBros.
NICK: #AstrogationBros…
HUDSON: We’ll know our three fans by someone actually tagging that on Twitter.
NICK: Yeah. Hi Ted, our one international fan that we talked to last time. #AstrogationBros.
So, before we get into the show, let’s go ahead and make our Destiny Rolls, please.
LAURA: One light side.
HUDSON: One dark side.
CAMERON: One light side.
STEVEN: One light side.
LAURA & CAMERON: Yay!
CAMERON: So three light side, one dark side.
NICK: Great. Last time, you went to a secret asteroid base in the middle of nowhere, you found Quiggle the Quarren and made an exchange for Falx. He gave you a briefcase to give to them, and it didn’t go great. You ended up killing pretty much everyone except for Tiny, your small gun-toting friend. You were also contacted by Sentinel and told kind of what you’re supposed to do next, that you’re supposed to go to Ithor, and that you’re supposed to get down to the planet, and that there’s a very strong blockade with a super star destroyer involved. You’re gonna have to figure out how to get around that, and then you promptly ignored him to go on an adventure to an asteroid belt. I’m sure that won’t come up. That’s great. Am I forgetting anything?
STEVEN: I’m super dead.
CAMERON: (laughs) Yeah.
NICK: Oh yeah, and Sabos got shot a whole bunch, and is very dead. I believe you’re at what, negative seven? So, yeah, we’re gonna have to deal with that. And the last thing that happened was Tiny surrendered and said he was gonna be the captain of Quiggle’s Crew from now on, and that’s where we ended. Picking up right there.
You are in a wide, open space in the middle of a hollowed out asteroid and there is the corpse of Quiggle and his large Gamorrean who is also dead. Tiny has been wounded quite severely. There is an oil drum fire with some fold-up camp chairs around it, and your ship is probably about a hundred yards behind you, and their ship is somewhere off in the dark. You haven’t actually seen it yet. Ready, set, go.
LAURA: I wanna go check the bodies. For fun items.
NICK: I will need a Skullduggery check to pat them down.
LAURA: Can do!
NICK: It’s going to be a hard difficulty, because these are smugglers.
LAURA: That is one triumph with its success, and an advantage.
NICK: Pretty good. I can tell you that Quiggle has a pretty nice light blaster. It’s nothing particularly fancy, it just looks like it’s got pretty plating all over it. It has a water theme. There’s lots of bubbles up the sides.
LAURA: Ooh.
NICK: Yeah. The Gamorrean has a vibro-axe, it’s a standard vibro-axe. With the triumph, tell me two things that you really want them to have.
LAURA: Stim packs and impact.
NICK: Yep, sounds about good.
LAURA: All the packs.
CAMERON: (laughs)
NICK: Yeah, so this makes sense. The Gamorrean has a set of six stim packs in a pouch on his belt. It’s one of those unrolly artist kits, so you undo the cloth tie, it falls open, and there’s just a line of syringes.
LAURA: Fancy~
NICK: Quiggle has a little snuff box. It’s a really pretty chrome plated one, and it has a little electronic reader on it, but it looks like when he fell it opened. In the snuff box there’s four doses of impact in little individual vials, and you also see that it’s got a little thumbprint reader on the snuff box, and from the inside, with your triumph, you see that you can reprogram it to open only for you.
LAURA: Oh yes.
NICK: It would make it so that if someone say found your stash, they wouldn’t be able to tell what your stash was or get into it right away. So, you have a little thumbprint reader snuff box that can hold four doses of impact in it. Actually, it can hold eight doses of impact. It looks like Quiggle’s been partying lately.
LAURA: Okay good, because I already had some.
NICK: Yeah, so it can hold a decent amount. That’s what you find on the bodies. What else does anybody want to do?
CAMERON: Karma’s going to drop down next to Tiny and start applying pressure to one of his wounds.
NICK: He is bleeding. It doesn’t look like he’s gushing blood. He’ll probably be okay, but he appreciates the medical assistance. Would you like to make me a Medicine check?
CAMERON: Sure!
NICK: It is average, because he is not unconscious.
CAMERON: Okay, that’s three successes!
NICK: Three successes! So he gets three wounds back. That actually—You’re able to stop all the bleeding, get him patched up, he is by no means in fighting shape but he is not going to go septic or anything.
CAMERON: Yay.
NICK: Good work. Why would Karma know how to do like field medicine? Tell me about a time that happened.
CAMERON: So, when she’s most often used it is when she’s going after a mark and there’s another bounty hunter going after the same mark. With Felton Mox in the first episode where he got shot by the other bounty hunter, it’s either that situation or the other bounty hunter is like I don’t care, I’d rather get them both dead than have her take him in alive, so the mark will get damaged. It’s keeping the mark alive until we get to the drop point.
NICK: Right. So, very business-like, not really paying attention to people’s comfort so much.
CAMERON: Yep. But then also, she was paired up with her sons. She’s probably being nicer to Tiny then she would be to just a random person she was bringing in, because he’s tugging heartstrings by just being young.
NICK: Right. When you were going on missions with your sons was one of them more of a medical specialist?
CAMERON: Yes.
NICK: Since clearly you weren’t super trained in it.
CAMERON: Yes. My son Jet is much smarter than me.
NICK: Oh, okay, so he was the medic guy. Okay, cool. Tiny gets patched up. “Well, th-thanks. I’m gonna leave, because honestly it’s a little bit more jarring than I expected to see you patting through the pockets of my dead friends.” He’s just kinda staring at Xianna.
LAURA: “Um, sorry, but you know… They did shoot at us, and they are dead…”
NICK: “Yeah, it’s the space pirate code, I understand. It’s just having a little bit more of an emotional impact than I expected. I’m gonna go back to the Quarren Quagmire and take off. I’ll have to meet up with the rest of the crew, and… I guess figure out what we’re doing. But I’m the captain now, right?” He gives a weak smile.
CAMERON: “Since you’re the captain now, do you want his tri-cornered hat?”
NICK: “Oh, yeah, I think that’s a good idea.” He goes and picks it up and it’s dripping with blood a little bit, so he has to wring it out and it’s kind of misshapen. He kinda pats it back into shape and puts it onto his head. “Well, I think it’s sort of a work in process,” and he wipes some charred ash off of it, “but it is important, so thanks for the advice there.” A little rivulet of blood runs down his temple dripping out of the hat. He wipes it off and it leaves a smear on his face. “So, yeah, it’s pretty good, I guess. Yeah, this is, this is…” He looks at Quiggle and gulps. “Yeah, this is awesome. Thanks for, whatever, not killing me. That’s important. I’m gonna go now. Byeee.”
HUDSON: “You’re welcome.”
NICK: He does finger guns at Tink and backs cautiously into the shadows.
CAMERON: Oh, karma walks after him, and starts sharing life advice, and shares contact information.
NICK: You’re gonna have to give me some actual life advice. You don’t get to just make a \broad statement\ like that.
CAMERON: Oh damn! Uh, let’s see. Not getting shot is a good one. Getting cover, I noticed he didn’t get that.
NICK: “Okay so, take cover… Well, so, I figured like the auto-turret was gonna be a lot more helpful, but…”
CAMERON: “Maybe next time though if you set up the auto-turret so it’s in front of one of the barrels, and you can be behind the barrel, just to kind of block you, because if you have the situation again where you throw the target and it doesn’t hit then it kind of leaves you open as you’re then the one with the big gun.”
NICK: “Yeah, that makes sense.” You guys are walking through the shadows, and probably 50 yards away around a small corner, in like an actual parking spot instead of the middle of the thing, you see an angular freighter. It looks like some form of YT but like a weird off-brand one. It’s kind of shaped like a croissant. So, he’s walking towards that. “Well, yeah I guess cover would be a good idea. Duly noted. Thank you for that.”
CAMERON: “Yep. I really hope you achieve your hopes and dreams.”
NICK: “Thanks That’s… This got a little weird. Uh, thanks for not shooting me. You almost did. I could see you thinking about it, so… I guess we’re friends now. Cool. I… If you ever need anything, call on Quiggle’s Crew—or I guess it’s Tiny’s Crew now.”
CAMERON: “Yeah, are you gonna rename that?”
NICK: “Yeah, Tiny’s… Tiny’s Terrible… Tallahassee… that’s not a thing.”
CAMERON: “Tango!”
NICK: “Tango?”
CAMERON: “Tiny’s Terrible Tallahassee Tango!”
NICK: “Oh gosh. What’s a Tallahassee?”
CAMERON: (laughs) “I don’t know. You said it.”
NICK: “Mmm…”
CAMERON: “I thought it had some sort of significance for you for you to have said it.”
NICK: “Yeah, it’s my mom’s name. I forgot.”
CAMERON: “Oh, okay. So that makes sense.”
NICK: “I think I’ve lost more blood than I thought I did.”
CAMERON: “Okay, so you can call your ship the Tallahassee after your mom, I guess.”
NICK: “…Yeah.”
CAMERON: “That seems really sweet.”
NICK: “Yeah… I think it might be the Tallahassee Quagmire. We gotta remember our roots.”
CAMERON: “True, true.”
NICK: At this point he’s hitting a panel on the croissant-shaped ship and the ramp is dropping down. He starts to limp up. From the inside you can see a very large Wookie kind of leaning down on the ramp and it makes a Wookie noise. (low groan)
CAMERON: Hahaha!
NICK: (smiling) I can’t do that. You can see Tiny turn around and say, “It’s a really long story. I’ll explain on the way out of here.” And there’s more Wookie noises. (low groan)
CAMERON: (Chewbacca sounds)
NICK: Oh, that’s way better. Do it again.
CAMERON: (Chewbacca noises)
NICK: Yeah, that’s good. “No, it’s fine. I… Look. He fell behind. You know the pirate’s code.” The ship stars to go (rushing and clicking noises), and you hear the engine start to cycle up. Great.
CAMERON: I walk back.
NICK: Cool. Sabos is bleeding out on the ground.
CAMERON: Sabos is still laying there! (laughs)
HUDSON: “Should we do something about him?”
CAMERON: “Yeah. Hey Tink, come here.”
HUDSON: I come over.
NICK: Okay. Are you gonna take him back to the ship, or just work on him out in the open?
CAMERON: Let’s go back to the ship.
HUDSON: I pick him up.
LAURA: “I think we need to make up some lost time.”
CAMERON: “Yeah. We can fix him on our way to Ithor.”
HUDSON: “You got it.” I carry him to the ship, and then get in the cockpit.
STEVEN: (distant coughing noises)
CAMERON: Yup. (laughs)
NICK: Okay. We get a side wipe, and we get like two side by side screens. We get one of somebody piloting, which I guess would be Karma probably.
CAMERON: So, Karma would probably have Tink help with the Astrogation check and then would take over piloting.
NICK: Right. We’ll skip the Astrogation part, because it’ll make the story better. So, it’s you flipping switches and starting to take off, and then it’s still a bedroom, like a weird 70s sheik hotel room, but the bed is not a water bed and has just plain white sheets on it, and it has like a linoleum floor, so you guys have used this as your kind of medical suite. We see Sabos laid out on the bed. You got a big slash across your chest from where you got hit, and some blaster bolt wounds, and you’re shirtless. Is Sabos in good shape?
STEVEN: Yeah.
NICK: Yeah? So you got that Hollywood shot of the injured, but still very attractive, torso. Just the torso, your head’s cut off of it. (laughter) Oh, and then you hear Tink rummaging around, and a single head tail falls into the frame off the side of the bed, and jiggles a little bit, because it has to be gross because it’s Sabos. So, the camera pans out and we see Sabos on the bed. Is Xianna helping with the medicine stuff, or did she just leave Tink to it?
LAURA: Xianna like has a drink and is sitting on a night table next to the bed, and is watching, and is just… She’s not really helping. She doesn’t really know too many medical things, which is why she tends to carry stim packs, and she’s just hoping she doesn’t have to use one on Sabos.
NICK: Okay. We’re gonna cut real quick to a weird, hazy dream sequence. Sabos is having a flashback while he is unconscious.
LAURA: Ooh, ooh! Xianna wants to be the scarecrow. (laughter) And Tink can be the cowardly lion, and then I guess…
CAMERON: I’d be the tin man.
NICK: I feel like Karma’s probably Dorothy.
(laughter)
CAMERON: Sabos is the scarecrow!
LAURA: Sabos is the scarecrow in his own dream sequence!
STEVEN: This is my story.
CAMERON: Yeah, exactly. If you wanna be the scarecrow, you can be the scarecrow.
NICK: So, it actually is probably more like plot and character relevant than this bit that we’re doing right now, but—
LAURA: Oh, so he’s the dog. He’s Toto.
NICK: Sabos, what is going on in this flashback of yours? What does your ‘I’m injured and dying’ dream sequence look like?
STEVEN: So, I wake up in a hut on Shili, and well, you know there’s the rest of the schoolkids, the nice Shilian schoolkids, and then the concerned parents—not my parents, just the concerned Shilian schoolkid parents—looking over me saying, “You better wake up. You’ll be alright. We need you to wake up.” As it turns out, I mean, there’s another schoolkid next to me. Just don’t know what happened, right.
(distant giggling)
So, yeah, you know, pack instincts are very important in Togruta culture, so we were practicing our packing, which would be fighting other Togrutas because yeah Shili, and you know it got a little bit too real and I got pretty beat up. That’s when I decided I didn’t want to have anything to do with the pack instinct culture on Shili.
NICK: Cool. So, we see you as I guess a small seven year old Sabos. You always kind of punched people?
STEVEN: Yeah, yeah.
NICK: Never really got along. That was the beginning of you deciding that maybe this pack instinct wasn’t the way to go, when you were practicing fighting and got knocked out, and also knocked out the other kid.
STEVEN: Yes. I got knocked out harder.
CAMERON: That fourth head tail just flew and just smacked him on his way down.
STEVEN: To be clear, he was okay.
NICK: Well, that’s what happened. He got a head injury and it caused the fourth head tail to grow.
STEVEN: Ohhh.
LAURA: Whoaaa.
STEVEN: The other kid was okay. He was just a little bit dazed and confused, but I got my ass kicked pretty darn hard, and wasn’t cool with it.
NICK: And then, because this is like a post-traumatic flashback, the camera pans out and there’s just like a Quentin Tarantino amount of blood everywhere.
STEVEN: Just like a kid on top of me beating the living crap out of my fourth head tail specifically. (laughter) They didn’t like me—They picked on me in all the reindeer games. Okay?
LAURA: Sabos used to have five head tails…
(laughter)
NICK: Oh, please no… Yeah, so the camera pans out. There’s a ton of blood. The older adult Togrutans grow long fangs and smoke starts to go everywhere, and the camera jump cuts back out to Tink standing over this compatriot of yours who is not bleeding so much anymore, but you’re pretty sure it’s because they’re running out of blood to fall out.
HUDSON: “You got blood all over the nice sheets.”
(laughter)
LAURA: “He cannot hear you.”
HUDSON: “Oh, no. I’m just saying this to him anyway.”
LAURA: “Okie. Are you going to, you know, heal him?”
HUDSON: I think on my medical experience… Non-existent. “Sure. I’ll heal him.”
(laughter)
LAURA: Yeah, but you’re smart. You can figure it out.
HUDSON: Yeah, I’m smart. I can figure it out. “It’s basically mechanics, right?”
LAURA: “Sure.”
CAMERON: You hear over the com, “Just picture the body as a machine.”
HUDSON: “Great. Alright, get my toolbox.”
NICK: So, a Medical check for someone who is unconscious is going to be hard difficulty.
STEVEN: Like the fourth head tail.
LAURA: You don’t have Medicine, so it’s just gonna be your Intelligence.
NICK: It’s an Intelligence check. You can flip light side points to make yourself better at this. You can explain why you deserve blue dice.
HUDSON: “I deserve blue dice because I’m Being Brave.” (laughter)
LAURA: Xianna’s like flipping through data pads. “Ooh, that muscle connects to this one,” and like holding up the data pad a little bit. “Okie, so this is how you do it, I think.”
CAMERON: We’re using Technology to assist.
NICK: Okay. The camera’s definitely gonna go over Xianna’s shoulder and this “medical text” that she’s looking at looks a lot like Ikea assembly instructions. It’s just like very cartoony pictures, and in a box on the side there’s a scalpel, and then like an arrow going to the wound with like an X over it.
LAURA: They don’t have scalpels in Star Wars!
NICK: It’s like a space scalpel.
LAURA: It’s those little sticks that just shoot lasers.
NICK: … Oh yeah.
CAMERON: It’s a little baby laser stick.
NICK: It’s like a light saber scalpel.
LAURA & CAMERON: Yeah.
NICK: It seals as it cuts, because that’s what you want a scalpel to do.
LAURA: I mean, maybe.
CAMERON: (laughs)
NICK: So, you can get a blue die from Xianna sort of helping.
HUDSON: Yay.
NICK: Yeah, go for it.
HUDSON: Alright.
NICK: Wow, that’s pretty good.
HUDSON: Is it just one success?
CAMERON: Yes…
NICK: Oh, then it’s not very good.
LAURA & CAMERON: One success.
NICK: Okay. You manage to stabilize him. You start using medical supplies, and then half way through you pull out a wrench because you’re more comfortable with it and just start using that to like apply pressure to things, and for some reason it kind of works. So, you’re at negative six now.
STEVEN: Yes.
CAMERON: (laughing nervously) You’re getting there.
LAURA: Xianna just like sees him pulling out the wrench, sighs, walks over and like digs through her pockets, and just shoots him up with two stim packs.
NICK: Okay. So that gets you up to…
LAURA: The first one would be five, the second one would then be four.
NICK: So you’re at three. You’re positive. You wake up.
STEVEN: (gasps and coughs) “Shili…”
LAURA: “You owe me two stim packs!”
STEVEN: “Only two?”
NICK: Three now, right?
LAURA: “No, three! I forgot about the first one.”
STEVEN: “Two stim packs.”
HUDSON: “You owe me your life.”
LAURA: “Three stim packs.”
STEVEN: “Two stim packs.”
LAURA: “Mm… Close enough.”
NICK: So, Sabos is still in pretty bad shape.
STEVEN: “Where are we?”
NICK: I’ll say because it was a hard difficulty your critical wound was also fixed. That’s mostly what Tink was doing. You had a pretty nasty head wound, and maybe a piece of bone kind of out of place in your skull, like a skull fracture, and that’s what he used the wrench to kind of tap back into place. So, you’re in a lot of pain still, but you feel mobile, able to do something gat least.
STEVEN: “More importantly, who’s flying this ship?”
HUDSON: “I’m flying it, but first Sabos-“
LAURA: “N-No… Karma. Karma.”
CAMERON: “That would be me. I’m flying the ship.”
HUDSON: “Oh, currently.”
STEVEN: “Do I just hear that over the com?”
CAMERON: “You just hear it over the coms. Yeah.”
STEVEN: I say loudly, as loud as I can, (through coughs) “I’m the captain now.”
CAMERON: “If that makes you feel better, sweetie. Sure.”
STEVEN: “…Okay.” I pretend to fly, just laying on the table.
NICK: (laughs)
LAURA: “I mean, she is the co-pilot, and we are, you know, in hyperspace. There is not much to do.”
STEVEN: I still have my hands out, like upward on the table, as if I’m grabbing the yolk to fly.
LAURA: “Okie, sure.”
NICK: Around this point, yeah. As you say we’re in hyperspace, Karma, you get the ship out of the little asteroid belt aimed in the right direction and hit the lever, and go flying off. I’m assuming you’re going to Ithor. Right?
CAMERON: Yes.
NICK: Okay. We’re gonna fly to Ithor. So, the ship is going to take a few days to get there. You’re going from the outer rim. Fun fact, Ithor is located in the mid rim, and it’s on the wrong side of the hub from you, so it’s gonna be quite a trip. The good news is it’s very well populated and the routes are very well documented, so it’s pretty easy to get there but it’s not like there’s a lot of shortcuts or anything.
So, you guys have some time, a couple of days. What do you guys do?
LAURA: So, the first time everyone’s all together, Xianna sits down and is like, “Okie. So, what did we learn?”
STEVEN: “Don’t get shot.”
LAURA: “Open the briefcase before the handover.”
STEVEN: “Oh, that too.”
LAURA: “Uh-huh. Everyone? Uh-huh.”
HUDSON: “Uh… Eh..”
STEVEN: “Getting shot is bad.”
HUDSON: “I will agree that I think all of us learned something today.”
CAMERON: “What is the proper protocol if you open the briefcase and it is empty?”
STEVEN: “Put something in it.”
CAMERON: “Do you then just not ever continue, or do you put something else in the briefcase?”
LAURA: “You just don’t deliver it, and then you call up who gave you the briefcase, and you yell at them. A lot. It works sometimes.”
STEVEN: “What happens the other times?”
LAURA: “Uh, the person who gave you the briefcase tries to kill you.”
STEVEN: “Oh, okay.”
CAMERON: “That would be why you’re comming them then, so it’d be more difficult to kill you right then…”
LAURA: “No no no. Not the people you are giving the briefcase to, that would be empty and then they shoot you. The person that gave you the briefcase to give.”
CAMERON: “Yes, you then com them, and they try to kill you eventually, but you’re not there because you commed them, so they have to track you down.”
LAURA: “Yes.”
CAMERON: “Okay.”
LAURA: “I mean, is slightly better than the people that are physically there with you shooting you. It gives you more time.”
CAMERON: “Okay. I’m much more comfortable with the people coming after me scenario of that. I know how to deal with that.”
NICK: Also, where is this scene happening? Are you all in the hot tub?
LAURA: Yes.
CAMERON: (laughing) Yes…
HUDSON: Yeah.
LAURA: Definitely in the hot tub. I don’t know if anyone else is in the hot tub. Xianna is in the hot tub.
HUDSON: I think we left Sabos in the medical area and took a dip.
LAURA: There’s like chairs he can be…
STEVEN: I can limp.
NICK: He’s got like his feet in, but he doesn’t want to get blood into all the hot water, so he’s just—
STEVEN: Open wounds, and hot water, and infections, yeah.
NICK: He’s just sitting with his feet in the hot tub, yeah.
STEVEN: And one head tail. Every now and then I dip one head tail.
CAMERON: Oh, gross. “Okay, next steps. We need to come up with a plan for this blockade.”
LAURA: “We should probably try to fake our credentials.”
STEVEN: “Or you can say you have an injured Togruta.”
CAMERON: “Honestly, I don’t think they’d care.”
LAURA: “Um, it is the Empire. They will not care.”
STEVEN: “They might know this injured Togruta.”
LAURA: “And then we would all be arrested.”
CAMERON: “Yeah. I don’t understand how that’s helpful.”
STEVEN: “You could turn in the injured Togruta.” (coughs)
CAMERON: “Don’t think I haven’t considered it.”
STEVEN: (laughs)
LAURA: “I mean, do you know how much you are worth?”
STEVEN: (nervous, stumbling) “Negative… really…”
CAMERON: “I can look it up.”
NICK: You can look it up, actually. That’s a thing you know.
LAURA: (gasps)
CAMERON: (giggles)
LAURA: Can we look up what everyone is worth?
NICK: Sure. Yeah, we can do that. We’ll say that the Afternoon Delight has a self-updating holo-net uplink, so whenever you’re parked not in hyperspace it pulls certain websites for info. So, it does that. You’re looking at like cached websites off of Google.
One of them is Bounty Boards. That makes a lot of sense. You have the credentials for it. It’s like being a notary – when you’re a bounty hunter you get certain rights and privileges as afforded your positon. So, you can just look it up, honestly. If you were trying to find information on somebody you didn’t already know or help track someone down with the info, it would probably be either a Computers or Skullduggery. Probably Computers, honestly.
LAURA: My guess is that there’s like… I’m thinking of the MSI system where you can put in like, I want a 2,000 square foot house with three bedrooms. They have that for bounties where you can like put in their species, and then you put in like what age range you think they are, and like identifying marks, and then it pulls up a list of all the people who match that so you can try and find who you were getting.
CAMERON: I also probably have the reverse, like, I’m currently located on Ithor. What bounties are near me? It’s like the Restaurants Near Me function in Google Maps.
LAURA: You move your little dot around, and you’re like, Bounties Near Me!
CAMERON: Five mile radius.
STEVEN: Uh, I can be found under fourth head tail.
CAMERON: No, but if like you’re searching for a specific name…
NICK: So, if you pull up Sabos, he is a pretty small fish. You’ll remember he owes the Empire like a 150,000 Credits which in the grand scheme of things isn’t a ton especially since the person he owes that to doesn’t really want it getting out. So, he has the Imperial equivalent of a parking ticket. He has like, Disturbing the Peace and Racketeering, which—
CAMERON: Boring.
NICK: For the Star Wars universe is Most people. So, it’s like a 2,000 Credit bounty.
STEVEN: (laughs)
NICK: It’s not that much. He is in the system, but there’s no picture of him and most of the stuff is blank. His name, Sabos Niks is in there. The way the system works it has different tiers of notoriety and stuff, so one of the things it’ll do is the names will get linked through the network for like known aliases and stuff like that so they’re more likely to show up in the search. I gotta be careful making up computer shit with who I’m sitting at the table with, but we’re gonna say this is how it works. The more notorious they are, the more important they are, the more likely they’ll pop up on related searches. ‘Those who hunted Sabos Niks also hunted…’
(giggling)
Sabos has no connections, it’s just him, so unless somebody specifically already had him or was looking for him, which they probably wouldn’t because he’s pretty cheap, he’s not gonna show up. So, he’s not very notorious, it’s unlikely people are gonna pull him on a related search, he’s not worth very much, but the Empire knows who he is.
CAMERON: Okay. I’m gonna look up everybody else too, (laughs) since I’m in here.
LAURA: Once she looks up Sabos, Xianna starts bouncing. “Ooh, ooh! Look me up! I want to see.”
LAURA & CAMERON: ‘Me next! Me next!’ (giggles)
NICK: Okay.
LAURA: “You will want to search for Xianna’fan…”
CAMERON: Okay.”
LAURA: “…and we will go from there!”
NICK: Alright. You pull up Xianna, and there’s a mugshot photo of her. Ooh, what would the background on an Imperial mugshot be?
HUDSON: Laura already drew it.
LAURA: Well, I just drew a very standard…
NICK: Yeah.
LAURA: My guess is it would be either white, a steel blue, or just kind of a mat gray metal.
NICK: Yeah, so I think you’re right. It’s probably like a blue steel background, because this happened when you got arrested at a local area. It’s not like in a major holding facility. It’s someone’s backwoods jail kind of situation. The picture is you smiling and making the peace sign at the camera, and you look absolutely unworried, absolutely unphased.
LAURA: “I do not remember which one that was…”
NICK: (laughs)
CAMERON: Can I look up where that mugshot came from, specifically?
NICK: Yeah.
CAMERON: I wanna know which one of her arrests was that mugshot.
LAURA: Xianna’s just sitting there mumbling to herself. “That definitely was not the doorway incident. Was that… I think maybe that was just standard burglary. Huh…”
NICK: So Laura, this particular one, kind of like a backwoods arrest, probably one of your earlier ones…
LAURA: Yeah.
NICK: What happened with Xianna? Where was the photo taken?
LAURA: I think it was just a local station, a trooper outpost. I think what I had tried to do was seduce some low-level politician, sneak into their house, and steal goods and information to then later sell, and I probably just tripped an alarm. It was probably a silent alarm and I didn’t realize it, and then also the person came home, and it was just like, “Oh, um, hello. I thought you would be gone. Uh… Do you want pancakes?”
CAMERON: (laughs)
NICK: We get another shot from the flashback of you doing something, getting caught, and then looking up and making eye contact with a pretty obvious security camera and making the exact same face that happened in your prologue where you realize you’ve been made and now you just have to figure out what to do about it.
Okay, so, where was that though?
LAURA: Um…
NICK: Pick a planet, any planet.
LAURA: Corellia.
NICK: Corellia? You spent a lot of time bouncing around there?
LAURA: Yeah.
NICK: Okay. If that’s the case, then it actually says on the website Coresec sub files on it, and you recognize that steel background. It’s very distinctive of small Corellian holding patterns. It’s like a drunk tank, basically, but they use it for not just drunk people. It’s people who are in holding until they post their very small bail or their court date happens. There’s that, but under the picture there’s a pretty long list of misdemeanors, solicitation, because you figured out it was easier to get busted for solicitation and pretend you were being a prostitute than what you were actually doing, which was trying to rob people.
LAURA: Oh, yeah. Xianna’s definitely figured that out. ‘Ohh, if they think I’m a prostitute they just let me go… They usually don’t even check my pockets…’
NICK: Yup. So there’s a lot of solicitation things. You see that there is some burglary, but it all seems to be minor theft, and then there’s a lot of alleged things or skipped bails or warrants out in various places. The list is a little hard to read. It’s got—not the same thing as Sabos where nothing’s linked, but it’s obvious that the system’s a little messed up because a bunch of it is CorSec but then there’s some Imperial stuff and those systems don’t mesh real well, so whoever was looking for her would have some problems. She’s like a 5,000 Credit bounty. It’s solid.
CAMERON: “Hey, you’re worth more than Sabos.”
STEVEN: When we discover that I say, “Oh, you’re a bad girl?”
LAURA: (exasperated laughs)
STEVEN: “You like bad boys?”
LAURA: Xianna’s just like, “I will shoot you.”
STEVEN: (laughs) “That’s what the thing said.”
HUDSON: “Look me up!”
(laughter)
CAMERON: Okay. I look up Tink.
NICK: Tink’s not in there, at all.
HUDSON: I knew it.
NICK: What’s Tink’s holo-net alias?
LAURA: “Do you have any fake names?”
HUDSON: “StarDestroyer1.”
(laughter)
LAURA: “Yes. Look up StarDestroyer1!”
NICK: So, StarDestroyer1, it looks like a default Facebook profile. It’s got just the outline picture silhouette. It says StarDestroyer1, it says Alleged Low-Level Slicer, and that’s it. It says Insert Allegations Here, Insert Warrants Here, like it’s all mostly blanked out. So, he’s either an amazing slicer who’s cracked the CorSec and Imperial systems, or he’s done not very much and he’s not in there, and it’s hard to tell.
LAURA: It could be either one. (gasps) “Karma! Are you worth anything?”
CAMERON: “I don’t think so.”
LAURA: “Look it up!”
CAMERON: I look myself up.
NICK: Yeah, so you have a full profile, but it’s all accolades. You’re not wanted for anything. There were a couple of removed threats. There are some dismissed allegations that you can see like grayed out with lines through them, and it’s some violence charges that got thrown out, some disturbing the peace charges that got thrown out, things that you may have collected as a bounty hunter that you either got dismissed or got overturned due to lack of evidence, but no, you’re squeaky clean. It actually links to another database which is of bounty hunters, and your profile there—it looks like LinkedIn. It’s all like, pretty, and it’s like, Qualifications, Known Associates, and there’s little pictures of your two twin sons below yours in the contacts thing. The weird thing if you are looking over Karma’s shoulder is the Known Associates tab maxes out. It just keeps going, way past, it just says 99+ and it runs out.
CAMERON: And then if you look at the Friend Requests it’s like also maxed out.
HUDSON: What a socialite.
CAMERON: But I can’t add more people to my profile, so. (laughs)
NICK: Yeah. Well, it’s not like the bounty hunter social media. That would be… Oh. Bounty hunter social media pun, guys?
LAURA: BountyBook.
NICK: FaceBounty?
LAURA: Mm… My Bounty.
NICK: … SpaceBase. SpaceHunt.
HUDSON: iBounty.
NICK: Egh, that just sounds like electronic paper towels.
LAURA: HuntersOnly.
(laughter)
NICK: HuntersOnly.com, that’s it!
STEVEN: That’s what it is.
LAURA: Great.
NICK: HuntersOnly.com is a different thing. This is just the Imperial records thing, so it has basically—you’ve maxed out its thing. If you go to HuntersOnly.com, which you do have a profile—you don’t look at it very much, but a lot of people are really into it. I think the twins made you a profile at one point.
CAMERON: (laughs)
NICK: That one is just totally full of stuff. There’s a bunch of people that you don’t even know that wanna be friends with you. That one’s really maxed out. But as far as this one, you just have a lot of known associates in the bounty hunting world.
LAURA: Going back to mine, how many like known aliases were listed on mine?
NICK: We’ll say six known aliases. What were they, Laura?
LAURA: Oh, and I have to write them down. Okay.
CAMERON: So we know not to use them.
LAURA: So I know, yeah, what they are.
HUDSON: Chris Angel.
NICK: Felicia Day.
HUDSON: Kate Bush.
LAURA: Yeah, there’s Felicia…
CAMERON: I feel like Xianna only ever gives first names.
LAURA: Yeah. There’s like, and it’s like, with a P-H.
STEVEN: Ooh.
NICK & CAMERON: Ahh.
LAURA: P-H-T-I-F-F. (giggles)
CAMERON: (laughing) Oh, that’s not what I was thinking it was.
NICK: ‘Pa-tiff’
LAURA: No, no, it’s T-I-P-H Tiff, there’s Roxie, Sion with an S, ooh the Lia would probably have a last name.
HUDSON: Alia Keys. (laughter) That makes me feel weird, not saying the name right.
STEVEN: Me too.
LAURA: I’m trying to think of the Twi’lek last names. There’s Lia Fortuna.
NICK: That works.
LAURA: And…
CAMERON: Oh yeah. Is Serene listed?
LAURA: Serene probably wouldn’t be.
CAMERON: I’m just wondering if Falx updated the entries.
LAURA: Ooh. Yeah.
NICK: Uh, no.
CAMERON: Or if he just knew it was a purple Twi’lek and didn’t specifically know it was Xianna.
NICK: Mmm…
CAMERON: Because I’m assuming she didn’t give her real name to the other guy either.
NICK: So I’ll say Serene is not listed on here. That’s all I’ll say about that.
CAMERON: Okay. Don’t use that one either. (laughs)
NICK: I’m going to avoid talking about my NPCs without them being in the room.
LAURA: And then the last one is Moa’tel.
NICK: Moa’tel.
LAURA: Yes.
CAMERON: Mo-tel.
NICK: Tell me Moa.
HUDSON: Like where you take your clients?
CAMERON: Yeah, motel.
HUDSON: To the motel?
NICK: Hotel. Holiday Inn.
(snickers)
LAURA: And then, how many arrests do you say are on there? Because I know I’ve been arrested a number of times, but how many do you think?
NICK: I think you’ve probably been arrested a few times, a handful of times. This particular database doesn’t register that. It’s only like the legal proceedings and stuff. So, that is not on there. You did say earlier that you’ve been arrested at least four times.
LAURA: At least.
NICK: At least. And the first planet that you all went to had been one of them, so that’s not a great sign.
LAURA: Eh.
STEVEN & CAMERON: (giggles)
LAURA: It’ll be fine.
HUDSON: “So, I have an idea for us getting through the barrier.”
CAMERON: “Go for it.”
HUDSON: “Alright. I think I can rig some credentials and send out a distress signal acting like this is from a very important vessel and that we have a high ranking official that we’ll disguise Sabos as, and he’ll be you know injured and looking in bad shape, and they’ll let us through so that we can immediately get him to the medical area, but then as we’re getting taken to the medical area we’ll overpower them and then get into the ship deeper.”
CAMERON: “We’re not trying to get into the ship. We’re trying to get to the planet.”
HUDSON: “Oh, sorry.”
CAMERON: “We just need to get past the blockade.”
LAURA: “So, similar concept. We say we are a political transport ship, and trying to get to the planet, and we have fake credentials.”
HUDSON: “Yes.”
STEVEN: “I am an ambassador.”
LAURA: “I don’t think that is true, but…”
HUDSON: He plays one on TV.
STEVEN: “It’s laminated, damn it.”
CAMERON: “We also learned that Osaron does not have the best relationship with the Empire at the moment.”
STEVEN: “Ehhh.”
CAMERON: “You are listed as having a bounty. Your badge does nothing for you right now.”
STEVEN: “Ehhh.”
LAURA: “I also have had laminated badges before. They can be faked.”
STEVEN: “We made this on Osaron.”
CAMERON: “Goodness.”
STEVEN: (laughs)
CAMERON: “Things I could help you with, Tink, on the creating fake credentials and getting through… I have the low clearance code cylinder from Duelson, and then he also told us that the low frequencies are easier to sneak through than the high.”
HUDSON: “Alright. I can program that.” I program that.
CAMERON: (laughs) I hand over the code cylinder.
NICK: Okay, so, while you’re flying to Ithor you’re going to try to forge low class Imperial credentials. That’s what you’re trying to do?
CAMERON & HUDSON: Yes.
CAMERON: If you could then make it so that we don’t show up on their scanners too, that would be better, but having the credentials in place in case we don’t make it through…
HUDSON: Okay. I try the credentials first.
NICK: Okay. For the credentials it’s going to be hard. You can have a blue die because you know about the low frequency thing. You can upgrade one die because you have the code cylinder to work off of. You also have two black die, because the last time you tried to hack a Star Destroyer you left your signature, StarDestroyer1, over a bunch of stuff. Or, I think you put ‘leet hacker.’
HUDSON: I have Bypass Security. Remove a black die rank from checks made to disable a security device or open a security door. Oh, no. Per rank of code breaker—I don’t do codebreaker right now. I can reroll if I want.
NICK: Cool. Great. What’s that, once per session?
HUDSON: yes, once per session.
CAMERON: You need two black dice.
HUDSON: Four successes, two threats.
NICK: Okay. Your threats are gonna get spent. You are always pretty careful when you’re forging stuff. You pretty much do the forgery, go back and redo it, and then double check everything. So, you’re able to get something made that avoids activating that little boobytrap about they know what your signature is. The threats are you don’t figure out that signature is in their database, so you include it. The stuff is gonna work, you got four successes, it’s solid. The credentials themselves will not be suspect in any way, but you’re still gonna have this issue the next time you try to hack a Star Destroyer. They know there’s someone who’s been able to get through their system.
HUDSON: Yeah.
NICK: So, yeah. You make some solid ass ship credentials for like Petty navy Officer, I don’t know. What do you name your guy?
HUDSON: George Jetson.
NICK: George Jetson. (laughter) Petty navy Officer George Jetson gets made. Yeah. You got it, it’s got a picture on it. It’s actually a picture of Sabos, but a human Sabos.
HUDSON: Eww.
NICK: Like, the head tails are gone, and you photoshopped it around a little bit, so it looks pretty believable as long as they don’t like see Sabos in person. So, you have got some credentials.
HUDSON: Mm-hmm. Alright! I high-five Karma.
CAMERON: Yeah!
LAURA: Nice.
STEVEN: “I make a good Imperial. … Oh, shit, uh—(garbled speech)
CAMERON: “Can you turn off our camera so that when we get hailed it’s voice only from our side?”
HUDSON: “Yeah. I can make it break accidentally.”
CAMERON: “Yeah.”
LAURA: “None of us are human.”
CAMERON: “Yeah. If they see any of us this isn’t gonna work.”
HUDSON: I break the camera.
NICK: Oh, you just break it?
LAURA: “No, you don’t have to break it!”
CAMERON: I wanted you to like remove the wire so that we can—(laughter)
HUDSON: “It’s now too late. The camera’s broken.”
LAURA: “You just had to disable it. Ugh.”
NICK: So, Karma and Tink are standing up front, you have that conversation. You go, oh yeah, and take out a wrench and go whack whack whack, and punch a little hole in the dashboard.
CAMERON: (sighs) Okay…
STEVEN: That makes me twitch a little bit when I see him take out the wrench, and I don’t really know why.
HUDSON: The blood loss.
STEVEN: Yeah, you know, the head fixing wrench.
CAMERON: “Alright. Then do we wanna try and set us up to not show up on scans?”
HUDSON: “I’ll go for it.” I go for it.
NICK: Alright. How are you trying to not show up on scans? What exactly are you trying to do? Normally you would do that with a highly specialized stealth suite that is military only and extremely expensive.
HUDSON: Actually, we don’t want to do that, because that’s actually suspicious if we’re acting like we’re a real ship, like a real envoy.
NICK: That’s true.
HUDSON: So, I don’t do that.
NICK: That would be like trying to sneak into somewhere and then when they get there be like, oh hi, I’m your cousin, nice to see you.
CAMERON: Oh, did we have that turned on? Whoops.
NICK: Yeah. I mean, you could pull it off, it would just be difficult.
STEVEN: Did we the petty officer have that device on the ship? Yeah, that’s normal I’m sure.
NICK: Yeah, you’d be able to talk your way through it, it just wouldn’t be easy. So, cool. You guys are set up, and you have a way to try to spoof your way past the blockade and get down to planet, and that’s where we’ll end the episode.
(all make dramatic noises)
## 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.
Xianna has used Corellian Coffee to get through many tough mornings on the ship. First mentioned in Episode 14, there are two ways to make this drink.
The Laura Way and the Xianna Way.
Corellian Coffee
The Laura Way is to use freshly brewed French Press coffee, a Scotch whiskey, some Irish cream, a few dashes of chocolate bitters, and garnished with whipped cream.
The Xianna Way is to use whatever coffee is there (probably from yesterday), and then add whatever alcohol is closest (from a flask, whatever mini bottles are laying around the kitchen, or an open bottle picked up off the floor). The Afternoon Delight does seem to have a decent stock of Kenobi’s Irish Cream, so that is a must. Then drink until you can’t feel your emotions anymore.
We recommend the Laura Way. For many reasons.
Laura’s Corellian Coffee
Correllian Coffee [serves 1]
1½ ounce Irish whiskey
1 ounce Irish cream liqueur (“Kenobi’s Irish Cream”)
8 ounces coffee, hot
3 dashes Aztec chocolate bitters (optional )
Garnish: whipped cream
Add ingredients to a warm mug. Stir to combine. Garnish.
Look at that swirl
Word document download: Episode 7 Shootout At the Space Rock Corral
PDF download: Episode 7 Shootout At the Space Rock Corral
Read in browser:
Tabletop Squadron Transcript
Season 1 Episode 7: “Shootout At The Space Rock Corral”
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.
We return this week to our regularly scheduled programming. Thanks for sticking with us during our Jedi Adventures.
I have a big announcement. We are looking for some constructive feedback, and have made a short two minute survey. There’s a link in the notes for the episode and on our Twitter. If you’ve listened to the show, which you are, swing by and let us know how we’re doing. This is your chance to shape the media you listen to, and everything’s anonymous, so no pressure.
I want to thank HungryMan174 for their iTunes review. You are a shining star against the dark tyranny of us… not having enough iTunes reviews. Remember everyone, if you get to 20 iTunes reviews we’ll be releasing a flashback starring Karma and her twin boys. It was a blast to record and we want to share it, so tell your friends to review the show.
Thanks for tuning in, and I hope you enjoy.
##
NICK: Hello everybody, and welcome to Episode 7 of Tabletop Squadron. Welcome back. We’ve been doing this for quite a while now. We’re gonna go around the table, and everybody introduce yourselves and say who you are playing, starting with Steven.
STEVEN: Hi, I’m Steven.
NICK: Hi Steven.
STEVEN: Hi Nick. I’m playing—
NICK: How are you?
STEVEN: … Now I’m super confused. I am both playing Sabos good doing well who’s a Togruta pretty well and I haven’t spent any experience. I’m okay.
(laughter)
NICK: Great. Cool. (laughing) And next up, we have Hudson.
HUDSON: Hi Nick. I’m Hudson, and I’m playing a Gigoran named Tink.
NICK: Good for you.
HUDSON: Good for me.
NICK: We’re all very proud.
HUDSON: Thank you.
NICK: And, Cameron.
CAMERON: Hello.
NICK: Hi!
CAMERON: I’m Cameron.
NICK: Good to meet you.
CAMERON: (laughs) Right. I’m playing Karma, the Nautolan bounty hunter.
NICK: Yay.
LAURA: Have you two not met before?
CAMERON: No.
NICK: This is the first time. The previous episodes was a different name.
LAURA: Wow, that wedding must have been really awkward.
CAMERON: Yeah, it was an arranged marriage. I regret it.
STEVEN: Nick, meet my friend Cameron.
NICK: Oh, hi. Good to see you.
CAMERON: I’m new here. I just came with Steven.
NICK: Oh boy. I’m gonna have to delete all of this.
(laughter)
NICK: Last up, we have Laura.
LAURA: Hi, I’m Laura, and I play Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler.
NICK: Horray. Good job being professional and getting through it without getting distra—
LAURA: Dicks!
(laughter)
NICK: Great. Off to a great start.
LAURA: Leave, that, in.
NICK: It’s gonna be in.
STEVEN: That’s what she said—Ohh.
(groans)
LAURA: Don’t leave that in.
HUDSON: Leave that one in too.
LAURA: That’s also what she said. All of it.
CAMERON: Who are you, Nick?
NICK: Oh, I’m Nick. I’m the GM. I do everybody else.
STEVEN: Have you met Cameron?
NICK: Oh, hey Cameron, good to meet you.
CAMERON: (giggling) Hi! It’s nice to meet you. Weird, we have the same last name.
NICK: Oh yeah.
STEVEN: That’s awkward.
NICK: Okay. Well, we have now established that we are all friends who know each other, so now we can get started in Star Wars. And, by getting started in Star Wars, of course I mean the Destiny Roll.
STEVEN: Ah yes, destiny.
NICK: Ah-ha. A great RPG shooter.
CAMERON: Heyyy.
LAURA: Two light side points! Ha-ha.
STEVEN: Two dark side.
HUDSON: Two dark side points from me.
CAMERON: Get your shit together.
HUDSON: I’m sorry!
STEVEN: Ooh, another light side point.
CAMERON: One dark side.
HUDSON: And, so it’s even.
STEVEN: Yep, three light side, three dark side.
STEVEN: Better than last game.
LAURA: Yes.
CAMERON: Yes, much better than last.
NICK: We are neutral, which is appropriate for where we’re starting.
If you remember, when we last left off you finally got off of Unroola Dawn after killing some Imperial officers, learning some interesting facts about Xianna’s criminal past and Sabos’s also criminal past.
STEVEN: Just inept.
NICK: Inept past, we’ll go with that. You made a decision to smuggle more than just the things you originally had come to procure, and you got off of the planet. That’s where we’re gonna start this time. You’ll remember that you got a notification that there was somebody in the holo-theater. There was a transmission coming in, and you all went to the holo-theater, and you saw a sentinel sitting down. A hologram of sentinel, not real sentinel, that would be weird. He says, “Alright, so you managed to make the deal. Now it seems like we’ve got a lot to talk about.” Then, we’re gonna kick it off.
Sentinel starts off without preamble. He makes eye contact with all of you which is impressive because you’re spread out pretty far. He is sitting down, wearing a brown kind of shapeless robe. He has salt and pepper hair slicked back. He looks older, he looks very much in control, and he says, “You are going to deliver this artifact to the Oracle of the Ithorians on Ithor. You will be able to contact them when you get on the surface. Tell them you have a gift from an old friend, and that the friend assures him the light will never go out from the universe. The Oracle’s inner circle will know what that means, but you’ll need to get to them to explain. However, that’s the easy part. Ithor is under an Imperial blockade, a large one. The flagship for the armada is a super star destroyer, the Vengeance. You will need to find some way to get to the surface past the blockade. You’re gonna need stealth or some form of trickery. I’ll leave that solution up to you. Once down on the planet, deliver the Stone Breaker to the Oracle and find the shop called The Gooberfish nearby. There will be a contact there. Use the same passphrase. He will give you instructions on the last leg of the mission. After that, you will be paid, with potentially more contracts afterwards. Any questions?”
LAURA: “Um, is there a timeframe for this delivery?”
NICK: “Every minute that you delay more Ithors are squashed under the Imperial boot, so immediately.
LAURA: “Oh, so more like an existential timeframe, not like it will expire or anything like that. Not saying that we are not going to be quick and professional with our delivery, just you know, in case we have to make any pit stops along the way.”
NICK: “You will need to make a pit stop if you’re picking up any technology to skip past the blockade.”
STEVEN: “Yes.”
NICK: “Besides that you should be headed there right away. We don’t know how much longer this blockade will last until they do ground infiltration. Any minute you delay is an extreme risk.”
LAURA: “Yeah… Okay.” What was the passphrase again?
CAMERON: The light will never go out in the universe.
It’s the what oracle?
NICK: His title is The Oracle, yeah, on Ithor.
HUDSON: I’m going to whisper, “But wait, aren’t we supposed to do that other job first?”
STEVEN: “No.”
NICK: Roll me a Force die please.
CAMERON & TINK: Two light side.
NICK: Yeah. You were very subtle. Everyone in the room hears, and the holo-projector does not pick that up.
LAURA: Xianna gives him like a little jab in the side. It’s probably like more your hip because of height, but just like a, “Shh.”
HUDSON: “Ow.”
(laughter)
LAURA: And just keeps looking at him like, “Uh-huh, yes. A speedy delivery. Uh-huh. Got it.”
NICK: “Any other questions?”
CAMERON: “So, we’re delivering the Stone Breaker to the Oracle…”
NICK: “Yes.”
CAMERON: “Ithorian lives may be lost…”
NICK: “Many.”
LAURA: “I mean, in a general sense, there is a blockade.”
CAMERON: “Like, it normally happens with Imperial blockades.”
LAURA: “Many planets are under Imperial blockade. Just saying.”
NICK: “I feel like I should mention that they’re periodically bombarding communities.”
LAURA: “Really? Really?!”
CAMERON: “Oh, see, that does explain the deaths.”
LAURA: “You’re going to tell me, a Twi’lek, about periodic bombardments of a planet?”
NICK: “Clearly you may have had some experience on Ryloth of similar tactics, but if you’re planning on doing some sort of side trip I would remind you that thousands of people could be obliterated in laser fire at any moment.”
STEVEN: “Just enough to get past the blockade.”
NICK: “Enough what?”
STEVEN: “Just enough side trip to get past the blockade.”
NICK: “Yeah, that would be a good recommendation, either come up with some sort of plan to circumvent their technology, or some sort of stealth, or some sort of ruse. I don’t know. That’s why I hired you all.”
LAURA: “We’ll figure it out.”
CAMERON: “Do you have any nifty things on your ship?”
NICK: “Um, not really.”
CAMERON: “Cool. Just wondering.”
NICK: “You may find with some careful searching that there are some great places to hide things,” and he winks into the camera.
LAURA: “Uh-huh. Yes. I figured it out already.”
NICK: “Oh, well, yeah. That’s pretty much it, smugglers compartments.”
CAMERON: “Cool. Alright, just checking.”
LAURA: “Is there any more alcohol?”
NICK: “I’m surprised that that’s your prior—Actually, I’m not surprised that that’s your priority. You can restock, I suppose, but the wet bar is pretty much it.”
LAURA: “Eh, okay.”
NICK: Well, you’ll remember, you haven’t drank it all. There’s several half bottles still in there.
LAURA: No, I know, but I remember you saying there’s just kind of like weirdly basic stuff.
NICK: Well, so, it was a full bar, but a lot of it is empty and what’s left is like quarter bottles, so it was on a long party trip and didn’t get restocked before you took it off.
LAURA: Xianna kind of like holds her hand up and she’s like, “Ooh, are there any flags out for this ship? Like, do we need to get false credentials specifically for this ship?”
NICK: “The Afternoon Delight is not the original name of the ship.”
LAURA: “I mean, that does not matter, but…”
NICK: “It’s a clean identity. It’s a clean registration.”
CAMERON: “Okay.”
LAURA: “Got it.”
NICK: “So you should be fine there, although if you can find some sort of registration that would let you pass an Imperial blockade, that could be one way to do it.”
CAMERON: “Who is it registered to?”
NICK: “Shell corporations, nothing that fancy.”
CAMERON: “Okay. Just wondering, in case that comes up.”
NICK: (goofily) “Uh, it’s registered to Star Corp.”
CAMERON: “Cool. Thank you.”
NICK: “Anything else?”
CAMERON: “At The Gooberfish, do we just walk in and tell the bartender the passphrase, or is there a particular person we should be on the lookout for, or is it just walk into the bar and scream at the top of our lungs and see if anyone responds?”
NICK: “Haven’t you done covert exchanges before? You’ll know.”
LAURA: “I got this.”
CAMERON: “I’m normally dealing with law enforcement officials.”
NICK: “So you’ll know.”
STEVEN: (laughs)
LAURA: Xianna’s just kind of shaking her head. “I got this. We will be fine. Probably.”
NICK: “Something tells me that you’ll recognize the contact. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
CAMERON: “Okay.”
LAURA: “It’s always good when they say that.” (giggles)
NICK: “Absolutely. Well, if there’s no more questions…” The feed starts to get kind of staticky, and you think you maybe hear blaster fire, and it cuts out.
LAURA: Xianna’s like “Okay byeee.”
NICK: And sentinel is gone.
HUDSON: “That was weird.”
STEVEN: “This is a wonderful ship.”
NICK: As you say that, the lights dim up automatically to a comfortable level, because they had dimmed once the holo-call started.
LAURA: Nice.
STEVEN: Yesss.
LAURA: “Okay. So, we need to deliver the briefcase very quickly, so no shenanigans from any of you, and by any of you I think you two know who you are.”
HUDSON: “I get the feeling that Sabos doesn’t know the definition of shenanigans.”
CAMERON: “He seems very good at them.”
HUDSON: “Yeah, I know. He’s just blissfully unaware.”
STEVEN: “I’m just gonna fly us there.”
LAURA: “Also, can we have a, how you say, team meeting for a moment? Sabos, are you actually a politician, or are you some sort of a con artist?”
STEVEN: “What’s the difference?”
(Vocal drums crashing noises, “ba-dum-tss”)
(laughter)
LAURA: Xianna sighs. “Well, for one, a politician sticks around and actually occasionally accomplishes things and continues using the same name. A con artist hits and runs. So, you changed your name, you don’t use your real name.”
STEVEN: “Oh, definitely politician.”
LAURA: “Like, if you noticed I gave a fake name on the planet.”
STEVEN: “Oh.”
LAURA: “You do not have to keep calling me Serene anymore. that was a fake name.”
STEVEN: “Oh. Yeah, no. I’m…”
LAURA: “So you are a regular politician, just very bad?”
STEVEN: “I mean, it depends on what you mean regular. Osaron isn’t necessarily a recognized colony.”
CAMERON: (sighs) “Oh my gosh.”
LAURA: “So, where did all that money go? What did he say, a hundred thousand something credits?”
CAMERON: “A hundred thousand credits.”
STEVEN: “I mean, Osaron, my home planet, my new home planet…”
CAMERON: “Yep, we get it.”
STEVEN: “Osaron …”
CAMERON: “Uh-huh.”
LAURA: “So the credits where?”
STEVEN: “Well, it was a very underdeveloped planet that we took over, and we used the Imperial credits to—“
LAURA: “Wait wait wait, are you colonialists? Not like you are making colonies, but like you are kicking out indigenous peoples?”
STEVEN: “Oh, there were no indigenous peoples that we encountered.”
LAURA: (reluctantly) “Okay… I mean—“
STEVEN: “Yup. We never encountered any indigenous Osa—I mean… There’s no indigenous people on Osaron.”
LAURA: “Huh…”
HUDSON: “Hmm…”
LAURA: “Okay then.”
CAMERON: “Is there really?” (laughs)
STEVEN: Everything’s fine.
NICK: I feel like this calls for a Deception check.
LAURA, CAMERON & HUDSON: Yeaaah.
STEVEN: Sure.
LAURA: What’s Xianna’s Perception?
STEVEN: I have wonderful Deception.
LAURA: My Perception, that would be three purple, one red.
NICK: What’s Karma’s Perception?
CAMERON: I’ve got a red and two purple.
NICK: Tink, are you paying attention to their conversation at all?
HUDSON: Yeah, I’m just kind of sighing.
CAMERON: How many Perception do you have?
NICK: Okay. What’s your Perception score?
HUDSON: Oh, Perception would be two.
STEVEN: Perfect. Yeah, this is fine.
CAMERON: So four total, two red, two purple.
NICK: Yeah, because you’re lying to all of them.
STEVEN: Sure. Yeah, that’s cool.
NICK: Two red, two purple.
STEVEN: That’s cool.
LAURA: Okay yeah, because his cunning is only a two.
NICK: You can flip a dark side point to upgrade Sabos’s roll.
STEVEN: Yeah.
NICK: Getting a little loose with the rules.
EVERYONE: Ooooh.
STEVEN: Not much going.
CAMERON: Two failures, a threat, and a despair.
HUDSON: We are about to throw you out of the ship.
(laughter)
CAMERON: We found a hole we can use!
LAURA: Yeah.
NICK: Oh yeah. It’s pretty skinny. Eh, whatever.
CAMERON: One head tail at a time.
LAURA: I mean, yeah. One body part goes down, and yeah.
NICK: I think you’ve just found the subtitle for the show.
LAURA & CAMERON: One head tail at a time.
NICK: Tabletop Squadron: One Head Tail At A Time.
Okay, so the way this is gonna play out with the failures and the despair especially, everyone stares at you looking extremely nonplused, and you get real nervous, and you’re gonna say exactly what happened on Osaron here.
STEVEN: Oh, sure. “You see, we Togrutas that had to leave Shili for absolutely no reason at all had nothing to do with, you know, not being contributing members of—never mind—for absolutely no reason at all had to find a new place to live, and you know, we were just astrogating through the galaxy as one might say, and we came upon this.. well, this planet that was clear had something happen to it. So, we decided to investigate and land there, and yeah, sure enough the Empire just finished like, you know, Impericalling the planet. There was a couple left, and you know we ran the couple of Storm Troopers that were still left out, and just settled here. And uh, you know, there might’ve been some indigenous people, you know, with the Empire. As it turns out, when you kind of squat on a planet after the Empire done, you know, Empire’d it, (laughter) they start to think you might owe them for something. But it’s a great planet now, great planet, great flora, great fauna, good place for a Togruta to raise their young.”
(laughter)
LAURA: Um… Huh.
NICK: So at this point Sabos is like streaming sweat and looking extremely nervous, and wringing his hands.
STEVEN: And my head tails.
LAURA: “Huh… I do not like you.”
STEVEN: “I mean, we needed somewhere to go.”
CAMERON: “I still don’t understand why you didn’t pay the Empire back if you’re going to be stupid enough to make deals with them.”
STEVEN: “We just didn’t have any money. It was expensive.”
CAMERON: “Well, yeah.”
LAURA: “Did you not have some sort of trade?”
STEVEN: “Like I said, it was a very underdeveloped planet.”
CAMERON: “You keep telling us that you’re an ambassador who is trying to set up trade routes.”
STEVEN: “Indeed.”
CAMERON: “If you have nothing to trade—“
STEVEN: “Correct.”
CAMERON: “—what are you doing?”
STEVEN: “Getting things to us.” (laughing) “It’s more of a one-sided trade.”
LAURA: “And you keep saying underdeveloped planet.”
STEVEN: “Indeed.”
LAURA: “I get that the planet was underdeveloped before you arrived, but Togrutans as a people have technologies, because you know you flew there in your space ships.”
STEVEN: “And we brought these technologies to the people of the planet.”
CAMERON: “There were Togrutans on the planet already?”
STEVEN: “No, that’s the people on the planet.”
LAURA: “So, how do you not have some sort of trade or manufacturing or artisan goods?”
STEVEN: “We’re not in the best graces with the other Togrutas as one might imagine.”
CAMERON: “Did you take anyone with any useful skills with you?”
STEVEN: “No.”
CAMERON: “Or did you just take the useless Togrutans?”
LAURA: “Did you even take prostitutes? They would make money. No?”
STEVEN: “Just, I mean…”
CAMERON: “Just the Togrutans like you.”
STEVEN: “Yeah, we went there for a reason.”
LAURA: “Oh, they got kicked out. They got kicked out. I got it.”
CAMERON: “Oh, okay. It makes sense. Alright, making more sense now. That’s how they thought differently than the rest of the Togrutans on the home world.”
STEVEN: (laughs)
LAURA: “What are the rest of them doing? Do they not just have jobs?”
NICK: Sabos looks real sad as you point out that he got kicked out.
STEVEN: “Eh, it was mutual. That’s entirely what happened. Yep, yep, and—yep.”
LAURA: (sighs) “Okay. We do not trust him with anything, and um…”
STEVEN: “I wasn’t the bad guy here.”
LAURA: “You do not get any fun things. If we get fun things you do not get them. Agreed?”
CAMERON: “Agreed.”
STEVEN: “I wasn’t the bad guy, just… We went to Osaron because that’s close and we needed somewhere to go…”
CAMERON: “Mm-hmm.”
STEVEN: “And we just decided to exploit—I mean, to develop the planet.”
LAURA: (hushed) “Tink. Tink. You just have to say you agree. Say you agree. Just say agree.”
HUDSON: “I… I agree.”
LAURA: “Okay. We are agreed. Sabos does not get fun things if we find things.”
STEVEN: “I’m with you, Tink. I’m with you.”
HUDSON: “You get no fun things.”
STEVEN: I rub my head tail against Tink as we leave.
CAMERON: Oh god.
LAURA: Eww.
HUDSON: I push you harder against the wall.
NICK: Okay. So you all leave the holo-theater. What is your destination?
STEVEN: The coordinates on the box.
CAMERON: The coordinates on the briefcase, right?
LAURA: Yes. Well, the data pad was given to use with coordinates that were handed to…
CAMERON: Sabos.
STEVEN: Yup.
LAURA: So he has those to punch in, and then I guess the plan is fly to those coordinates and try to accomplish what we were set to do: hand off this briefcase.
NICK: Okay. Cool. Sabos, I’m assuming you’re the one with the coordinates, so make me an Astrogation check please.
STEVEN: Sure. How hard is it?
NICK: Hard.
CAMERON: Can I help? Since I’m in the…
NICK: Yeah, you can help.
LAURA: I mean, Tink can also help.
HUDSON: I can help with Astrogation.
CAMERON: Yeah. Do you wanna come up and be our navigator?
HUDSON: I can’t- I don’t-
LAURA: You don’t have a rank in it—
CAMERON: But you’re super smart.
LAURA: But you’re intelligent.
HUDSON: I’m very intelligent, so I can help, yes.
CAMERON: Yeah. Come hang out with us.
NICK: You can use your Intelligence score and his Astrogation training.
CAMERON: So that’s how that works.
LAURA: That means it would be your four for Intelligence but his two.
NICK: Okay. Well, roll first. Let’s see what happens.
STEVEN: That’s a lot of successes.
CAMERON: Three successes and a threat.
NICK: Nice. What does this scene look like as Tink who doesn’t know how to astrogate is smarter than you and helps you astrogate?
CAMERON: He knows how the computer works. (laughs)
STEVEN: “Yeah, yeah. See, this data pad thing, like I said I got kicked off Shili. We don’t really have data pads.”
LAURA: I bet he’s like putting the coordinates into the wrong—Like, he’s putting the X axis coordinate into the Y.
CAMERON: We saw him last time trying to turn on the ship and just doing everything. He has no clue… He knows how to figure out the route we need to take, but he doesn’t know how to put that into the computer at all. (laughing) But Tink understands.
HUDSON: “Click the square. No, the square. No, the square. Sabos, Sabos no, Sabos, do you know what a square is?” (groans)
STEVEN: “I astrogate by maps and stars. All this new technology…”
HUDSON: “You do not use any kind of manual—No, you don’t. Just type it in.”
CAMERON: “Is this why you were looking for landmarks last time?”
STEVEN: “Yeah. Trees.”
CAMERON: “You weren’t going into hyperspace the last times you were flying things?”
STEVEN: “Trees are the best landmarks.”
CAMERON: “You were just manually flying those long distances?”
STEVEN: (incredulously) “You can hyperspace… just, time.”
(laughter)
NICK: So, the scene is Karma in the co-pilot seat, Sabos in the pilot seat, and after a minute he switches and Tink sits down, and Sabos starts leading off calculations and Tink does data entry. It works super well. You guys are very successful, and it actually is bringing you somewhere that is not on the galactic map at all. It is a place, but there’s nothing there as far as the map is concerned.”
LAURA: We were told-
LAURA & CAMERON: It was an asteroid belt.
NICK: Yeah, but it’s not on the maps. According to this it’s empty space.
LAURA: So, Xianna would probably be familiar with asteroid ports, like shadow ports that are sometimes built into asteroids or just floating stations, so she assumes it’s something like that.
NICK: Mm-hmm. So, you put it in. It looks like it’ll probably take about six hours to get there. It is in the exact wrong direction to Ithor…
CAMERON: Yeah.
STEVEN: Awesome.
NICK: So, it will take longer to get there. Something potentially bad could happen while you’re driving the wrong direction, and by driving I mean flying, of course. Something bad could happen while you’re flying the wrong direction, but that’s your chosen route. You punch it in, hit the lever, the stars turn into lines, and off we go. You guys have six hours in hyperspace. Is there anything you’re gonna do with that time?
LAURA: While the rest of them were arguing Xianna was already rifling through ay cabinet she could find, especially in—I’m assuming there’s like a dining area.
NICK: Mm-hmm.
LAURA: She’s just going through and looking in everything trying to figure out what there is.
NICK: Okay, so you want a full inventory of what’s on the ship?
LAURA: Pretty much. Also, if she finds any like fun little snack cakes she’s gonna eat those while looking around, (laughter) because thinking about it I don’t think we’ve eaten in a while.
CAMERON: We had dinner at the manor.
STEVEN: We had monkey.
LAURA: Yeah, so we have eaten dinner the previous day.
CAMERON: Yeah. (laughs)
LAURA: Yeah, so Xianna’s just gonna take the space equivalent of a zebra cake and just start eating it while looking through stuff.
NICK: Okay.
STEVEN: “Also, if anyone’s familiar with asteroid stuff we should figure out if there’s cloaking devices in the…”
LAURA: I mean, are you talking like the physics of an asteroid belt, or are you asking about like underworld things?
STEVEN: No, the tradings. Yes, the dealings which might go on.
LAURA: So, someone who might have-
LAURA & CAMERON: Underworld. (laughs)
STEVEN: Indeed.
LAURA: Yes. Some of us have that Knowledge skill.
HUDSON: I have that Knowledge.
NICK: Okay, a couple of checks. I need either a Perception or a Skullduggery check from Xianna for searching the ship, and then if someone wants to do Underworld Knowledge about cloaking devices.
LAURA: What was the difficulty?
NICK: Let’s do average.
HUDSON: And what’s my difficulty? I’m doing the Underworld check.
NICK: Yours is gonna be hard.
LAURA: Nice. Five successes.
NICK: What do you want to find on this ship? What were you hoping to find?
CAMERON: Well, obviously zebra cakes.
NICK: Yeah, so you find a case of space zebra cakes.
LAURA: Oh, but they have to have a fun name. But yeah, I just wanna make sure we have lots of food.
NICK: Bantha cakes?
CAMERON: That doesn’t sound cute.
LAURA: No, they’re like blue…
NICK: Porg cakes?
(groans)
STEVEN: Just porg filets.
LAURA: No, no, I want a bantha cake. It is like a very round shape, but it’s blue, and it’s called that because it’s made with bantha milk. So, it’d be the equivalent of a milk cake or something.
NICK: Yeah, so you find a whole case of those. It seems to be the one thing that wasn’t touched from all the supplies before you guys found the ship.
LAURA: Xianna also wants to find some mixers for the alcohol. There’s a fridge. And…
NICK: Okay. So the dining area is pretty big, and it’s actually separate from the kitchen area. The separate kitchen is designed for there to be staff on there, and the kitchen area is very well done. You could pretty much make whatever you want. There’s a decent amount of supplies, but it’s all very spotty, so there are some juices and things but it’s all the weird juice that you wouldn’t normally pick. It’s like, Dr. Skipper soda and things like that are left.
LAURA: Yeah. Off brands.
NICK: Mm-hmm, because most of it is already used.
LAURA: And then, with six hours, she also wants to look in any of the hallways or closets, and can there be some extra random clothes, and like makeup that’s been left behind? Just random little odds and end bits.
NICK: I’ll say with five successes on your check that throughout the ship you find basically the equivalent of one and a half costume changes for everybody.
LAURA: Cool.
NICK: So, not necessarily a full disguise, you could probably put a disguise on someone, but if you just wanted a different look for a different situation, there’s one and a half of those for each of you on the ship.
LAURA: Cool.
HUDSON: Okay.
NICK: So like, a different top hat for Tink, I guess. So that’s what you find. Tink, if you wanna make that Underworld check about cloaking devices and junk.
LAURA: Can I help with that?
HUDSON: I would love help with that. I’m upgraded.
NICK: So, since Xianna’s helping you, then you have… You’re following her around thinking out loud and she’s kinda helping you brainstorm why she’s up to her waist in cabinets.
LAURA: Okay, so then… Oh no.
HUDSON: This is, uh…
STEVEN: Not good.
HUDSON: So that gets cancelled out, right?
STEVEN: Yeah, that cancels, so that’s a…
HUDSON: That’s a failure and an advantage.
NICK: Okay. So, failure, you don’t know necessarily anyone who sells it. You do know that you can buy those things. Generally they’re illegal, because they’re military grade.
HUDSON: Have I checked the ship for this? Do we already have it?
STEVEN: I think we asked.
CAMERON: We asked if he had any cool things on his ship and he said no. he said we probably wanted to look into it, so probably not.
HUDSON: Oh, okay.
NICK: Yeah, the ship doesn’t really have anything like that.
CAMERON: And you know everything about the ship at this point.
NICK: Yeah, because you \won\ very early on. You are very familiar with the ship. You know that cloaking devices are illegal, because they are military grade technology. They’re very, very expensive and they’re hard to get. There are other things like jammers for scanners and things that you could use to get you a head start heading to a planet, but that’s about all you know. You’re not really sure where you would get one except for somewhere sketch. Xianna is helping you out the same way, and that’s about what you learn, because she’s more interested in searching so she’s not that helpful. She’s mostly wondering why you’re following her around.
LAURA: You probably get a few things thrown on you. Like, as I’m pulling things out, I’m just tossing stuff behind me, so a random scarf just falls over you.
HUDSON: Comically getting doused in random items.
CAMERON: Random costume changes.
LAURA: Oh yeah, like imagine how this scene would play out in a sitcom, and that’s what’s happening. So just like random things, every so often you just get like, you probably come away from the situation and you’re like wearing a bunch of clothes and have blush on your face now, splotches of fur are pink now.
CAMERON: Bright blue eye shadow.
HUDSON: Mm-hmm.
LAURA: But it’s not on his eyes, it’s just like on him in splotches as if I threw it and it just kind of like hit him and then fell down.
NICK: Dibs on a clown makeup face being on his chest.
HUDSON: Mm-hmm.
STEVEN: Two top hats.
LAURA: I mean, if you squint it kind of looks like a clown, maybe.
CAMERON: After we jump to hyperspace Karma leaves the cockpit and goes and takes a shower, because she’s kind of bloody and gross.
NICK: Yeah. There are several sanisteams in the ship. Everyone’s quarters have their own because this is a super nice ship.
CAMERON: Marvelous.
NICK: Yeah. You’re able to peel off your armor, get clean, you soak in a lot of the water because you’re aquatic.
CAMERON: It feels great.
NICK: The bacta’s doing a really good job of getting rid of any cuts and things. It won’t scar. You’re still pretty tender, the stitching will fall out eventually, but you’re also able to after you’re all clean you’re able to check through your armor and there’s no permanent damage on that either, so you’re able to repair that as well.
CAMERON: Nice.
LAURA: Very important question. Are there any hot tubs or Jacuzzis on this ship?
NICK: Oh, there absolutely is.
LAURA: Okay. That is how Xianna is gonna take a bath. She gets herself a nice drink and goes and sits in the Jacuzzi.
NICK: So the Jacuzzi is actually in the center of the ship, so…
LAURA: Oh, that’s fine.
NICK: Well, so there’s like, the living quarters are on one of the big storage containers, there’s another storage container that’s mostly for shipping, and then the middle spine of the ship has most of the important stuff like the cockpit and the engines and things like that. In the middle of that where you come up the ramp onto the ship there’s a big, round open entry way that has a centerpiece, it’s like a big, round pedestal, and there’s decorations on it, and there’s a hollow of a fountain. When you’re digging through the ship you find a little panel on the side and you start messing with it, and the top slides off, and there’s a large ten person Jacuzzi in the middle of the ship.
LAURA: Yes. Haha.
NICK: So, do you just like skinny dip in the Jacuzzi?
LAURA: So, Xianna probably goes back to her room, or like makes a drink, leaves it on the bar, goes to her room, takes off her clothes, and just like takes a tiny little towel and holds it around her, and that’s how she walks back through the ship, picks her drink up, and then goes to the hot tub and then just like gets in and skinny dips, but does leave the towel folded really nicely to the side.
NICK: Do you do like an origami towel fold or just really neat and square?
LAURA: It looks like a little loft cat.
NICK: Okay. Great.
LAURA: You do have to be told it’s supposed to be a loft cat.
(laughter)
NICK: Yeah.
LAURA: It’s one of those towel folds where you’re like, uh, it’s some sort of animal, but I don’t remember what. Hmm.
CAMERON: I can tell you were folding something.
NICK: Okay. You’re chilling out in the ship. You spend a couple hours drinking and hot tubbing it out.
LAURA: I mean, I let everyone else know that there’s a hot tub. Like, as I’m walking through holding my tiny, little towel around me, I’m just like, “Oh, there is a hot tub by the way. I am going in it.”
HUDSON: Is there a shower that fits me?
NICK: Yes.
HUDSON: Okay.
NICK: The showers go very high up, and the shower heads—the sanisteams, have a whole bunch of jets that just shoot out all at once. So, yeah, you can comfortably take a shower if you wish.
HUDSON: So, I take a hot sanisteam, and I sing in the shower, because that’s what I do.
NICK: Great.
STEVEN: I feel like you’re saying Santa steam.
CAMERON: Do you have your translator on when you take a shower or do you take the translator off?
HUDSON: Yes.
LAURA: No, I imagine you would take it off.
HUDSON: Really?
CAMERON: And just sing in Gigoran.
LAURA: Yeah, you’re just singing in Gigoran, which…
HUDSON: Okay, that makes more sense. Let’s do that.
CAMERON: Because you don’t want it to get wet.
HUDSON: True.
CAMERON: I’m sure it’s waterproof, for the future.
LAURA: Which we haven’t ever heard Gigoran in any sort of official canon stuff.
NICK: Ooh, what if it’s just a weird airy whistle or something?
LAURA: No, I have to imagine it’s more it’s similar to a Wookiee of just like weird growls and snarls but you can’t tell.
NICK: What’s a Gigoran mouth look like?
LAURA: Um…
NICK: What if it’s a proboscis.
CAMERON: (laughs)
HUDSON: It just sounds like a Binks with a cold.
(groans)
STEVEN: No…
LAURA: Yeah, there’s no new canon images of Gigorans without them from my knowledge.
NICK: Well, if you wanna sing with your mask on that makes it easier. We don’t have to guess. It’s waterproof, like you can swim in it.
HUDSON: I sing with my mask on.
NICK: Okay. What is your song that you like to sing in the shower?
HUDSON: The song of my people.
(laughter)
NICK: I walked into that one, I guess. Alright. You’re in the sanisteam taking a steam and singing. Karma is cleansing.
CAMERON: Yeah, so I shower and then like put my armor pants back on and like have a black tank top, and go and sit in one of the living areas and start fixing my armor before I put it back on.
NICK: Okay. Are you in the main area with the hot tub fixing things?
CAMERON: Yeah. I’m also cleaning all my guns, very in depth.
NICK: There’s a side table with a nice flower display and a big vase, and you set the base aside and slide it off, and it makes a pretty good work bench.
CAMERON: Yeah. I’m cleaning and shining my new vibro-sword, cleaning my blaster carbine, cleaning my vibro-knife, cleaning my heavy pistol, and cleaning my light blaster.
NICK: Great, you’re armed well.
CAMERON: I just dump all of it on the table.
NICK: And then Sabos, what are you doing?
STEVEN: I’m in the cockpit, and I’m flipping the switches on that she turned off before.
LAURA: Oh god.
NICK: For six hours?
STEVEN: Yes.
NICK: Okay, so…
CAMERON: He keeps finding new ones. (laughs)
STEVEN: Yeah, like I’m running out of switches and it’s kind of bugging me.
NICK: There’s one point, Xianna, while you’re taking your hot tub that the lid starts to slide back on.
(laughter)
LAURA: Xianna starts turning around, and like it’s starting to close, and she’s like, “No! No no no! Go flip the switch! No, put it back! Put the switch back!”
NICK: Karma probably runs over and flips it down on the base so it goes back.
CAMERON: I’m gonna throw my dagger at it so the hilt of it hit sit and flips it back on.
NICK: Wow, cool, okay.
CAMERON: Then I have to get up and go get my dagger, but I looked really cool.
LAURA: As she does that, Xianna’s like crawled out of the hot tub, like splayed out, and then she kind of pushes her empty glass. “If you are going to go that way, can you make me a new drink please? Thank you.”
CAMERON: (laughs)
NICK: Do you make her a drink?
CAMERON: Yeah!
NICK: Okay. So, Tink, at some point when you’re hanging out in your room doing stuff all the lights turn off, then they turn on, then your bunk beds turn into one big side-by-side bed then go back.
CAMERON: The shower gets really cold for a second.
HUDSON: “Who’s messing with me?”
NICK: (laughs)
HUDSON: “Sabos, if that’s you I’m gonna kick your ass!”
STEVEN: “Nothing’s happened.”
LAURA: Yeah, Xianna yells out, “Yes, Sabos is flipping all the switches in the cockpit!”
HUDSON: “Stop flipping switches, Sabos!”
LAURA: “He almost trapped me in the hot tub!”
NICK: The first switch Sabos flipped was the seal door into the cockpit, and the second switch he flipped was the com system, so he’s just back there like dum da-dum dum dum, and you’re all yelling at him, and he has no idea. Karma, from where you’re sitting you can see down the hallway into the main living quarters and a disco ball flips on, and you hear like Barry White singing and then it flips back off, and like another one a bunch of colored lights are flashing and then they flip back off.
CAMERON: Why are all these controls in the cockpit?
NICK: It just has a lot of switches.
STEVEN: It’s a fancy ship.
NICK: So, that all happens. Then after a while with these fun hijinks you come out of hyperspace and you are in a very small asteroid belt. It’s a lot of car sized asteroids that look like potatoes or shoes, a lot of zucchini looking asteroids, and there’s one bigger one that the rest seem to be orbiting around… Zucchini, yes.
CAMERON: Huh.
NICK: Yes. (laughs)
LAURA: Uh-huh…
CAMERON: Right. It’s a zucchini, sure.
NICK: Yeah, it is.
LAURA: Is it cucumber shaped?
STEVEN: Eggplant?
NICK: Nope, zucchini, it has the little pointy end.
CAMERON: Uh-huh…
LAURA: Ohh, okay…
NICK: Oh, this is getting worse.
LAURA: What zucchini are you looking at?
STEVEN: You know, zucchini.
CAMERON: It’s like, yeah, when it has the stem still on it.
LAURA: Oh! That’s what he means.
CAMERON: That’s what he means, yeah.
NICK: I’m glad you know what I’m trying to say.
CAMERON: Yeah, I got you. It’s okay.
LAURA: I was imagining…
CAMERON: (laughs) Yep. Nope.
NICK: All these smaller asteroids are orbiting around one larger asteroid that’s probably 500 meters across, and as it slowly rotates you see a port carved into it. It’s like most Star Wars entry things. It’s flat on the bottom, kind of semi-circly on top, and you see the slight shimmer of a ray shield in front of it, and it looks like a landing pad there.
STEVEN: I bring her in.
NICK: Alright. Make me a Piloting check on how smoothly you land.
STEVEN: Sure.
HUDSON: No trees this time.
STEVEN: This is gonna be fine guys.
CAMERON: I’m helping.
STEVEN: How hard is it?
NICK: Average, because you do have to lop through the asteroids, but they’re pretty slow.
CAMERON: Gah.
STEVEN: Well that worked out. Nothing happened at all.
CAMERON: Two advantages.
STEVEN: Yeah, two advantages.
NICK: Okay. With two advantages, you come straight in, you have to juke to the left at the last second. Karma grabs her piloting controls and does something that makes the ship kind of flip sideways, and you come in to land, and you land pretty hard and ungracefully. There’s a loud crunch. You’re not sure what part of the ship must have buckled a little, but you’re able to land, and through the front view port you see what looks like an oil drum fire and some fold up camping chairs that have some indistinct figures sitting on them, and as you land they immediately stand up and start to look suspicious. And you see that they are armed.
CAMERON: Cool.
STEVEN: Perfect.
CAMERON: I get out of the cockpit. I take my headband off, because then I’m just a Nautolan. Removing the distinguishable features from me.
HUDSON: Xianna should be out of the hot tub.
LAURA: Oh, yeah.
(laughter)
LAURA: Xianna got too pruney a while back. It was what, six hours? Yeah, I imagine she spent a while in there, and that would be like three hours. So, she probably went and took an actual sanisteam, dressed, maybe took a little bit of a nap, stuffed her pockets with bantha cakes.
NICK: Yeah, you guys have all had time.
LAURA: Oh yeah. I do have bantha cakes in my pockets now.
NICK: Okay. You can put them in your inventory if you want.
LAURA: Oh, it’s in there. I have four bantha cakes. I’m only taking four.
NICK: Roger that.
HUDSON: I have a light blaster.
CAMERON: Not yet.
HUDSON: Oh. Not yet?
CAMERON: Yeah.
HUDSON: Oh.
NICK: Okay. The ship lands. You are all aware that it’s landed.
CAMERON: So, I get up out of the cockpit, take my headband off, walk down to the main area where Tink is, and I pass him the light blaster I took off of Spark Duelson’s body. “Why don’t you hold onto this?”
HUDSON: (light gasp) “Thank you.” I take it.
CAMERON: “Do you know how it works?”
HUDSON: “Uh…”
CAMERON: (laughs)
HUDSON: “I’ll learn.”
CAMERON: “Cool. Great. Pull this trigger. Point this end at the person you want to shoot.”
HUDSON: “Oh, I know that much.”
CAMERON: “Well, okay. I didn’t know how basic we needed to get.”
NICK: So, you have a very obviously Imperial issue side arm, but you’ve got one. It’s got the little gear symbol on multiple parts of it.
HUDSON: I think it looks pretty cool.
NICK: Yeah, it looks cool.
LAURA: “Just put it in one of your side pockets on your little backpack.”
HUDSON: “Okay. You mean my utility belt?”
LAURA: Well no, you have a utility belt and a backpack.
HUDSON: Oh yeah, that’s right.
LAURA: Because we imagined that the utility belt is more of a bandolier style that you can then hold your vibro-axe on, but you also have a little backpack. I imagine it’s a tiny little…
CAMERON: It’s super cute compared to your size.
LAURA: I’m picturing a little backpack and it’ so cute.
NICK: Is it of an ewok?
CAMERON: (gasps)
LAURA: No…
NICK: It’s a little ewok backpack.
CAMERON & HUDSON: No.
LAURA: No, it’s just a cute little leather backpack. It’s a regular sized backpack, but because of Tink’s size and width it looks super tiny. Kind of like when you see Shaq get into a car, and you’re like oh, look at that, it’s cute.
CAMERON: (laughs) Try not to let anyone see that, but you have it if you need it.
HUDSON: Alright.
NICK: It won’t be super obvious, but if you hold someone up they may wonder, “Hey, why does this person have an Imperial blaster?”
CAMERON: We can mod it later.
HUDSON: Yeah.
NICK: Okay. So, what else?
STEVEN: I grab the briefcase.
NICK: Smart.
STEVEN: And we lower the stairs.
CAMERON: I’m gonna go pop the thing open, pop the ramp down.
NICK: Okay. You drop the ramp. Do all of you head out? Who’s in the lead? What are you all doing?
LAURA: Xianna’s gonna walk in front, and again she’s gonna look at Sabos, and stop, and sigh. “Sabos, look at me. Look into my eyes. Do not talk to them.”
STEVEN: “The light will never go out in the universe.”
CAMERON: “Wrong planet.”
(laughter)
STEVEN: “I know.”
LAURA: “This is why I am asking you do not talk, because even Tink does not say the things you say. Please let me or Karma do the talking. Please.”
STEVEN: “I am an ambassador.”
LAURA: “No. I think you are a war criminal.”
CAMERON: “Anyway, walking down the ramp. Hush.”
NICK: So, out you go. Sabos is carrying the briefcase. As you get closer to the oil drum fire you see that there is a Quarren out front. He has a lot of scars on his face tentacles. For those of you not versed in Star Wars species, a Quarren basically looks like Davey Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean. He has a tentacle face and kind of a squid head, and before they were officially named in the books they were called squid heads on their action figures and stuff. So, there’s a Quarren, and he is standing in the lead. He’s got what looks like a smuggler kind of captain outfit, so it’s nice and indistinct.
CAMERON: So, a vest?
NICK: Mm-hmm.
CAMERON: Nice. Okay.
NICK: Yeah, but like rather than just a vest and pants he has like epaulets, and he’s obviously a little bit fancier.
CAMERON: Oo-ooh. Got some girl scout patches on his vest.
NICK: Mm-hmm. Then there’s a human who’s kind of small but has a bunch of different blasters strapped to them, a guy with dark, short hair. Then there’s a Gamorrean in the back who has a tusk broken off and a robotic arm and a vibro-axe who stays behind the fire ad looks imposing. The Quarren steps up to the front and says, “You here to make the drop?”
LAURA: “Yes. Hello. How are you today?”
NICK: “That seems irrelevant to this business negotiation.”
LAURA: “I was just being polite.”
NICK: “Fine. Uh, let’s just do this. Do you have the briefcase?”
LAURA: “Yes.”
STEVEN: “Right here.”
NICK: “Uh, yes, you are clearly the leader.”
HUDSON: “Don’t—Don’t boost his ego.”
STEVEN: I nod, but I try to nod, like, you know an under the…
CAMERON: You nod curtly.
STEVEN: Yeah, curtly. I really don’t want anyone else to notice except him.
NICK: “So you, leader, how did you convince Falx to make the delivery?”
CAMERON: (laughing) The leader looks to Xianna.
LAURA: Yeah. Xianna sees this and kinda rolls her eyes. (sighs) “Our leader had a one on one talk with him and convinced him to do the delivery. I do not know of the exact details. Our leader does not like to discuss these things with the rest of us.”
STEVEN: “Yep.”
CAMERON: (laughs)
NICK: “Ah yes, a man of few words, much like me.” You see the Quarren’s tentacles all curl up into his face in maybe pride, hard to tell, he’s got a squid for a face.
CAMERON: (giggles)
LAURA: Xianna’s just keeping a smile on her face, just internally being like, ugh I hate this, but I’m smiling.
HUDSON: Yeah, I’m dead inside.
CAMERON: Karma’s taking the role of the Gamorrean in the back and is just standing, looking imposing behind everyone.
NICK: The Quarren says, “Tiny, go and get the briefcase.” The small human seems very suspicious, and he keeps a hand on the grip of one of his blasters, and reaches out for the briefcase.
STEVEN: Yeah, I let him take the briefcase. I also have a hand on my big rifle behind my back because I think that’s what we’re doing now.
(laughter)
NICK: Okay. So, Tiny takes it and he sets it down in one of the folding chairs. You see, you didn’t really look at the briefcase that carefully but it has a pretty complicated locking mechanism on it, and Tiny starts typing some stuff in.
STEVEN: “We best be going.”
LAURA: Yeah, Xianna’s standing here in her head going like, we didn’t check what was in the briefcase.
STEVEN: We need to get out.
LAURA: Umm… and starts putting her hands like nonchalantly into her pockets, and kind of like, I mean hopefully he would’ve put something in the briefcase, but we don’t really know this guy and he did blackmail us into this.
CAMERON: Karma’s already looking terrifying, so she’s holding onto her weapons already.
NICK: So, as Sabos starts to back away towards the ship, Quiggle says, “Hold on, Quiggle always verifies the deal.”
Tiny types and you hear an (error noise) and he goes, “Shit,” and he starts typing again, and there’s like 20 seconds of awkward beeping and then you hear (error noise). “Okay, wait wait wait, I think I remember.” Quiggle’s starting to look kind of awkward as he’s still standing there. You can tell his swelled up personality can only be held for so long. Now, the Gamorrean on the other hand, that’s pretty much his default setting, big and scary, but Quiggle not so much.
CAMERON: Karma shifts her weight to her other hip.
NICK: Finally, Tiny hits a button and you hear (a clicking noise) and it clicks open, and he opens up the briefcase, and you hear him go, “Uh-oh.”
Quiggle turns around and goes, “What is it?”
Tiny says, “I’m sure it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
Quiggle says, “Tell me now.”
“Uh, briefcase is empty boss,” and Quiggle immediately starts to go for his gun.
LAURA: Ugh, yeah, Xianna just throws her head back, rolls her eyes, and sighs. She already has her gun out, because she does have quick draw.
NICK: Okay. Nobody starts shooting right away. Quiggle says, “What did you do with the money?” He’s pointing a gun at… I guess Sabos, probably.
(laughter)
STEVEN: Sure.
CAMERON: Leader. Our leader.
LAURA: Which everyone I think is okay with at this point.
NICK: Tiny draws two pistols and then draws a big rifle on a tripod and drops it in front of him, and kicks it forward a little, and is pointing all of those weapons at Sabos as well.
LAURA: Xianna looks over at him. “Yes, leader, where did the credits go?”
STEVEN: I’m gonna try to be really cool here. “As you know, I didn’t know the password. I’m just the currier.”
NICK: “Clearly you are someone more put together than that. You’re trying to screw us!” And they go to start shooting.
STEVEN: I mean… sure.
LAURA: We shot first.
(laughter)
NICK: So, I will need Vigilance rolls from everyone.
STEVEN: (sighs) Right. I really need to get some of that.
HUDSON: Me too.
LAURA: Yeah…
HUDSON: I have no Vigilance and one Willpower.
CAMERON: Guys! Seriously? (laughs)
LAURA: Hey, I have like Cool, and Streetwise, and Skullduggery, and Deception.
CAMERON: Am I the only one with the Vigilance skill?
LAURA: Yes.
CAMERON: Oh great.
STEVEN: It’s just so expensive.
HUDSON: I have one success.
LAURA: A success and an advantage.
STEVEN: Two successes and an advantage.
CAMERON: Two successes and an advantage.
NICK: Can you roll me a three green dice check, please?
CAMERON: One success, four advantages.
NICK: Roll it for me again.
CAMERON: Two successes, three advantages.
NICK: And then roll me two green dice, please.
CAMERON: Two advantages.
NICK: Okay. Who had the most successes?
STEVEN: Me and Cameron.
NICK: Had how many?
STEVEN & CAMERON: Two.
NICK: Two? Okay, so it’s gonna go NPC, two PC slots… How many people had one advantages? You guys did?
CAMERON: Successes?
NICK: Successes, I mean.
HUDSON: Successes, yeah.
NICK: NPC, two PC slots, NPC. Nice and spread out. Alright, so Captain Quiggle, the Quarren, is gonna go first.
(someone snorts)
LAURA: (giggles)
NICK: It’s a perfectly respectable pirate name.
LAURA: ‘Queegle.’
HUDSON: ‘Queegle.’
NICK: He says—
CAMERON: (musically) Quiggle, Quiggle, Quiggle…
SEVERAL: (musically) Do, do, do do, do…
STEVEN: That’s no more respectable than I am the leader.
CAMERON: (laughing) I’ve been thinking that every single time since you said it.
NICK: Ah, okay! So Quiggle says, “Damn it, Falx. You’ve betrayed us for the last time!” And he takes a shot at Sabos.
STEVEN: I say, “Not Falx, not Falx. Sabos, not Falx.”
NICK: “Close enough!” Can you make me a two difficulty check with two greens and a yellow? This guy’s pretty good.
CAMERON: Not good enough. Failure, two advantages.
NICK: Okay. He shoots at Sabos while he ducks back behind the oil drum fire, and he takes a shot, and Sabos is able to duck to the side, but when he does so he presents a very clear target to Tiny who’s gonna go next. So, that’s what happens there. He will have a blue die on his next check. Then we’ve got two PC slots. Who’s gonna go first?
STEVEN: I’ll shoot.
NICK: Okay. Who are you shooting at?
STEVEN: The big guy’s behind cover now?
NICK: Yeah.
CAMERON: The squid man is behind cover.
STEVEN: Quiggle? Quiggle the Quarren?
NICK: Quiggle the Quarren Captain is behind cover!
STEVEN: So, just Tiny and the Gamorrean are out?
CAMERON: The other big pig man.
NICK: Mm-hmm. So you can shoot Quiggle, it’ll just be a little bit harder to hit him.
STEVEN: I’ll shoot the big pig. \inaudible\ scary.
[ ]: Shoot the big pig, yeah.
NICK: Okay. That’s racist as heck, by the way.
STEVEN: Yeah.
NICK: Maybe he’s their slicer. Don’t make judgments.
LAURA: I mean, but have you met Sabos?
NICK: So he’s at medium range, so it will be average, yeah.
STEVEN: Yeah, well, nothing happens.
STEVEN & CAMERON: One advantage.
NICK: How would you like to spend your advantage?
STEVEN: Can I get behind cover on the ship?
CAMERON: You can do that anyway \inaudible\
NICK: You’re at long range from the ship. To run back to the ship would take several maneuvers, but you can use a maneuver to run back to the ship. That doesn’t even cost an advantage. It’s just gonna take you a while to get there.
STEVEN: Uhh… How far are we from the trash fire?
CAMERON: You can use your advantage to set up another piece in the environment that you can jump behind, like there’s a crate or something.
STEVEN: Oh yeah. Also, who goes next?
NICK: It’s another PC slot.
STEVEN: Can I use the advantage to make the pig more presentable?
NICK: Yeah. You can make it so the next person to go will get a blue die.
STEVEN: Yeah, I’ll do that.
NICK: Okay, so it’s the same kind of thing. You shoot at him and he ducks out of the way, but he steps a little bit closer into the fire light, so it’s gonna be real easy to hit that guy. And, another PC slot.
HUDSON: I think that I want to take my light blaster, feel overly confident but like secretly pretty scared of using it, and try to hit the pig person.
NICK: Okay. It’ll be two difficulty with a boost die.
HUDSON: And I have nothing in ranged light weapon.
NICK: Great!
STEVEN: Hold on, wait, does that—No, no. Does that help? No, it doesn’t.
HUDSON: Yeah. None of my \inaudible\ help either.
STEVEN: Is that an assist? No, okay.
NICK: You can’t assist people with combat checks, unless you wanna do the like ghost thing where you’re behind him massaging his shoulders, and if we do that you have to specify.
STEVEN: (laughs)
LAURA & CAMERON: Hmm…
HUDSON: Just advantage.
CAMERON: So, it fails, because it’s a wash.
NICK: Okay, so you miss. How would you like to spend your advantage?
HUDSON: Um… I’ll help the next PC character slot out.
CAMERON: (laughs)
NICK: Alright. So it’s the same thing. You all are shooting right above your left shoulder, and there’s this weird triangle of blasters going around, and everybody’s taking one step to the left each time. It’s rather comical. It’s how I imagine \bar fights\ in the old west would get. Everybody’s just shooting near people and nothing’s happening.
[ ]: Pew!
NICK: Now we’ve got another NPC slot, and it is Tiny. He takes both of his blasters and he is going to shoot at Sabos, still, because that was his last order. He has a green and a yellow, and a blue die because he got set up.
STEVEN: Don’t listen to him, Tiny.
CAMERON: Two difficulty still?
NICK: It’s gonna be three, because he’s dual wielding.
CAMERON: Two failures and an advantage.
NICK: Alright. So, he shoots a whole bunch, and you hear him going, aaaaah, pew pew pew, and they just go all over the place…
LAURA: Aww, so cute.
NICK: And pepper the back wall, and with the advantage he actually hits something somewhere off on the back wall and the ray shield starts to flicker, and some of the atmosphere starts to go out and it gets really windy and crazy in here. He’s destabilized something important. That advantage is going to start with whoever gets shot at next by the Quiggle Crew is going to have a blue die. Oh, no, so whoever next attacks from your team, not the Quiggle Crew, will have a black die, because the atmosphere is thinning.
HUDSON: The Quiggle ‘quew.’
LAURA & CAMERON: The Quiggle Crew~!
STEVEN: Quiggle the Quarren crew, captain.
NICK: Quiggle the captain of the Quarren Quiggle crew.
LAURA: If it’s a PC slot…
NICK: Yeah, it is a PC slot next, yes.
LAURA: Yeah. I imagine Xianna would go since she was already hands in her pocket of like, oh this is going south. Like, immediately, she was like, ugh. (musically) We didn’t check the briefcase, gonna shoot someone…
CAMERON: You have a blue die and a black die.
LAURA: Yes. Who’s closest to me?
NICK: Tiny is closest to you. Quiggle’s behind cover, and the Gamorrean is behind them.
LAURA: Probably Tiny, yeah? I’ll shoot Tiny.
NICK: Guys, we are so good at shooting.
CAMERON: Some of us.
LAURA: Two successes.
NICK: Nice. How much damage does your blaster do?
LAURA: Six, so that will be eight damage.
NICK: Ooh. Okay, you hit Tiny square in the chest, and he yelps and kind of crouches down. He drops his blasters. So, he’s down and he’s bleeding pretty hard, but he doesn’t look down completely. He says, “Quiggle’s Crew never quits!”
STEVEN: Oh boy.
NICK: He’s still moving. Another PC slot.
CAMERON: That’ll be Karma. I am going to shoot at the… I can only think of Gigoran.
NICK, STEVEN & CAMERON: Gamorrean.
LAURA: ‘Quigmorrean!’
HUDSON: ‘Quigmorrean?’
LAURA: You know…
STEVEN: The Quiggle Gamorrean.
LAURA: When Quiggle and the Gamorrean have a little baby.
CAMERON: Yep, gonna shoot at the Gamorrean.
NICK: Aww, little pig with tentacle face.
CAMERON: It’d be so cute~
LAURA: It’d be terrifying.
CAMERON: With tusks coming out of the tentacles?
HUDSON: Eww.
CAMERON: That sounds gross.
LAURA: I mean, I actually think that would probably be cute.
STEVEN: So like a catfish.
NICK: Yeah, basically.
STEVEN: Yeah. Just sharper.
CAMERON: Two successes, one threat.
NICK: One threat. Okay, so the threat is you step forward and start spraying blaster fire with your carbine and come into the fire light. The atmosphere is kind of venting, it’s starting to get a little light, but you’re really good at dealing with low oxygen environments so that’s not too big a deal, and your blasters scrape across the Gamorrean’s chest. How much damage do you do?
CAMERON: Eleven.
NICK: Ooh-hoo-hoo.
LAURA: Damn.
CAMERON: I have a big gun.
NICK: That’s a palpable hit. He grunts, and a little trickle of greenish blood comes down the side of his mouth, and he begins to step forward as it is his turn. He is at medium range which means it takes a maneuver to get to short range and then another maneuver to get to engaged, and he’s gonna go ahead and engage with… Roll me a force die, would you
CAMERON: Oh no. One dark side.
NICK: Sabos! So, even though you shot him his orders had been take down the leader, so he takes one strain to do a double move action, and he is going to try and hit you in the face with a giant vibro-axe. This is gonna hurt real bad.
STEVEN: Cool.
NICK: Go ahead and roll me a yellow and two greens versus an average check.
STEVEN: Oh, that hurts pretty bad.
CAMERON: Wow. Four successes.
NICK: Oh shit. What’s the damage on your vibro-axe there, Tink?
HUDSON: Brawn plus three.
LAURA: Well, it’s also pierce two, sunder, vicious three I believe, because your serrated edge adds plus one.
HUDSON: Yeah, that’s what it is.
NICK: h, okay, so pierce two. So you take Brawn is three, plus three is six, plus four is ten, and then that does get reduced by your Soak, but by two less than your normal Soak because it’s pierce two.
CAMERON: So you still take…
STEVEN & CAMERON: Eight.
NICK: You take eight damage. How are you looking there, Sabos?
STEVEN: I’m doing pretty good.
CAMERON: Oh, he’s fine.
NICK: Okay.
CAMERON: He’s almost… A little less than half health.
NICK: The Gamorrean twirls; he sprints up to you, twirls his vibro-axe with surprising agility, and slashes you across the chest, and it bites deep, and it hurts real bad. Do you respond in any particular way?
STEVEN: Good thing it wasn’t my head tail.
(laughter)
CAMERON: (groans) There’s an idea.
NICK: We’re back to the top. Quiggle says, “Great work! Quiggle’s Crew always stands correct!” And then he also goes to shoot Sabos.
CAMERON: How are they spelling these words?
(laughter)
LAURA: I do not know. Maybe in their language it makes more sense. Like, it is actually alliteration and not just phonetic alliteration.
NICK: So, he’s gonna shoot at Sabos, which is a two difficulty still, except he’s gonna take a maneuver to aim now that he’s down behind cover. He’s gonna try to shoot at Sabos.
CAMERON: Blue die! He’s gonna try. Two failures, six advantages.
NICK: Alright, so he’s gonna give three blue dice to Tiny, because he doesn’t actually shoot with his blaster pistol, he actually shoots a little tracking dart that hits Sabos in the chest. It doesn’t hurt, but it starts to beep a little, and that big rifle that’s on the ground has a laser that lines up with it, and the rifle starts to beep. So, I wonder what that’ll do.
CAMERON: I’m sure it’ll be fine.
NICK: I’m sure it’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.
LAURA: It’ll be okay.
NICK: Yeah. So that was Quiggle’s turn. Two PC slots.
STEVEN: I’m gonna pull the tracking dart out.
NICK: Nope.
STEVEN: I can’t?
NICK: Nope.
STEVEN: Can I shoot it out?
NICK: You can try.
STEVEN: Can I use my vibro-knife to cut it out?
NICK: You can absolutely try.
STEVEN: That seems like a good idea.
NICK: Alright. Do that.
STEVEN: Oh wait, no—Oh, I have some Melee. Yeah, that’s fine. Is Melee what we’re gonna do here?
NICK: That or Medical.
LAURA: (laughs) Melee against the tracking dart. (laughter) I wanna try to cut something delicately out of my torso… Eh, Melee check!
HUDSON: Melee!
NICK: Use an uppercut!
LAURA: I’m gonna use a giant knife!
CAMERON: What’s the difficulty?
NICK: We’re gonna say it’s average, but every threat is going to hurt you.
CAMERON: Okay. There you go, buddy.
NICK: Also, flip me a dark side point. Let’s upgrade one of those suckers.
STEVEN: Alright. That’s cool.
NICK: I want Sabos to stab himself so bad.
STEVEN: Nah, we’re gonna be fine.
CAMERON: Hey, you’re fine.
STEVEN: A success and an advantage.
NICK: Yeah. You’re able to carve the tracking device out. You don’t hit yourself, you just put a little divot in the armor and the tracking device falls out, and with the advantage it rolls far enough away from you—
STEVEN: Can I get behind cover?
NICK: Yeah. You can use a maneuver to try and get to some cover. There are the mobile folding chairs, and there is the trash can fire.
STEVEN: The trash can sounds amazing. Just warm up behind the trash can fire.
NICK: Okay, so it’s gonna take two maneuvers to do. You can use one maneuver to move up to the trash can fire, and if you take a strain you can take another one to take cover on the opposite side of the barrel from Quiggle.
CAMERON: (giggles)
STEVEN: Yeah, I’ll take a strain.
NICK: Okay. You are now both back to back with the barrel between you.
STEVEN: That sounds fine.
NICK: As you slam into the barrel and it rolls you hear Quiggle go, “Hey! Give up now. There’s no chance.” That’s one PC slot. Next PC slot?
HUDSON: Can I go?
LAURA: Well, it doesn’t matter the order.
CAMERON: Yeah.
NICK: You can go if you want.
HUDSON: Okay, unless you had something really cool you wanted to do.
LAURA: I mean, I was gonna shoot someone. I don’t know if that’s cool in a…
HUDSON: I’m like super close to the Gamorrean, I think, so I was gonna go vibro-axe on him.
STEVEN: Just saying, there’s a, if y’all wanted to pick up the dart and put it somewhere useful…
CAMERON: No, that’s fine. You got this, buddy.
STEVEN: Haha, I mean it would help you all too.
HUDSON: So, the Gamorrean’s the pig monster, right?
NICK: That’s really mean.
LAURA: Stop calling him a pig monster! They’re an actual species that like does stuff!
CAMERON: Tink is the yeti monster.
HUDSON: I’m the yeti monster.
LAURA: They’re not monsters. They are people.
HUDSON: I just keep thinking of the pig monster from Power Rangers, and that’s what I visualize. Anyways. I have my vibro-axe, and I go after the Gamorrean for a vibro-axe battle!
NICK: In the background it starts going- (hums Duel of the Fates from The Phantom Menace).
NICK: Make your attack. Vibro-axes don’t have defense, do they?
HUDSON: No.
NICK: Okay.
HUDSON: Two successes and a threat.
NICK: Okay, so the threat is you swing wide and leave yourself a little open so that when he attacks you he’s gonna be able to do something similar. Two successes… So, what’s your Brawn, three?
HUDSON: Yep.
NICK: So that’s eight damage, but his Soak is three, so he’ll take five. Ooh, he’s not doing well.
HUDSON: Ha-ha!
NICK: You bury the vibro-axe into that space between his neck and his shoulder. It sinks in real good, and he squeals, and then he pulls back and gets ready to attack you except it’s not his turn. So, Tiny drops down prone, uses his maneuver to drop prone, which it’ll be harder to hit him, and he grabs that rifle, and he’s going to take another shot at Sabos. At this point he’s just trying to have done something with his life. So, it’s a yellow and a green versus two purple. Can you flip a dark side point?
CAMERON: Ugh.
NICK: It’s strong with him.
STEVEN: Behind the barrel even, only two purples?
NICK: Well, he’s off to the side. He’s not behind the barrel. Oh, you can have a black die for cover.
LAURA: I should note that throughout this whole time Xianna keeps yelling like, “Yes, Sabos, our leader, you told us to do this.”
STEVEN: “Everything’s fine.”
LAURA: “Defend yourself, leader!”
STEVEN: Well, that’s not good.
CAMERON: Two successes, four threats.
NICK: Hey, you know what happens when we get more than three threats.
CAMERON: The guy laying on the ground falls prone.
NICK: He falls prone. (deep bass noise) So, I guess that means the kick from the rifle is so strong that he goes flying backwards and he ends up on his back without his rifle anymore. How many successes was it?
CAMERON: Two.
HUDSON: Mega prone.
NICK: Two? So, it’s seven damage \reckless\, so it’s nine damage coming at you, Sabos.
CAMERON: (gasping laughter)
LAURA: Umm…
NICK: Minus your Soak.
CAMERON: Yeah, yeah, four. He’s down to one health.
STEVEN: Yeah, that’s cool. Yeah.
CAMERON: I’m sure he’ll be fine.
STEVEN: Yeah, yeah.
LAURA: Yeah. I’m sure you’ll be fine.
STEVEN: Yeah, that’s fine.
LAURA: Good luck finding someone on this team who’s gonna heal you.
CAMERON: (laughing)
STEVEN: No, it’s all good. It’s all good.
NICK: That was Tiny’s turn, so it’s a PC slot.
LAURA: Is Quiggle visible, or is he still in his hiding spot?
NICK: He’s behind the barrel. You would get a black die to shoot at him, but you can see him. It’s just kind of hard to tell where the shadows end and he begins.
CAMERON: If you take out the almost dead guy, I’ll go after the live one.
LAURA: Well, because I don’t wanna get in the middle of this vibro-axe battle. That’s like an honor thing right now. They’re good.
CAMERON: Oh, see, I was gonna end that.
HUDSON: I’ll finish this!
CAMERON: Okay, you got it! You got it, Tink!
LAURA: Xianna’s gonna like honor their little one-on-one battle.
HUDSON: Thank you!
LAURA: Wait, Tiny’s alive, right?
CAMERON: Yeah, but Tiny’s down, almost.
NICK: He’s down on the ground, he’s bleeding a little, he’s not near his rifle…
LAURA: Oh, no, yeah, then Xianna’s gonna shoot at Quiggle.
NICK: He is covered in pistols, though.
LAURA: She’s gonna shoot at the Quiggle.
NICK: Okay.
CAMERON: Hee hee hee…
STEVEN: Quiggle the Quarren.
LAURA & CAMERON: (musically) Quiggle, Quiggle, Quiggle, do, do do, do…
NICK: I’m never naming NPCs again.
LAURA: I’m going to aim.
STEVEN: Ooh.
LAURA: I’m gonna flip a light side point.
NICK: Oooh.
LAURA: Four advantages. That’s it.
NICK: How would you like to spend those?
LAURA: He is going to drop the weapon he is holding.
NICK: Okay. So you shoot the blaster out of his hand. “Hey, that was the blaster my mother gave me.”
LAURA: “Oh, I did not know that. Sorry. I should have just shot your face instead.”
NICK: “I swear eternal vengeance. You have been submitted to Quiggle’s quarrel!”
(snorts and giggles)
LAURA: Xianna just kinda like stops. “What is with these names? Seriously.”
STEVEN: (laughs) Quiggle’s quarrel… “Were we not already in Quiggle’s quarrel?” I say behind the other side of the barrel.
NICK: “Shut up! Come out where I can shoot—Oh wait, I don’t have my gun anymore.”
HUDSON: Before this time there was an \accorem\.
STEVEN: “Come out where I can shoot you.”
CAMERON: Go get in Quiggle’s corner.
NICK: (laughing) So, it’s Karma’s shot.
CAMERON: I am going to shoot at Quiggle. I’m going to take a black die because he’s under cover. I’m going to take a blue die because I’m going to aim.
HUDSON: Shoot his privates.
LAURA: Nooo.
STEVEN: So, Tiny. So, you mean Tiny?
CAMERON: I’m going to flip a light side point to upgrade.
NICK: “Don’t castrate Quiggle~”
STEVEN: ‘Quastrate.’
CAMERON: And I’m going to—Stop. (laughs) I’m going to shoot him.
STEVEN: ‘Quiggle quastration.’
CAMERON: A success, two advantages. So that’s only ten damage.
NICK: Ooh, okay. That’s the first time he’s been hit. He yelps and ducks further behind the barrel as you hit him solidly in the shoulder. He’s not super happy. What?
CAMERON: Ah, my crit’s three.
NICK & LAURA: Ohh.
CAMERON: Dang! So close. I have two.
LAURA: So, I still had an extra advantage from my turn. I don’t know if it’s too late to add a blue die to that.
CAMERON: (laughing) Can I have a retroactive blue die?
NICK: You can add a blue die to Karma.
CAMERON: Can I see what it does?
NICK: If you get an advantage.
CAMERON: If I get another advantage? Let’s see… Aw, it’s nothing. Damn.
NICK: Aw, bummer. It was worth a try.
CAMERON: Can my advantages be that the barrel falls over?
NICK: Sure.
STEVEN: No…
NICK: And shoots sparks everywhere.
CAMERON: Yup, and he and Sabos fall back to back, because it just disappears.
NICK: Yeah. It falls to the side, shoots sparks everywhere, they’re very illuminated. Whoever shoots at Quiggle next will get a blue die, and Sabos and Quiggle actually are touching backs right now, and they do the thing where Quiggle looks left, and he looks left, so they look over each other’s opposite shoulders and they don’t make eye contact for a second. Then the Gamorrean, our giant pig friend, goes. He squeals to himself and swings his vibro-axe at Tink, because there’s a giant person with a vibro-axe in front of him. That’ll be two greens and a yellow versus two purple dice.
Oh, he failed the hell out of that.
CAMERON: One failure, two advantages.
NICK: So, the two advantages: He’s going to attack but get deflected, and he’s going to defend himself so whoever attacks him next will get a black die. How do you block his axe attack, Tink?
HUDSON: With my axe.
NICK: Okay. Does it shoot sparks everywhere and look super cool?
HUDSON: Yeah!
CAMERON, LAURA: (hum Duel of the Fates from The Phantom Menace).
NICK: Great! It’s up to Quiggle’s turn. He doesn’t have a gun, so he’s gonna straight try to punch Sabos in the back of the head. So he turns around and like grabs him, and he tries to punch Sabos in the face. That’s gonna be a yellow and a green versus two purples.
CAMERON: One threat.
NICK: One threat. No successes?
CAMERON: Nope.
NICK: Aw, okay. So, whoever shoots at him next it’ll be two blue die. He tries to punch you and you manage to just duck your head out of the way, and he ends up awkwardly hugging you.
CAMERON: Aww.
NICK: Yeah.
CAMERON: Quiggle cuddles!
STEVEN: Quiggle ‘kwuddle.’
NICK: “Beware the Quiggle cuddles!”
LAURA & CAMERON: Quiggle ‘kwuddles!’
NICK: ‘Kwuddles?’ I don’t wanna say ‘kwuddles.’
LAURA & CAMERON: Quiggle ‘kwuddles!”
NICK: Gosh. He’s a respectable space pirate, you guys. Okay.
LAURA: No he’s not!
CAMERON: And he’s so ‘kwuddly.’
LAURA: He’s just so quute!
STEVEN: He’s so quigglewy.
NICK: It is a PC slot.
STEVEN: I’m just gonna stab him with the vibro-knife.
NICK: Okay.
(laughter)
STEVEN: We’re sitting back to back, so.
LAURA: Stabby stab stab.
CAMERON: First person to attack Quiggle gets two blue dice.
STEVEN: Oh yeah.
NICK: He’s lit by fire light, and also just like standing awkwardly hugging you.
CAMERON: (seethes)
LAURA: What is—Okay.
CAMERON: That is cocked.
NICK: Yeah, you can reroll that one.
CAMERON: That’s cocked. Reroll it, and it better be good.
LAURA: That is a cock.
CAMERON: Hey!
LAURA: There you go.
STEVEN: Hey, two successes. It is gonna be five total.
NICK: Five damage, okay. You stab him in the throat, it severs a couple of his face tentacles, and he drops.
STEVEN: But the pierce is two on it, so.
NICK: Yeah. You went through his Soak, so that’s how you brought him down. Quiggle’s on the ground coughing up greenish blood. He’s out of the fight. Another PC slot.
HUDSON: I’ll go ahead and finish off the Gamorrean.
NICK: Okay. Go for it.
CAMERON: Two purple.
HUDSON: Two purple.
CAMERON: And a black die, because he’s in defending zone.
NICK: Yes, thank you. Glad we have Cameron to help with that.
HUDSON: Nooo.
CAMERON: Nothing.
STEVEN: Well—
NICK: Absolutely nothing.
LAURA: Literally nothing. Just blank dice.
HUDSON: Nothing.
NICK: Okay, so, like a blade ballet you both clash, titans in the asteroid night amongst the fire light, the shrieking whine of your weapons pierces everyone’s minds, and they know this is a fatal encounter… but nothing happens.
STEVEN & CAMERON: (giggles)
HUDSON: I feel like this is like Phasma and Finn fighting (mumbles)
NICK: A little bit, a little bit, yeah, except you’re both giant and kind of lumbering, so you’re not as cool.
HUDSON: Yeah, that’s true.
NICK: Tiny’s gonna go. He’s still on his back. He uses a maneuver to roll onto his tummy, so he’s prone instead of prone, and he draws two blaster pistols and he attempts to shoot Sabos.
STEVEN: “You’re gonna shoot me?” I yell out, because I’m right back to back with his leader.
NICK: No, you stabbed him. He’s on the ground now.
STEVEN: Oh, haha, alright.
NICK: And he has a green and a yellow, and it’s three purples because he’s dual wielding. So, Sabos, you’re gonna flip one to upgrade his difficulty to shoot you?
STEVEN: I will.
NICK: Eh, he’ll also take a strain to aim.
CAMERON: So that’s two purples, one red, one yellow, one green, and one blue?
NICK: Yep.
CAMERON: It’s a rainbow, guys.
LAURA: It’s so pretty.
CAMERON: I really hope this misses.
NICK: I hope it doesn’t.
CAMERON: I’ma feel real bad if I roll the roll that kills you.
STEVEN: Yup.
NICK: Ooh.
CAMERON: Eh, that’s one success.
STEVEN: Hey, look at that.
NICK: How many advantages?
CAMERON: Two.
STEVEN: Enough.
NICK: Oh man. You know what having two advantages does when you’re dual wielding, right?
STEVEN: No.
NICK: Lets him use both pistols.
CAMERON: Yeah. One success, two advantages.
NICK: Yeah! So he’s gonna use those two advantages to activate his other pistol, which means he’s gonna do double damage.
STEVEN: Sure, sure.
NICK: Which means that’s gonna be twelve damage coming at you.
STEVEN: That’s gonna be tough. (laughter) That will put me around, oh, the negative seven mark, pretty darn close to zero.
NICK: And if you go down, then that’s a crit, guys. Alright, so you are now unconscious at negative seven. We now know that it does track for negatives, and go ahead and roll that crit that Tiny got on you.
CAMERON: Thirty-four.
LAURA: A 34! Let’s see… That is Stunned. The target is staggered until the end of his next turn.
CAMERON: You’re also unconscious, though.
NICK: So you can’t take another action. Bummer.
STEVEN: Yeah, because I’m unconscious. (laughs)
NICK: So, Sabos goes down in a blaze of pistols. Tiny sits up slightly, and is like, “I hit him? I hit him! Woo!” And then everybody looks at him, and he’s like, “Uhh… Great.”
LAURA: Xianna actually is like, “Aw, good job.”
NICK: “Cool. Uh, last chance for y’all to surrender, because I’ve taken out your leader.”
CAMERON: “Sweetie, I’m gonna reverse that. Last chance for you to surrender”
NICK: “Um…”
CAMERON: “You might notice your leader’s down too.”
LAURA: “He is dead.”
CAMERON: “And I really don’t wanna hurt you.”
LAURA: “Also, he is not actually our leader.”
NICK: “What?!”
LAURA: “We just said that so that you would target him. We don’t really like him too much.”
CAMERON: “Thanks for shooting him for us.”
NICK: “Oh, you’re welcome. Well, I mean, wait—“ Can you make me a check?
CAMERON: Coercion?
NICK: Coercion, yes. It’s super duper Coercion.
CAMERON: Can Xianna help me?
NICK: Yeah, absolutely.
CAMERON: Can we co-Coercion?
STEVEN: Coerce.
NICK: Yeah.
LAURA: What’s Coercion?
CAMERON: It’s Willpower.
LAURA: Willpower? I have a two.
NICK: So you can have a blue die.
CAMERON: Okay. That at least gets me a blue.
LAURA: Okay.
NICK: For this one since it was straight her glaring at him and saying we’re about to kill you.
CAMERON: Dang. I don’t have the Good Cop skill on my tree yet.
LAURA: Oh no.
CAMERON: It’s right there, though. I can see it.
NICK: The Skiptracer tree, everyone who hasn’t read it, you should look at it. It’s awesome. You have Good Cop and Bad Cop, and it’s great.
LAURA: Wait, no, no—
CAMERON: Well, Skiptracer doesn’t have Bad Cop, they just have Good Cop, but other ones have Bad Cop.
LAURA: But in other trees. Yeah, we found the one that has Bad Cop, and I don’t remember which one it is.
CAMERON: Okay. Let’s see how intimidating we are. Nope, nada. Zilch.
NICK: Okay. He looks concerned for a minute, but then he says, “As long as our friend is standing, Quiggle’s crew of cons will stay on top.” And he looks real sad, but he doesn’t drop his weapons.
LAURA: I’m trying to think of more C Q words. You have like Quiggle’s coterie.
STEVEN: Ooh.
NICK: But he left them on the ship.
LAURA: Yes.
NICK: So, PC slot.
LAURA: Xianna’s gonna shoot Tiny, and she’s gonna kinda sigh and look sad at him.
CAMERON: No. He said as long as his friend is standing. Shoot his friend.
LAURA: Xianna doesn’t wanna get in the way of an honorable duel. Okay?
HUDSON: Don’t get in the way of my honorable duel!
CAMERON: Karma will shoot his friend!
HUDSON: No!
CAMERON: Karma don’t care! (laughs)
LAURA: Xianna is like, nuh-uh, those two are in close quarters combat. I’m going to honor that timely tradition-
HUDSON: Thank you.
LAURA: -and let them battle it out. You know. I’m gonna shoot the little tiny person.
STEVEN: (laughs)
NICK: Honorably.
LAURA: Is this like a child? I keep imagining like, short round.
NICK: He kind of looks like Mouse from the Matrix, so just like a scrawnier little guy.
LAURA: Oh. Just a small? I was straight up picturing short round, and I felt really bad because I was picturing like a little kid. Okay.
STEVEN: Seems like we’ve found ourselves in a Quiggle’s quagmire.
LAURA & CAMERON: Ohh!
NICK: Ho-ho! Too bad you’re unconscious. You gasp that around the bloody bullet wounds in your chest.
STEVEN: (laughs)
LAURA: And I’m gonna aim. Is he still lying down prone?
NICK: Yeah, so you get a black die.
CAMERON: Nooo.
LAURA: One threat.
NICK: Okay. You shoot at him and it’s obvious that you’re not super invested in hitting him, because you feel kinda bad about it-
LAURA: Yeah.
NICK: -and he ducks a little, and then sees that you’re not that committed to killing them, and he is heartened. He is very confident. That’s what the threat is.
STEVEN: (laughs)
NICK: Another PC slot.
LAURA: Karma should shooty-shoot-shoot.
CAMERON: Who am I shooting though is the thing. I’m questioning.
HUDSON: Shoot Tiny!
LAURA: I feel like Karma would shoot the Gamorrean.
CAMERON: Yeah, because how old does Tiny look?
NICK: Eighteen, maybe.
LAURA: Yeah.
CAMERON: Yeah. There’s no way in hell Karma’s shooting Tiny.
HUDSON: For all you know the Gamorrean could be a child. They’re just that big.
STEVEN: (laughs)
CAMERON: Yeah, I don’t care. Yeah, I’m shooting the Gamorrean.
NICK: Okay. Ooh boy.
CAMERON: Alrighty, so that’s two successes, two threats, and a triumph.
NICK: Okay. The threats are Tiny is even more bolstered but you get a—Are you gonna use the triumph to crit, or?
CAMERON: No. I’m going to do ten damage to the Gigoran—err, Gamorrean. Not the—I’m not shooting Tink. I’m shooting the pig person!
HUDSON: Whoa!
CAMERON: Hold on. Gamorrean.
NICK: Okay, so, you hit him in the back of the head. He’s mid swing. He actually had the advantage for a second. He had used the pole of his vibro-axe to hit Tink in the stomach, and he was going up for a big overhead strike, and you just shoot him in the back of the head and he collapses like a sack of potatoes.
CAMERON: One of the things for triumphs is that they can take out—
NICK: They take out mooks. They don’t take out, like–
LAURA: Yeah, you can take out minions.
CAMERON: Oh, okay.
NICK: These are like actual PC characters you guys are shooting.
CAMERON: So you said my threats were that he was more bolstered?
NICK: Mm-hmm.
CAMERON: Mmkay, because I wanted the triumph to be that he started thinking about how sad his mom would be if he died.
NICK: I mean, the triumph could be you can go kind of through the bolster and you get one more chance to try to persuade him to stand down.
CAMERON: Yeah.
NICK: Okay. So, you give your speech. He’s standing there going, “I’m gonna live forever! Quiggles for life! Yeah!” Even though he’s bleeding, he’s waving his guns around.
(laughter)
CAMERON: “How old are you?”
NICK: “I’m 18. I’m gonna live forever.”
CAMERON: “Mm, I’m not thinking for that much longer actually if you keep holding that gun.”
NICK: “That sounds intimidating, but clearly we’re gonna win. I don’t need my friends. I’m the new captain. Yay!”
LAURA: So, I know this won’t help Karma dice-wise, but Xianna just kinda looks over and is like, “Do you know how many of my friends were dead by the time I was 18? A lot.”
NICK: “Yeah, most of mine, too. I mean, those two were pretty much the last ones except for Quiggle’s coterie, and they were always pretty mean to me.”
(snorts and giggles)
CAMERON: How do these words work?!
LAURA: You can see she’s using her hands to like make a Q, but then a C, and she’s like, “But isn’t coterie with a C? I do not… Nn.”
CAMERON: “Before you do anything stupid, I just want you to sit back and reflect on your short life at this point and also think of all the people who are going to be sad, like your mom, if you don’t make it out of here, but how proud she’d be of you if you left as the new captain. You could even rename the crew since Quiggle is … dead. Sorry, I can’t think of a dead word for a Q. I apologize.”
STEVEN: Quiggle has quit.
(laughter)
NICK: Sabos sits up, says that, and passes back out.
CAMERON: Thank you, disembodied voice of Sabos! Yup.
NICK: Go ahead and make me a roll. You can use whichever talky skill you think is most appropriate.
CAMERON: yeah, that’s happening, because none of mine are good.
LAURA: Okay, I’ll go ahead and flip that. I mean, not that the audience could see, because you know audio medium, but I was pointing at a light side.
NICK: I like to think that Tabletop Squadron is an audio large.
STEVEN & HUDSON: Boo!
NICK: This is what happens when we play for five hours, guys. It only gets worse.
CAMERON: I’m going to use Charm, since I don’t think Deception fits at all.
NICK: Yeah.
CAMERON: I flipped a light side point, so I’m upgrading it.
LAURA: I can help with that.
NICK: Yeah, since you added stuff in.
LAURA: My Presence is a three.
CAMERON: Nice! Mine is only a two. So, what am I rolling against?
NICK: It’s gonna be two purple and a black die. The triumph cut through the three black dice it was originally gonna be.
CAMERON: Alright. I really hope we don’t have to kill this kid.
NICK: You’re gonna feel real bad.
CAMERON: I’m gonna feel so bad! It’s okay, I think we’re okay, two successes and an advantage.
NICK: Oh, he goes, “Yeah, you’re probably right,” and drops his pistols, and then he proceeds to drop the other eight pistols he had strapped to his chest.
CAMERON: (laughs) Karma does a big sigh of relief.
NICK: “All hail Captain Tiny! Also, do you guys have any like medical supplies, because I’m getting pretty low on blood here.” He starts to kind of waver in place.
CAMERON: “Why don’t you… Lay down. We’ll find something.”
NICK: “Okay.” He collapses to the ground.
HUDSON: “It’s a quality Quiggle evening.”
NICK: And, that’s where we’re gonna end it.
(All make dramatic noises and Star Wars tunes)
## 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.
This punch bowl drink is a doozy. Tink orders it during a sabacc game at a casino in Episode 10. It’s green and red and served in a gigantic glass and was a pain in the ass to make.
Why was it a pain in the ass to make?
The Green Extermination
Because none of us had glasses big enough to make this drink. I had to find a vase in the back of my closet and wash it about forty times before feeling safe about using it.
After that it was pretty easy. A ton of bright green apple schnapps, a bit of clear cinnamon schnapps, a glug of apple juice, a hearty pour of ginger ale, and then a smattering of red candies.
The Green Extermination and it’s candies
Our grocery store was out of both of our first two choices, Red Hots and Hot Tamales, but they did have some generic “hot cinnamon candy dots”. They worked perfectly… for about five minutes. Then their candy coating began to melt and started turning the old drink red.
As you can see, the red had started leaking
Because of that, we find it’s best to add the candies right before serving. The Official Tabletop Squadron Taste Testers (Nick and Hudson) found that in addition to the color change the flavor of the drink changed over time as well. It became slightly sweeter, and had more of a cinnamon bite. They both said they enjoyed this drink at all of it’s stages.
Green Extermination [serves 4-6, or 1 large Gigoran]
12 ounces green-colored pucker sour apple schnapps
4 ounces clear cinnamon schnapps (such as Goldschläger)
8 ounces apple juice
Ginger ale
Cinnamon red hot candies
In a large punch bowl or vase combine both schnapps, and apple juice. Fill with ice, and then add the ginger ale until the container is full. Toss a handful of the red candies on top.
Serve immediately.
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