Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 19:
Black Hole Sun

Transcript by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)

## 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, and a slicer as they explore the galaxy helping a mysterious benefactor and each other.

Still not many announcements. We hope you enjoyed the Jedi Adventures with Moa and Rae, and look forward to our first set of bloopers next week.

Even though we’ve met our goal, come join the squad on Twitter at @Tabletop_Squad and talk to us about Star Wars, or leave us a review on iTunes. If you want to make people happy with five minutes of your time, it’s an easy way to make everyone on the squad smile.

We hope to talk to you soon, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

##

NICK: Hello! Welcome to Episode 19 of Tabletop Squadron! Thank you so much for joining us. We’re really glad to see you. Pull up a chair, metaphorically, because we’re in a podcast. We’re gonna go around the table real quick and talk to everybody. Introduce yourselves and say who you’re playing today, starting with… Laura.

LAURA: Hi. I play Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler… and I mean yeah, it’s gonna be fine. Gonna go great.

NICK: Yeah. Everything’s fine. Up next we’ve got Hudson.

HUDSON: Little tidbit here, even though I do this every single episode, I still turned over my sheet to make sure that I remembered everything about me.

CAMERON: (laughs)

HUDSON: So, I’m Hudson and I play Tink, the Gigoran slicer, it says right here.

NICK: (laughs) Great. You know, it’s that commitment to quality that’s gotten us all the way to Episode 19.

HUDSON: (sarcastic) Heh!

(laughter)

LAURA: You also had me write it down on your sheet so you could actually read it.

HUDSON: You have good handwriting.

NICK: (laughing) Up next we’ve got Cameron.

CAMERON: Hello!

NICK: Hi.

CAMERON: I play Karma Nailo, the Nautolan bounty hunter.

NICK: Wonderful. See, like that, Hudson.

(laughter)

CAMERON: It’s okay. Because Hudson brought it up, I glanced at my sheet as I was talking too.

HUDSON: There we go!

LAURA: Guys! Guys. I just now realized that there is actually a small section on our character sheets for Player Name.

CAMERON: Oh yeah. I have Cam written in it.

HUDSON: I don’t have anything in mine.

LAURA: Oh, I didn’t. I assumed I would recognize my own character sheet! (laughs)

CAMERON: I just wanted everyone to know that it was mine.

HUDSON: What if it gets lost when we’re out and about on the city?

NICK: I’ve always put my name on my character sheets. Now that we’ve updated everybody on our handwriting situation…

CAMERON: It’s important!

NICK: It’s very important. Let’s go ahead and do the Destiny Roll!

CAMERON: Two light side.

LAURA: One light side.

HUDSON: Two light side.

LAURA: (sings magical/angelic note)

HUDSON: Whoaaa~

CAMERON: Okay. we need to actually use these this time.

LAURA: We won~!

CAMERON: We have five light side points. (smiling)

HUDSON: What could we have possibly used these for last episode?

CAMERON: We could have just like made shit occur.

HUDSON: … Okay. (laughs)

LAURA: We could have just flipped it and had any room we wanted.

CAMERON: And been like, this is a thing now, Nick.

NICK: Sentinel farts.

HUDSON: (laughs)

LAURA: We’re not gonna make him fart. It would have been Tink.

HUDSON: Sentinel comes in for a deep kiss.

CAMERON: Whoa.

LAURA: I mean yeah, we should’ve done that.

NICK: Hey. Even with light side points you still need consent, guys. Come on.

HUDSON: What would be Tink and Sentinel shipped? That would be what?

NICK: (snorts) Tinkinel?

OTHERS: Tinkinel! (laughter)

LAURA: Um… Sink!

CAMERON: Sentinink.

NICK: Sink?

HUDSON: Sink! I just like Sink.

NICK: Alright fan artists, get at us. Sink, make it happen.

CAMERON: Oh no.

LAURA: (laughs)

NICK: Alright. Last episode, you flew away from a ball, got to know each other a little bit better, really touched base, really had a soul meeting I think. Then you went and you saw Sentinel, and he told you that he had found a murder droid, an assassin droid that you were going to need to boost your survivability, and that also Black Sun, the Star Wars crime syndicate, had also gotten a line on this assassin droid and had sent an entire enforcer squad to go and get it, so that you are in a race against the clock. You jumped to hyperspace, and that’s where we ended last time.

We’re gonna jump right in as the ship jumps right out of hyperspace above Engibo 5. Engibo 5 is a golden ball floating near its red giant sun. as you come in to land you see that most of the planet is covered it tall, golden grass. Gentle breezes rustle miles of the plains at a time. You scan from orbit and you can see that there are several small settlements and single homes spaced far around this quiet world. One thing especially catches your eye, some sort of heavy fortification  on the equator. It’s mostly underground, but the ship picks up heavy starship plating. Nothing else on the planet is built like that. Can I get a Perception check please?

CAMERON: Sure!

LAURA: Can do!

NICK: This would be from anyone in the cockpit, or being near sensors, or being on the lookout as you come out of hyperspace.

LAURA: Oh, then no.

HUDSON: I think I would be on sensors. Yeah.

CAMERON: What’s the difficulty?

NICK: Average.

CAMERON: Average…

LAURA: Heh…

NICK: It’s the first time we’ve rolled in three episodes.

HUDSON: Ooh! Two successes and three disadvantages.

LAURA: Threats.

HUDSON: Three threats! What is disadvantage from?

LAURA: Uh, D&D?

HUDSON: Oh. Okay.

CAMERON: Ooh, shit! Okay… A success and a triumph!

NICK: Nice. Think about what that triumph is. Tink, where are you that you make this Perception check? You see a ship that is also going through landing procedures. They’re ahead of you.

HUDSON: I’m watching a screen ear the electronics room.

NICK: Do we have a server room in this…?

LAURA: There could be a server room. Yeah.

HUDSON: I’ve been to it before to fix stuff…

CAMERON: The engine room!

NICK: Engine room.

LAURA: Okay. There we go.

NICK: It’s more makes it go-go, less computers, but…

HUDSON: Yeah, yeah.

NICK: Okay. you get a sensor alert that shows a ship. You turn to go inform the rest of the crew and you fall prone (dramatic bass noise), so that’s happening. You trip over the doorway. It has the like battleship doors in this part of the ship. The rest of it is all very nice, they’re swooshy doors, this one though has the metal door with the corkscrew wheel in the middle and you trip over the bottom of it.

HUDSON: “Oh kriff!”

LAURA: I mean, nothing really bad happens, you fell in non-combat, except Xianna saw it and starts laughing at you.

HUDSON: I just look embarrassed.

CAMERON: Aww.

LAURA: “Ha. You fell.”

NICK: I’m gonna tell you what you see, and then Karma if you wanna tell me how you want that triumph to go let me know. You see a blockade runner, like the Tantive IV from A New Hope, Episode 4 of Star Wars. It’s like a hammerhead shaped ship—wow, that’s hard to say—hammer head shaped ship that is about a third rocket boosters. It is faster than you and it got here before you, so you figure it’ll probably land about 20-30 minutes before you manage to set down even if you’re pushing the ship. It’s breaking the lower atmosphere, and then it drops off the sensors. It looks to be headed for that heavily armored fortress type thing.

CAMERON: I want them to not see us…

NICK: Sure. Done.

CAMERON: …and then monitor as they’re going down to try and make it so that I’m not landing in sight of them.

NICK: Sure. With the triumph we’ll say that as you get close to landing there’s kind of a divot in the land that’s about 50 yards away. You’re able to cut the thrusters so that the sound doesn’t go towards them, and you’re able to drop right out of sight.

CAMERON: I want to be a surprise.

NICK: Yeah. You’ll totally be a surprise. As you land in that hollow you see the grass has been flattened in a wide radius. The blockade runner has a grimacing face painted on the forward cockpit with red lightning bolts streaking over the hull. It’s been obviously patched and repaired dozens of times. This is a working ship, not some diplomatic pleasure cruiser. Ahead of you is a massive set of doors sunk into the side of a rolling hill. They are closed. You do not see any people around as far as you can tell. It looks like you landed without being detected.

CAMERON: Ha-ha! “Guys, I think we landed without being detected.”

LAURA: “What? Oh. Okay, cool.”

HUDSON: “Looks that way.”

CAMERON: “Oh, Xianna, there’s another ship here.”

LAURA: “Oh. I was not near a window.”

CAMERON: (laughing) ‘Yeah, that’s why I’m telling you.”

LAURA: “I know. I am just telling you why I did not see the other ship.”

CAMERON: “… Okay. we can wrap up this conversation. This is fine.”

HUDSON: (laughs)

LAURA: “Okay. I will get dressed.”

CAMERON: “Everybody gear up!”

HUDSON: (laughing) Has that ever been said before?

CAMERON: (laughing) Nope!

LAURA: Magical Girl Transformation!

CAMERON: Yeah~!

NICK: We get a cool quick shot montage of gun belts being snapped into place, vibro-swords and vibro-axes being slotted, coat being thrown on and buttoned up but just enough to look cool. Is there anything specifically you all do to prepare for this situation?

CAMERON: The vibro-axe looks very shiny and clean now.

HUDSON: I thank Karma for prettying up my vibro axe. “It looks beautiful.”

CAMERON: “Yeah, no problem. I sharpened it too.”

HUDSON: “Oh…”

NICK: That’s not how that works at all. (laughs)

CAMERON: (laughing) Yeah it is. I just said so.

LAURA: Would I know any pertinent information about this planet? Can I make an Underworld check, maybe with a boost die since we said I had been here before?

NICK: You can have the boost die, but it’s not gonna be Underworld. It’s going to be Outer Rim, because everything you would know about this planet doesn’t actually have much to do with crime.

LAURA: Okay… What difficulty?

NICK: Average. I’d flip a dark side point to make it harder, but (halting screech).

CAMERON: Ha-ha!

LAURA: What is that? So, two failures and three advantages.

NICK: Oookay. Do whatever you want with those advantages.

LAURA: I don’t know shit.

NICK: Yeah, you don’t.

LAURA: Only crime stuff!

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: Yeah, I just don’t remember much. I was too high, it was a while ago, someone else was leading the crew I was on at that time.

NICK: Well, and you remember this planet being particularly boring, you landed in one of the larger settlements, but even that is, like, think small Western town. Not a lot there. There whole planet is these sweeping grasslands. Anybody wanna do anything else before you leave the ship?

LAURA: No. I think Xianna would just put clothes on, boots on, that’s it.

NICK: So, you keep saying ‘I’ll put clothes on.’ Are you just mostly naked on the ship usually?

LAURA: Okay. I don’t know if I’ve ever figured out what’s on underneath the coat. She definitely doesn’t have pants on. It’s coat that goes down to like mid thighs and then boots.

NICK: Uh…

LAURA: No, no, no. She’s just usually in the hot tub. (laughs) It’s either she’s in the hot tub or she’s in her room napping, so that’s why.

NICK: I’ve just always pictured Xianna under the coat is wearing Lara Croft clothes, so like shorts with holsters and a tank top kind of situation.

LAURA: I’m sure there is tiny dance shorts, but then I’m picturing more of the really just standard, traditional Twi’lek wrap bra thing…

NICK: Oh… yeah.

LAURA: …that’s just not practical as an actual top, and should be worn as a bra, but for some reason is a top.

HUDSON: Does it look like Leeloo Dallas Multipass? Like the wraps?

LAURA: I was imagining more of what Aayla Secura wears.

NICK: It’s kind of like sports bra and lingerie had a baby.

HUDSON: Okay.

LAURA: But I would imagine Xianna would probably pick one a little bit more like the Leeloo Dallas Multipass, that has a bunch of useless straps that are just there for decoration

NICK: We can just say Twi’leks are aliens, and that kind of clothes is more comfortable for them. it makes perfect sense.

LAURA: Star Wars!

NICK & CAMERON: (half-enthused) Star Wars!

LAURA: Yay~ (musically) Practical female clothing!

CAMERON: Karma removes her headband.

NICK & HUDSON: Ohh…

LAURA: My scanner goggles are broken!

NICK & CAMERON: Oh yeah.

NICK: It’s a bummer you didn’t have a bunch of downtime with a mechanic to get that fixed.

CAMERON: (laughing) Yup!

LAURA: Shit! (groans)

NICK: (laughs)

CAMERON: You were too sleepy. You slept and forgot.

LAURA: I mean, you know what, thinking about it that’s just more in character, because Xianna would have stuffed them in a pocket… That’s probably what she did. She stuffed them in a pocket, and then was on the down side so she was not thinking about that, and then sleeping a bunch, and so she probably didn’t even remember again until she was getting dressed to get off planet here, and was like ‘aww, shit.’

CAMERON: Yup. So karma’s just a regular Nautolan now.

NICK: Hmm. Interesting. So, we get a shot of the ramp to the Afternoon Delight coming down. The crew exits. Nobody notices, nobody says anything, except for you see some nerfs that have already gathered under the ship and are eating grass. The first one that you notice is one that comes up behind Xianna and licks the back of her head. You see the lekku come up and then fall back down, and they look kind of slimy.

CAMERON: Eww.

LAURA: “(sighs) Eww… (groans)”

NICK: Nerfs, for people who don’t know Star Wars, are like yaks with five horns basically. They’re very hairy. People who herd them tend to be scruffy looking. You never see them in the movies, they just get talked about a lot, but it turns out that they just look like big old yaks. This planet, Engibo 5, is famous for their herds of nerfs.

LAURA: (smiling) It’s canon that Han Solo actually herded nerfs into the Millennium Falcon, and that’s why Leia calls them that.

NICK: When I researched it, the only picture is of Luke and Han in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon surrounded by these giant yak things.

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: (laughs) Yeah. It’s in the comics. Read the Star Wars comics. They get bonkers.

NICK: Yeah. So yeah, you get licked by a space cow.

CAMERON: Karma locks the ship, but not with the remote lock. She presses the button to lock it so it’s quiet.

NICK: So it goes… (quietly) boop-bweep.

CAMERON: (whispering) It goes… boop-boop.

NICK: (laughs) It does the quiet boop-boop.

LAURA: Oh. Xianna’s loudly going like, “Ew! Gross! Tink, come over here!”

HUDSON: “Shh!”

CAMERON: (whispering) “Xianna, shh!”

LAURA: She starts rubbing her lekku on Tink’s fur to try and get any of the slime off. (laughs)

HUDSON: “Ew. No, no, no. Get off.”

LAURA: “What? You never-? You pissed yourself a few days ago! Like you care.”

HUDSON: “Uhh… No. That never happened.”

CAMERON: (whispering) “Xianna! Xianna, we’re being sneaky right now.”

LAURA: “For who?”

CAMERON: (smiling) “The nerfs.”

LAURA: “The nerfs know we are here.”

CAMERON: ‘Remember I said there’s another ship?”

LAURA: “Okay. So the ship is going to hear us?”

CAMERON: ‘No, like the 20 bad guys who got off the ship are gonna hear.”

LAURA: “Ugh. Whatever. Okay, I’ll be quiet. Eh…”

CAMERON: “Okay. Thank you.”

LAURA: “You’re not my mom…”

(laughter)

NICK: You come up over the rise, you don’t see anyone, the other ship appears to be deserted, and these big doors that are going into the side of a low hill look to be closed. As you get closer you see that there is actually a panel placed into an alcove next to the door.

CAMERON: “Tink?”

LAURA: Oh. Xianna already is up and like pressing it.

NICK: Pressing it, it goes ‘bee-berp,’ and doesn’t do anything.

LAURA: Aw.

LAURA & CAMERON: “Tink?”

HUDSON: I go and inspect it.

NICK: (laughing) Okay. What are you looking for?

HUDSON: To see if I can do anything to make it open.

NICK: Yeah. You could probably slice it or something if you wanted to.

HUDSON: Yeah, let’s do that.

NICK: That would be a Computers roll.

HUDSON: Which I just upgraded, last time I was able to upgrade things.

CAMERON: Hey, hey!

LAURA: Nice~

NICK: This is gonna be easy, actually.

HUDSON: I have two successes and three advantages.

NICK: Great. I’m gonna go ahead and spend those advantages for you.

HUDSON: Great.

NICK: So, you see Tink, he goes over, he plugs his data pad into it and he presses some buttons. It goes boop-boop, and the door goes (heavy clunk, whooshing, long buzzing) and opens. It’s a very thick door. It’s probably three feet thick, solid durasteel. You look down and there’s a trench that goes down. The doors seems to fall flush. It’s like this thing was designed to survive a bombardment. Tink, with those advantages, you notice this door has been sliced. This was way easier than it should have been to get open. It was locked, but you just followed somebody else’s footprints electronically and got into it, no big deal, but you do know that the slicer did not close the doors again. Something else made the doors close behind them. So, that could be concerning.

CAMERON: It was one of the yaks.

NICK & LAURA: Nerfs.

CAMERON: (giggles)

NICK: The door opens, you get that kind of stale smell of a cave that’s been closed for a really long time without a lot of air circulation. There’s a little bit of dust on the ground, but you can see multiple boot prints going further in. the building gets kind of dark, and that’s all you can see from here. Do you go further in?

LAURA: Can Xianna just hold her scanner goggles up to her face? It was just the strap that was broken.

NICK: Yeah. It’s just a black die.

LAURA: Yeah. Okay.

NICK: You wanna do a perception?

LAURA: yeah. Is the black die for the strap being broken, or…?

NICK: We’ll say… We’ll do it this way, because weirdly the book doesn’t have anything for broken elastic.

(chuckling)

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: We’ll say you won’t get a black die for the Perception check, but if you want to use them and do anything else it will give a black die to that action, like if you’re in combat or something trying to wear them.

LAURA: Yeah, if I have to hold it to my face with one hand that’ll be something. I just want to hold them up for this moment and look in.

NICK: Sure.

LAURA: Difficulty is…?

NICK: Average, with two black dice for darkness, which you ignore, so then take those away.

LAURA: yeah. That would be three successes and one advantage.

NICK: Great. About 50 meters down this hallway, it’s built like a bunker so you know there’s lots of long stretches in case there was an explosion or some sort of burning gun fight, you see two bodies lying face down and a crater blown in one of the walls. Beyond that you can see a couple of doors, and that’s it. That’s about the furthest you can see with your goggles.

LAURA: “Oh. There is some sort of crater, maybe from some explosion, and two bodies.”

HUDSON: “What kind of bodies?”

LAURA: “I don’t know, like on the floor? Just two bodies, probably dead.” Human-ish? Or at least humanoid.

NICK: Humanoid. Yeah.

LAURA: Okay, but not obviously something non-humany.

NICK: You see like an ear cone sticking up out of one of them. They’re lying down.

LAURA: “Um, fairly human-ish? I mean, I can’t really tell from here.”

HUDSON: “That’s enough information.”

LAURA: “So, I mean, we should be extra sneaky then. Like actually sneaky.”

CAMERON: “(whispers) Okay. Let’s sneak.”

LAURA: “So, stick to the wall, crouch, be quiet, and look for traps. Okie?”

HUDSON: “I’m not the one who was yelling around nerfs.”

(laughter)

NICK: With that, it sounds like you all want to make a Stealth check, probably?

CAMERON: Yeah.

LAURA: Yes.

HUDSON: What’s the difficulty?

NICK: This one’s gonna be average.

HUDSON: Two advantages.

NICK: Mm.

CAMERON: Karma got two successes and an advantage.

NICK: Great.

LAURA: One success, a triumph with its success, and one advantage.

NICK: Okay. I have a thing for y’all’s advantages we’ll use in a minute. Xianna and karma, you’re able to blend into the shadows and traipse down the hallway without any problems. Tink, you’re not super quiet but you’re not super loud, you’re just kinda following, making some noise, kicking stuff, running into some things, but you’re not yelling or anything. You make it to the bodies. There is a Human and a Rodian. One of them is face down, the Human is face down on the ground, and then the Rodian has been clearly smashed into a wall. There’s a red splatter of blood into a crater that was obviously made by the body, and on the opposite wall it looks like there’s a crater that’s been blown in the wall like there was a mine or something there, some sort of booby trap that took at least that one out.

HUDSON: I check for signs of life.

NICK: (laughs) Okay. The Rodian’s super dead. You roll it over and you see most of the face is missing from where it smooshed into the wall. It’s real gross. It makes a shlorpy noise. You roll the Human over and you see that it’s a Human man with dark hair, and his torso is just completely riddled with blaster bolts.

HUDSON: You don’t need all that in there. I check for a pulse.

NICK: (smiling) Okay. Make me a Medicine check.

LAURA: “(whispering) Tink! What are you doing? They are dead.”

HUDSON: “(whispering) I’m the doctor here.”

LAURA: “You do not need to check them.”

HUDSON: “(angrily) I’m the doctor here!”

LAURA: “They are obviously dead!”

HUDSON: “Shh!”

LAURA: “you get back here right this moment.”

HUDSON: What’s the difficulty?

NICK: (smiling) Easy.

LAURA: ‘I will leave you in this hallway!” (laughs)

CAMERON: It would be so funny if you weren’t successful.

(laughter)

LAURA: He’s not! Wow.

HUDSON: (laughing) Five advantages.

LAURA: (laughing) Jesus. What?!

CAMERON: (laughing) Oh no…

HUDSON: Everything… I don’t know what they are, but I have so much other good stuff happening.

NICK: Yeah. You’re able to stop the bleeding. The pulse is faint, but you’re pretty sure you can feel one. Yeah, you have this patient. Are you gonna leave them here? You’re not sure if he’s stable yet.

HUDSON: You don’t leave anyone behind.

CAMERON: Oh god.

NICK: (laughs)

LAURA: (through gritted teeth) “Tink! That man is obviously dead. Get, back, here!”

HUDSON: “I feel a pulse. I feel a pulse. I’m bringing him with.”

LAURA: “No you do not!”

HUDSON: “I’m bringing him with.”

LAURA: ‘He has no chest anymore! (laughs) He is so dead! Tink, do not make me go over there.”

HUDSON: I pick him up and I start carrying him along. “No. I fixed the bleeding. Let’s go.”

CAMERON: While they’re having this argument, since I guess Tink picked up the Human, Karma goes over and checks the Rodian for an ID badge or something.

NICK: They’re wearing orange jumpsuits with brown vests over them. on the vest you can see, it’s like the only part of the Human that’s not been obliterated, the Black Sun symbol. Besides that there’s no ID.

CAMERON: Okay. I’m gonna rip the patch off, and I’ll walk over to the Human and take the Human’s patch too. I’m just gonna start collecting Black Sun patches to turn in for bounties.

NICK: Hey! Good idea. You take those. Yeah. Y’all wanna move on? You’re carrying your new Human friend.

CAMERON: Our new pet.

LAURA: Xianna’s just shaking her head and just continuing to argue with Tink in whispers as we move forward.

HUDSON: Yeah.

NICK: Okay. So, as you continue on from there, there is a section of wall on your right that has been hit with some very heavy blaster fire. You can see a lot of dents and scorches on it. It looks like somebody just really laid into it. Off to your left you see a swooshy door that has been propped open. It looks like it was sliced and then someone jammed something into the track.

HUDSON: Okay… I’ve had a general purpose scanner this whole time. Sure.

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: You ever wanna use that? (laughs)

NICK: What does that do?

LAURA: It says what it does right there.

HUDSON: Motion sensor, lifeform tracking, up to 0.5 kilometers. Metal detection and intercepting standard frequency com transmissions, up to 1.5 kilometers.

NICK: That’s super useful.

CAMERON: We’ve had this the whole time?!

NICK: (laughs)

HUDSON: I’ll remember that this time.

CAMERON: Do you wanna scan for life signs?

HUDSON: Lifeform tracking… I guess it would be able to, but I already checked and it’s alive.

CAMERON: No, no, we’re not worried about your dude.

HUDSON: Oh.

NICK: Just the building in general?

CAMERON: We’re worried about the other 18 people.

LAURA: I imagine this happens, Tink walks a little bit ahead of Xianna, and Xianna’s like, “Tink… What is- Is that a scanner in your…”

CAMERON: (laughing) Sticking out of his backpack.

LAURA: “…in your little backpack?”

HUDSON: “Yeah. It’s just a general purpose scanner.”

LAURA: “We should use that! Does it not pick up lifeform sensor or something?”

HUDSON: “Ah. Yes, that is one of its many features.”

LAURA: “(huffs) So use it~”

HUDSON: “Great. Great. Hold on.” I take it out and I use it.

NICK: Sure. You find about nine lifeforms further into the area. You’re not sure exactly where, because you’re in a metal-lined underground bunker. It does mess with the sensor a little bit, but you can see a good pile of blips, looks to be about nine of them further in.

HUDSON: “There’s about nine figures further in to this hallway.”

CAMERON: “Okay. Keep us appraised.”

LAURA: “Yes. That is useful.”

HUDSON: “Alright. I mean, I’m dealing with, you know, this person right now, and the general purpose scanner, there’s a lot going on…”

LAURA: “He is so dead.”

CAMERON: “I’m not concerned about this person.”

LAURA: “So dead.”

NICK: I’m picturing this sensor as like the heartbeat scanner from Aliens. That’s what I think it looks like.

LAURA: Okay. Yeah.

NICK: It looks like a store scanner with little BBs.

LAURA: Yeah. I would imagine it’s that really standard Star Wars 70s-ish tech, so it’s not a digital readout screen, it is just…

NICK: Lights.

LAURA: …a few lights that light up on a little grid or something, so it’s not super informative.

NICK: Yep. Anyway, so you see the blaster fire on the walls. You can continue onward and you see a door that looks like they sliced it open electronically and then wedged something into it so it would stay open. In that room you see another body laying down, kind of around the corner, and then it looks to be some sort of lab. You can go and look in there, or you can continue onward.

CAMERON: I wanna get that badge.

NICK: Okay.

CAMERON: “I gotta go check out this body.”

LAURA: “Okay. Tink, you stay at the door, you keep watch, and then we will go in and get the badge I guess.”

HUDSON: “So, if this guy comes back to life, he’s our new squad mate, right??

LAURA: “Sure, why not. Uh-huh.”

CAMERON: “Mm-hmm.”

HUDSON: Alright. I’ll make sure that he’s kept safe, and I protect you guys too.”

CAMERON: “Great. Thanks.”

LAURA: “Got it. Okie.”

CAMERON: Sneak, sneak, sneak.

LAURA: And, sneak.

NICK: Yeah. As you enter through the doorway you see that the body is actually sliced in half. It looks fully cauterized, so the part of the body that you saw was torso to head and the legs are on the other side of the door. It is another Black Sun operative. I’m gonna go ahead and spend all those advantages you had earlier to just tell you, hey, this room is trapped. There’s traps in it.

CAMERON: Whaaat? Oh shiiit.

NICK: We’ll say, Karma, off of your advantages and probably Xianna, this looks to be some sort of motion detecting laser situation.

CAMERON: This looks to be a murder room.

NICK: Could be, yeah. Actually, when you look at it, it looks like a robotics lab. (laughs)

CAMERON: “A murder room.”

LAURA: “Is a murder room. Yes. Okie.”

CAMERON: So, for traps, do we make Perception checks as we go?

NICK: yeah, or Skulduggery. Probably Skulduggery for traps.

CAMERON: Oh. That’s not that much worse than my Perception.

LAURA: (musically) What is my thing for Skulduggery…? Skulduggery… What do I have in Coordination…?

CAMERON: What was the difficulty check?

NICK: This one’s gonna be hard.

CAMERON: Err, okay. Can I have—So this isn’t exactly what my talent does, but I want to argue for a blue die for it.

NICK: Okay.

CAMERON: Okay. For my Expert Tracker talent, I can remove black dice from checks to find tracks or track targets. I want to try and track the cut in half person’s path through the room to try and help me identify where the trap sprung.

NICK: Okay. I buy that, except that removes black dice.

CAMERON: yes, I know. I’m saying it doesn’t exactly fit, (laughs) but I’m looking for traps, and I’m trying to use the fact that I’m an Expert Tracker to do that.

NICK: Yeah, sure. If the blue die is your only success I’m gonna throw a monkey wrench in there, but otherwise go ahead.

CAMERON: (deep breath) Okay… It’s not my only success.

NICK: Okie-dokie. For our listeners at home, that’s absolutely not how that works, but I’m doing it anyway. Eh.

LAURA: Ooh. One success.

CAMERON: One success, one threat.

NICK: You’re able to see that the laser emitter isn’t in the walls like you expected. It’s a small box that’s actually sitting on one of these work stations. In this laboratory there’s a bunch of cybernetic parts in a rack along the wall, and you can see a kind of pillbox looking head sitting in a glass locked case up against another wall. There’s a computer terminal, and there is a small box with a laser emitter sitting on one of these work benches. There’s four work benches. It appears to be slowly tracking back and forth. It looks to be some sort of high powered weapon of sorts. You found it. Good job.

CAMERON: “(whispering) It’s that box.”

LAURA: “(whispering) Yes, it is that box. So, yes? You wanted the patch off the body?”

CAMERON: “I do. Yeah.” I want to try to get to where I’m behind its field of vision when it tracks to the other side, if it’s tracking back and forth.

NICK: Okay. it’s tracking back and forth. As you enter the room, the body is probably about two meters inside the room, and as you enter… I’m gonna need a Coordination check.

CAMERON: Ooh. Okay.

NICK: This one’s gonna be hard.

CAMERON: That’s okay. I have two blue dice on my Coordination checks.

NICK: Due to your Stalker talent!

CAMERON: Yup. I’m sure it’ll be fine.

LAURA: (musically) It’ll be fine.

CAMERON: yeah! Ys, wait… Ha-ha! One success. (laughs)

NICK: As you enter the room, you reach for the patch, you’re able to grab it, and then you see that laser emitter is a motion sensor, and the motion sensor must be in the box somewhere not on the laser emitter part, because as soon as you enter the arc where the body was cut in half it snaps to you and shoots a purple laser beam at you. It’s about as thick as your forearm. You snap your hand back and it blows a hole in the corpse, and it smells really bad. As you scramble backwards, using your threat from earlier, it actually fires again at you and goes over your head and hits the computer terminal, and the computer terminal catches on fire and shuts down. So, yup, but you got the patch. Good job.

CAMERON: Ah-ha!

LAURA: “Okie. Let’s get out of here… Let’s go! Okie!”

NICK: Tink, from where you’re sitting you hear them kind of crawl and then you hear a really loud BZZT, BZZZT, and then they come walking out. Karma is crouching pretty low on her way out of the room.

HUDSON: “What? What happened?”

CAMERON: “There’s a laser.”

LAURA: “There was a laser.”

HUDSON: “Oh. Oh… You know, I really should have mentioned that I actually have a mode for motion sensors on my general purpose scanner. It could have been useful, maybe. This has a lot of features.”

CAMERON: “But…”

LAURA: “I don’t think that’s how that works…”

HUDSON: Wait. Did they not go through a motion sensor?

CAMERON: No, we did, but…

NICK: It senses motion.

CAMERON: Does your motion sensor sense motion sensors?

LAURA: It’s motion sensor / lifeform tracking.

HUDSON: Oh!

(laughter)

NICK: It senses motion.

LAURA: It doesn’t sense motion sensors. It senses motion! (laughs)

HUDSON: (laughing) I thought it sensed motion sensors and I got really excited.

NICK: Actually, nope, canon. His senses motion sensors. He got the weird off-brand one from Tatooine.

HUDSON: (laughs)

NICK: Yeah. That’s official. That is now what that does.

CAMERON: You should walk in front with that then.

HUDSON: (laughing) The problem is now it doesn’t actually sense motion.

NICK: (laughing) yup.

HUDSON: It just senses motion sensors. (laughs) That’s so much less useful.

NICK: (laughs)

CAMERON: (laughing) It still senses life signs though, so that’s okay.

LAURA: It senses life signs, but it doesn’t tell you exactly where they are. It just tells you like a number, but it will sense motion sensors.

NICK: I love that so much.

CAMERON: Gosh.

NICK: Whatever electromagnetic pulse comes off of those, yours senses it.

HUDSON: Yup.

LAURA: I mean, it’s written on his character sheet now.

NICK: Yeah. I can’t wait until you walk into somewhere with technology. That’s gonna go great. It’s just gonna shut down.

LAURA: Okay. We continue down the hallway.

NICK: Great! So, as you continue down the hall you come to a small alcove. There is another Black Sun member. He has his back up against the wall. He’s a male Twi’lek, looks like he was gut shot, there’s a wound and he’s got one arm wrapped around it, and he’s leaning back, maybe unconscious, maybe dead. It looks like he took cover there and his compatriots left him. Looking into the alcove you can see some security monitors and what looks like some janitor stuff. It’s like a security monitor / janitor closet situation.

CAMERON: “Alright. The dude who was cut in half makes sense: lasers; all the people being shot are confusing and concerning me.”

LAURA: “No, no, no. So like, someone came in here with the exact same intent we have, just ahead of us, so they are killing the Black Sun members they encounter.”

HUDSON: “What if it’s someTHING?”

CAMERON: “I thought they WERE the Black Sun members?”

LAURA: “No, no, no. Somebody else.”

CAMERON: “There’s multiple groups in here?!” (laughs)

LAURA: “So, from what I think is happening, another group came in here and is killing the Black Sun members they encounter. I’m going to call them the B Team. The B Team is the ones who are sneaking into here. They are the intruders. The Black Sun members are just the collateral damage for them trying to get to the assassin droid as well.”

HUDSON: “Alternate theory.” I raise my hand.

CAMERON: “Okay. Yes? Yes Tink, please share.”

HUDSON: “Alternate theory: So, what if it’s the assassin droid with a gun?”

LAURA: “No.”

CAMERON: “See, that’s what I was thinking.”

LAURA: “But why would the assassin droid be going further into the building?”

HUDSON: “What’s its one function?”

LAURA: “I don’t know!”

CAMERON: “Assassinating!”

HUDSON: “Assassinating things.”

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: ‘I think it might actually have more than one function.”

HUDSON: “It’s the only one we know about right now.”

CAMERON: “We don’t know what its programming is.”

LAURA: “I mean, assassin, but…”

CAMERON: “Well, yes, but like skill-wise. Obviously assassinating, but what else? We don’t know what its programming is, if it’s supposed to defend the base. Is this a base? I don’t know.”

HUDSON: “What if it really doesn’t like Black Sun?”

CAMERON: “That’s true. Yeah.”

HUDSON: “Maybe it like, I don’t know, hurt its family. You know what, this is all speculation at this point, but I’m pretty much 100% sure it’s the assassin bot.”

LAURA: “Okay, so it is the assassin bot. What? I don’t… (groans)”

HUDSON: “let’s just keep going, and then we’ll find out.”

CAMERON: “Okay. I’ma take this badge.” (laughs)

NICK: You grab the badge. The body slides to the ground with a thump leaving a thick red streak behind it on the wall.

CAMERON: Do they have a blaster?

NICK: No, actually.

CAMERON: Dang! Guys, none of these guys have had weapons.

LAURA: “Actually, that makes no sense.”

CAMERON: “Yeah.”

HUDSON: How’s my buddy doing?

NICK: Um, kinda soggy. You did stop the bleeding, you used  a lot of tourniquets and things, no more blood is coming out, but pretty blood drenched in general. You can make a Medicine check to check on him again if you’d like.

CAMERON: We’re adopting a gang member. (laughs)

LAURA: “Tink! That body is dead!”

HUDSON: “It’s not dead.”

LAURA: “Even if not, they are Black Sun.”

NICK: It’s going to be easy again, but with two black dice because you’re very convinced at this point.

LAURA: “We do not need this in our lives.”

HUDSON: “They’ll be so relieved that they’re alive that they’ll have to join us.”

CAMERON: “Hmm…”

HUDSON: Three successes, one … threat?

LAURA: Yes.

NICK: So, while they’re busy trying to loot this dead Twi’lek, you sit your buddy down and you feel for a pulse. You don’t feel anything. You get concerned. You check for other life signs. He’s not breathing. He’s got no pulse. It seems that he slipped away since you saved him earlier.

HUDSON: Without yelling or anything, because that would be too emotional, I do the actions like I’m yelling and slam my fist onto his chest.

CAMERON: (laughs) In agony.

LAURA: “Tink! We told you. He was already dead!”

NICK: There’s a soft crunching noise…

CAMERON: Ew.

NICK: …because you’re real strong. The body jerks a little, but yeah.

LAURA: “Tink, I swear to the goddess, I fi have to come over there and just shoot you I will.”

HUDSON: I take my two fingers and close their eyelids.

NICK: They go down and then they pop back open, because that’s super not how that works.

HUDSON: (laughs)

LAURA: yeah, that is not how that works in real life. It’s difficult.

NICK: Yeah. Eyes, once they stay open they’re open.

HUDSON: It didn’t work, so I’m just like “Okay,” and then I leave the body.

NICK: (laughs) Okay. there’s a crunched, no longer bleeding corpse in the hallway.

CAMERON: “That was an admirable job you did there, Tink.”

HUDSON: “Thank you. I wish more people appreciated my work and long hours to become a doctor.”

LAURA: (through gritted teeth) ‘He was already dead, and you are most certainly not a doctor! You didn’t even graduate from just computer school.”

HUDSON: “Whoa. Hit me at the core here.”

LAURA: “Yes! You have to go to school and get some sort of license to become a doctor!”

CAMERON: “Not if he’s a con artist doctor. I mean, he knows his medicine. That much is obvious.”

HUDSON: “I do know my medicine. I read a book.”

CAMERON: “He knows that if you’re trying to remove glass, if you push on the skin around it the glass just pops out.”

LAURA: “(sighs) I mean, Tink, are you an… Okay. We used to have this conversation with Sabos. Are you a con artist as well?”

CAMERON: I feel like it’s very obvious to Xianna that Karma’s being sarcastic, and I feel like Tink does not get it. (smiling)

HUDSON: No. (laughs) “Con artist? Depends on your definition. (exhales)”

LAURA: “Okay, so no.” Xianna just turns around and starts walking away. “I am so done with this.” You can just hear her, like… ‘I don’t understand why this keeps happening to me. No. Just, why can’t I get competent crew members?”

CAMERON: Um, excuse me. (laughs)

NICK: So, you continue down the hallway. The hallway branches in kind of a Y shape. You hear some blaster fire, and you hear someone yell “Get it! Get it! Get it!” There’s gunfire as you’re approaching. You’re not sure which direction it came from, but you can make me a Perception check if you want.

LAURA & CAMERON: Okay!

NICK: This one’s gonna be hard because of the acoustics of the room. That’s not really a thing I thought I would say.

CAMERON: Karma got a success and two threats.

LAURA: Two failures and three advantages.

HUDSON: Three successes and three threats.

NICK: Okay… Here’s what happens. Xianna, you’re pretty sure that the gunfire must have come from the left. It’s a more narrow corridor. There’s a lot of crates and stuff lining it for cover. If there was a gunfight it must have come from that way. Karma and Tink, you’re pretty sure that the gunfire must have come from the right direction which is a wider empty hallway that curves around a corner and you can’t really see what’s further that way.

LAURA: “Okay, so it is the left.”

CAMERON: “Right.”

HUDSON: “Mm… Right.”

CAMERON: “No, no, not left.”

LAURA: “Yes. Correct.” (laughs)

CAMERON: “No. Not correct. It is the right hallway.”

HUDSON: “I agree with Karma.”

CAMERON: “Not the left hallway.”

LAURA: “yes, the left hallway is the right hallway.”

CAMERON: “No. No, no, no. Not the left hallway.”

LAURA: “But yes, the left hallway…”

CAMERON: “Nope. We’re gonna go down the correct hallway which is the right hallway.”

LAURA: “Tink!”

NICK: Tink falls prone. (dramatic bass noise)

(laughter)

LAURA: No!

NICK: He had three threats. He falls prone.

LAURA: “Tink.”

HUDSON: ‘Whoa!”

LAURA: “Okay. Which direction did you hear?”

CAMERON: “What are you doing, Tink? Get up.”

LAURA: “What are you even doing?”

HUDSON: “I… I fell. Listen, I—“

LAURA: “How are you-? Why do you fall all the time?!”

CAMERON: “We were just standing here!”

HUDSON: “Coordination…” I literally have nothing in Coordination.

(laughter)

LAURA: “Just stand up! It is not that difficult! Which direction did you hear?”

HUDSON: ‘Right.”

CAMERON: “Right!”

LAURA: “(sighs) Okay, right.”

HUDSON: “Right!”

CAMERON: “yeah! Correct.”

NICK: Alright. So you go the right fork?

CAMERON: Yes.

LAURA: Whatever the successful people were told.

CAMERON: (laughs) The right fork.

LAURA: The right fork.

NICK: Okay. You continue down that hallway. It’s surprisingly long before it turns. The corridor makes about a 45 degree turn to the left. You see two corpses littered with blaster fire right there, like stuff stuck in a grease trap in a sink, just kind of smooshed up against the wall. You hear a loud explosion, and you turn around the corner and you see what looks like a motor pool. It’s a wide open room, it’s got a speeder in the far left corner, and then large toolboxes with a lot of tools and parts on it. There’s about four of those scattered around. You see five Black Sun members. One of them is standing over a fallen droid. It’s rust colored, it’s kind of spindly, but has an armored front chest plate and has kind of a bug-like looking head with little slits for eyes and two antennae sticking off the back that are kind of short. The droid is smashed up against the wall and appears to be down. The guy kicks it and says, “Well, it’s no good to us dead.” That’s the scene that you walk up to.

CAMERON: I’m gonna say we don’t step around the corner. (laughs)

HUDSON: Yeah, let’s chill here for a second.

CAMERON: Yeah. (laughs)

NICK: Do you guys get the three heads peeking around the corner Scooby Doo style?

LAURA: Oh yes, certainly.

CAMERON: yes, but Tink is on the bottom.

HUDSON: Yeah.

CAMERON: It doesn’t make sense what order our heads are in.

LAURA: Yeah, it goes Tink, karma, Xianna.

CAMERON: yeah.

LAURA: That’s how that works.

NICK: Well that’s what I was picturing.

LAURA: Yeah!

CAMERON: yeah. I mean, that’s the only way we could have done it.

NICK: Okay. So you look around the corner, you see that, and the guy who was poking at the droid… They’re all wearing those orange jumpsuits with the brown vests. He is a Human with blonde hair that’s kind of spiked up. He turns around and they start arguing with each other about what they’re gonna do now.

LAURA: How close is the nearest pile of boxes? In my head I’m imagining like… crates?

NICK: Yeah, but they’re like the really big, metal ones that don’t make a lot of sense.

LAURA: Yeah, but so like a large 5 by 5, kind of?

NICK: From where you are in the corner you’ve got probably 30 meters into the actual room and then another 10 meters to the first set of boxes to hide behind. It’s a decent distance.

LAURA: A decent trek to the boxes.

NICK: yeah. One might even say you are at a long range band from them right now.

CAMERON: Ooh.

LAURA: “Okay, so…”

HUDSON: “I have an idea.”

LAURA: “My gun does not shoot very far. Tink, you do mostly the close quarters combat. So Karma is the only one really who does the long range.”

HUDSON: ‘I have a thought.”

LAURA: “yes?”

CAMERON: “yes? What’s your thing?”

HUDSON: “So, my idea is that we actually don’t engage yet for once, and we just wait and see if they come to us or if they keep going down the corridor and leave the robot.”

CAMERON: ‘if it’s no use to them dead, it is use to us dead.”

HUDSON: “What’s a robot? They leave the droid.”

NICK: (laughs)

CAMERON: ‘I was just gonna bypass that weird term you used, but yes.”

LAURA: “yes, I’m not sure what a robot is. If they just said it is no use to us dead, that is probably the droid they were trying to get, meaning the droid we were trying to get.”

HUDSON: “What if we wait until they walk away?”

LAURA: “But they probably won’t walk away if that is the droid they are here for.”

HUDSON: “Ohh.”

LAURA: “Do you understand that they are probably arguing over what to do now that they think it is broken? So, I was thinking we would sneak to the boxes, they are pretty far away but it would be cover, and then we shoot them.”

CAMERON: Does there look to be an exit from this room, or are they gonna have to come back down this hallway?

NICK: It’s hard to tell, because you’re in a narrow corridor and the room spreads out. You can’t see any doors from where you’re at. It’s pretty obvious from the trail of bodies at this point that they came this way.

HUDSON: “What if we cause a distraction by throwing something down the hallway so they have to come this way, and then I just get them all with my vibro-axe, like bang, boom, bang.”

LAURA: “Okay, so there are five of them. Maybe if we made a slight distraction we can pick them off one by one, but all five would probably be a bit of a difficult situation.”

CAMERON: “If we want to hide, we think they’re gonna come back this way, we can duck back into that other hallway that had the boxes in it where they wouldn’t see us. Then they’d walk past us to get to the exit. Their ship’s over by that exit, so they’re probably gonna walk back this way. Running into this giant room when they all have blasters and we’re not the most heavily equipped blaster-wise just doesn’t seem all that bright to me. It’s something Sabos would have done, so I’m kind of cautious against it.”

HUDSON: “I may have been distracted for part of that, so I’ll follow Karma to the end of the earth.”

CAMERON: (laughs) Perfect.

LAURA: “Okay. So let’s go back to that like janitor closet, go in there, maybe there will be something useful, and then wait for them there? Is that it?”

CAMERON: “Somewhere back along the hallway where they’re gonna have to walk past us, behind a crate or something. If we can get cover and be in cover as they come towards us this is ideal.”

LAURA: “Assuming they come back this way. Yes.”

CAMERON: ‘Yes.”

NICK: So, you’re going towards the hallway with the crates, or you’re going to the janitor closet?

CAMERON: Probably janitor closet first.

NICK: That’s further away. Is that okay?

HUDSON: Oh, it is?

NICK: Yeah. The janitor closet was before the fork. The hallway with the crates is at the fork.

HUDSON: Oh.

LAURA: “Assuming they have to come back here, if we go now before they come back it probably won’t matter too much which.”

CAMERON: “Okay, here. I’ma go setup behind one of the crates in the other hallway so that I’m here at this fork in the hallway. If y’all wanna go look at the janitor closet and then melee it up, Tink, you can do that.”

HUDSON: “Alright.”

CAMERON: “I’m gonna have my blaster out though and just be sitting here and wait.”

HUDSON: “Alright. I can go with this plan.”

CAMERON: “And I can com y’all when I hear them coming.”

LAURA: “Okay, so yeah. You can flank them! Wait for them to walk a little bit, and then you are behind them… and then you can shoot them, in the back. Yes! Okay. Tink, you and I, janitor closet.”

HUDSON: “Janitor closet!”

LAURA: “Janitor closet. Go!”

NICK: As you take off down the hall, Karma you’re a little bit behind them, you hear the leader of the group go, “Well, I guess we’ll take it with us. Maybe they’ll be able to salvage something.”

Two of them try and pick it up and go, “Aw man, it’s heavier than it looks.”

The leader says, “Well, grab that weird gun too, because I think that’s important.” And they start to head down the hallway.

CAMERON: Since I’m at the corner, and you said it’s a fair distance to get to where we were at the corner, I probably waited until they started moving to head to the other hallway to get cover so that we had more of a range of knowing closer to when the time was.

NICK: Sure. You come to the fork…

CAMERON: “They’re coming down the hallway now.”

LAURA: “Okie!”

NICK: The first crate is about 15 meters from the fork. You can see it’s a narrow hallway with crates. They’re just wooden crates full of (mumbles). They stagger left and right down the hallway so it’s kind of a windy path. You set up. Can I get a Stealth check, please? This one’s gonna be average.

HUDSON: Who’s doing the Stealth check?

NICK: karma is. Don’t worry about it.

CAMERON: I’m sure it’s fine… One success, four advantages.

NICK: Alright. I’ll say you can use those advantages to boost your potential initiative roll after you ambush them, so remember that. You’re able to duck quietly behind some of the crates, and you hear something further down the hallway but whatever it is doesn’t seem to notice you.

CAMERON: (whispering) “Guys, I think there’s something in this hallway.” (laughs)

LAURA: ‘I mean, you are in the hallway.”

CAMERON: “I mean, obviously it’s not me.” (laughs)

LAURA: ‘Is it the Black Sun? You know they are here.” (laughs)

CAMERON: “I don’t know~ We’ll see. I’m just gonna watch both directions.”

LAURA: “Okay~” (laughs)

NICK: Around then you start hearing the clip-clomp of gangster feet as people come around the hallway.

CAMERON: (whispered) “They’re coming!”

NICK: They make it to the fork. You can hear them arguing about who has to carry this stupid droid, it’s so heavy, they stop and trade out. Everybody seems to be carrying either the droid, or you see a long looking rifle but it has a lot of different barrels on the front and they’re not all the same length, and it appears to be fed with a different kind of power pack. It’s a very weird looking gun. It also looks kind of like a prototype, like it’s not a finished product, it’s just a thing. They stop there for a minute. Do you do anything, or do you let them continue on?

CAMERON: I let them continue on until they all have their backs to me.

NICK: Okay. They continue down the hallway. I’m gonna need Cool checks from everybody.

LAURA: Cool!

CAMERON: Hey.

HUDSON: Oh no…

(laughter)

NICK: This is how well you do ambushes.

LAURA: Any difficulty?

NICK: A Cool check, it’s just initiative.

CAMERON: Karma got three successes and two advantages.

NICK: Nice.

LAURA: Xianna got three successes and two advantages.

NICK: Wow.

LAURA: I’m cool~

HUDSON: Rolling two green, I got two successes and two advantages.

NICK: Wow.

CAMERON: Nice!

NICK: Can you roll me two yellows and a green?

CAMERON: Two successes, two advantages.

NICK: Can you roll me a yellow and a green?

CAMERON: One success, two advantages.

NICK: And two green?

CAMERON: A success and an advantage.

NICK: Alright. Let me throw this initiative order together real quick. We got Player, Player, NPC, Player, NPC, NPC. That’s how it’s gonna work. Y’all have about five advantages to work with here. Is there anything you would like to add to this setting or scene that you would like to use in your favor.

HUDSON: Can I happen to have something, maybe like a robot defibrillator?

CAMERON: (giggles)

HUDSON: Sorry, a droid defibrillator, something to revive a droid.

LAURA: I mean, that would just be like a toolkit.

HUDSON: yeah. I feel like I just would have that. Right?

CAMERON: Yeah, you just have that.

LAURA: If we get to the janitorial closet…

NICK: There’s probably  a bunch of tools and stuff in there. Yeah.

LAURA: …there’s gonna be toolkits.

HUDSON: Perfect. Okay.

LAURA: I would like there to be some sort of can of grease or oil that we can pop back out of the closet and throw further down the hallway so that when they walk that way it’s slippery.

NICK: (smiling) Sure. There’s a big can that says Star Wars Lube.

CAMERON: Yes!

LAURA: (laughs) Just an industrial tub of KY jelly.

NICK: It says Star Wars Lube, Danger: Flammable.

HUDSON: (laughs)

LAURA: Yes!

NICK: Okay. That’s probably three of them. you got two left. Want to spend something, Cameron?

CAMERON: Um… I have cover already. What range are they at from me now, having walked a little bit past me to be in front of me?

NICK: Medium.

CAMERON: Okay.

NICK: The other thing you’re gonna run into is if they make it all the way to the janitor closet there’s gonna be a wall in the way, you’re not gonna be able to see them from the crates, so you may have to move up. Right now you can still see them. they’re about half way between your hallway and the closet.

CAMERON: I guess if there’s some sort of pipe we could shoot to have steam go everywhere or something.

NICK: Oh yeah. The whole facility has those all over the ceilings.

HUDSON: (laughs)

CAMERON: Yeah. I just want some pipes that we can make steam go to make visibility a little more difficult for them.

NICK: Sure. That’s there. You identify it quite handily from your experience. So, there’s a player slot first. They’re about half way between the two of you, probably at medium range to each. Who wants to go first.

LAURA: Tink and Xianna are in the janitor closet waiting. Before this all goes down as we’re just on the com setting things up, Xianna’s just sitting there shaking her leg up and down. ‘Uh… Okay. I’m just gonna go ahead and do this.” She reaches into her pockets and pulls out a bag of impact, and takes it, and is just… “Okie. Heh. I’m a lot better. That is, uh, going to help.”

HUDSON: “Good for you.”

LAURA: “yes. You want any?”

HUDSON: “No. you should know by now. No.”

LAURA: “I mean, I also have some glitterstim. That will really mess you up. Yes.”

HUDSON: “Ugh. I need to be focused. I need to be on my game.”

LAURA: “yeah, so the impact.”

HUDSON: “No…”

LAURA: “it really helps you focus. It does.”

HUDSON: “Uh… N- I’m- … I am drug-free, I’m proud to say.”

LAURA: “I mean, okay.”

CAMERON: Dare to be drug-free!

HUDSON: (laughs)

LAURA: ‘I will respect that, but you know, if you want it I have it. Cool.”

HUDSON: “Cool.”

LAURA: “Okie. Let’s kill some people!” (laughs)

CAMERON: Probably since they’re in the closet and Karma can see the Black Sun members, she probably goes first so that her blaster shot lets them know hey they’re in position.

NICK: Okay.

LAURA: I would imagine that.

HUDSON: And if they turn around I can come from behind.

CAMERON: And then they turn around to face me, and Tink can axe them in the back.

NICK: Sure.

CAMERON: Since Karma’s already in cover, she’s going to use her maneuver to take aim at the gang member who’s carrying the big, weird-looking gun.

NICK: Okay. You’re at medium range, so that would be average.

CAMERON: Mm-hmm! And I got my blue die. That is two successes, two advantages.

NICK: How much damage does that do?

CAMERON: Eleven~

NICK: Phew. Okay. Yeah, so you pop up from cover and shoot that guy. You hit him right between the shoulder blades and he just drops. Yeah. He goes down, the gun goes skittering down the hallway in front of him, and people start to turn around and try to see where the gunfire came from. Yeah, so that guy is down, good work.

CAMERON: I did shoot with stun. My gun is default to stun.

NICK: Right, so you stun that guy. Okay.

CAMERON: And my advantages, I want them to be that everyone turns to look at where the blaster came from, so whichever one of Tink or Xianna goes next gets a blue die, because they’re now coming from behind.

NICK: Yeah, that makes sense. You confuse them. Up next is another player slot.

LAURA: Xianna will go next since we are shooting. She’s gonna lean outside the janitor closet and… medium range?

NICK: Yup.

LAURA: Okay, and shoot just whichever one is closest.

NICK: So mechanically there’s the grunts, there’s three of them, and then there’s the leader guy. He’s got his own slot. Do you want to shoot at the group or the leader?

LAURA: I’ll do the group.

NICK: Okay.

LAURA: That’s two?

NICK: Should be, unless yours is short range. If it’s short range then it’s…

LAURA: The range of my gun is medium, but I do increase the difficulty by one for beyond short range.

NICK: Okay, so then it’s three I guess.

CAMERON: I thought it was within short range, or less.

NICK: Hers is because it’s a short range gun, or it’s a medium range but she filed it up.

CAMERON: Oh, okay.

LAURA: Yeah. I have a filed frontsight so I get innate Quickdraw, but it means anything beyond short range is increased in difficulty.

CAMERON: Okay. I thought it was flipped. I thought it was anything less than short range was increased difficulty.

NICK: No, that’s you. Your gun gets harder if you’re closer.

CAMERON: Well yeah, it’s big. (chuckles)

LAURA: I would also aim since I’m not taking any other maneuvers.

NICK: Sure.

LAURA: Oh shit. Heh… There’s a triumph but no success, one failure, and three advantages. (pause) yeah.

(laughter)

NICK: So… Since it’s group combat I’ll say you can use the triumph to take one down, because that’s how that works. If you’d like to do that you can.

LAURA: Yeah. I’ll do that for the group, and then I’d like those advantages to be passed, that my laser blaster kind of ricochets so they don’t actually look back at the janitor’s closet, they’re kind of looking the other direction because they think that’s where it came from.

NICK: Sure. They’re confused.

HUDSON: (laughs)

LAURA: Yeah. They’re just confused about where the laser fire actually came from, which would give Tink a blue die, because they might not expect him to come from that direction.

NICK: Sure, makes sense to me, and I don’t have any dark side points to play with so this ambush is going very well for y’all so far.

CAMERON: Ha-ha!

LAURA: Ha-ha.

NICK: So yeah, you drop him, Tink’s gonna have a blue die on whatever he chooses to do, but it’s an NPC slot right now. The leader of the group is going to pull a blaster rifle off of his back and he’s going to see that Karma has leaned out from behind cover and taken a shot at him. He is going to do a really cool action roll forward. ‘They’re trying to shoot us!” And takes a shot at Karma.

CAMERON: How observant. (laughs)

NICK: He is two yellows and a green, and it’s medium range so it’ll be two, but he’ll get a black die because you’re in cover.

CAMERON: Hey, good job, Cameron. That’s two failures and one advantage.

NICK: Great. The advantage… don’t worry about it. The failure, he shoots at you but his action roll was so cool that he didn’t actually aim particularly well. His maneuver is he is moving towards you, but he misses, so that’s his turn. Now we’re up to another player slot. Tink, whatcha gonna do?

HUDSON:  Alright. I haven’t fought in a while. Maneuver, and then I get to do an action?

NICK: Yeah. You can do an attack or a main action, you have a maneuver, you can do little things no big deal, and if you take a strain you can do an extra maneuver if you want.

HUDSON: Got it. My maneuver’s gonna be running towards them.

NICK: Yeah. For medium range, if you maneuver and then take a strain to do another maneuver you can close with them, you can be in melee range in one go and hit them.

HUDSON: Okay. I’ll do that, actually.

NICK: Okay, so take a strain, because it’s one to get from medium to short and another to get from short to engaged.

HUDSON: Okay. I’m going to go to the group and just try to axe one of them in the back. I don’t think they were facing me.

NICK: (smiling) Everybody made their advantages that people weren’t going to wonder what was going on with the janitor closet, so you’re able to basically just activate your axe, run right up to them, nobody knows you’re there… which is a little messed up.

CAMERON: And you get a blue die.

HUDSON: Ooh, yeah, I do. And the difficulty is?

NICK: Two.

CAMERON: Always two.

NICK: Always two, but they’re not exactly wearing body armor, so…

HUDSON: Oh my. Three successes, three threats.

NICK: How much damage does your axe do? I think it’s three plus your Brawn.

HUDSON: Yes, so six.

NICK: Plus the successes, so nine?

CAMERON: Plus another three.

HUDSON: Yeah.

NICK: Cool. The two guys from the group who are still standing are carrying the droid. How do you want to cut one of these guys up? What are you aiming for?

HUDSON: I only get to cut one?

NICK: Yeah. You only kill one of them. They have a decent amount of health.

HUDSON: Dang it. Alright. I do this cool anime jump with both of my legs in the air, knees bent, and come downwards and cross it across the top right corner of his head all the way down through his torso.

CAMERON: (laughing) Oh gosh.

NICK: Okay. You bisect this guy pretty cleanly. We get that horrible shot of the body sliding a little before it collapses.

HUDSON: Just like from that Star Wars movie when the ship’s like cut open.

(laughter)

CAMERON: I gotcha. Yeah.

NICK: And then the legs of the droid get dropped, there’s a really loud clang, that guy is very down, and this group is having a rough time. Good ambush, y’all.

CAMERON: We did so good at planning! (smiling)

NICK: Yeah! You do that. The final guy holding the droid says, “Kriff this!” and drops the droid, and pulls out a blaster pistol. He is very close to Tink, but he is going to try and shoot him in the face real quick.

HUDSON: (feigned fright) “Nooo…”

NICK: That is one green die. It’s only one purple though, because he’s at short range and he’s got a pistol.

CAMERON: Okay. Do you wanna roll it, Hudson?

NICK: Yeah, that’s it.

HUDSON: Really?

NICK: Yup.

HUDSON: One advantage.

NICK: Yeah, great. So, he shoots and the head honcho man sees that you are there, Tink, and he is now thinking quickly and tactically. Also, down to the next slot, three people from further into the box hallway having been alerted by all the gunfire and the threats that my characters have rolled, poke their heads up and go… “What the kriff?!” and they start to shoot at Karma. They’ll have cover this time. They’re going to spend their maneuver to get up to the first row of cover. They’re running and gunning so we won’t mess with that, but next time you’ll have to pick who you’re gonna have cover between.

CAMERON: Okay.

NICK: They are going to shoot at Karma. I need you to roll one yellow and two green. For those at home, I’m using the Mass Combat rules for groups of henchmen. It’s pretty great.

CAMERON: They’re at medium, so it’s two?

NICK: Yup.

CAMERON: Two advantages.

NICK: (huffs) So much for my high-stakes fight, huh? They shoot some more, there’s some lovely pyrotechnics, you all are protected by your plot armor…

HUDSON: (laughs)

NICK: …and the head honcho boss guy is wondering what he pays these people for.

CAMERON: We’re being protected by our great planning skills.

NICK: Well, that too.

LAURA: And the dice.

CAMERON: (smiling) And the dice, the dice liked us.

NICK: In fact, the head honcho boss man says, “What am I even paying you all for?” And we’re back to the top of the initiative with a player slot.

LAURA: Xianna will shoot the head guy this time.

NICK: Okay. He’s at medium range.

LAURA: She’s gonna aim, and I’m gonna go ahead and flip a light side point for that.

NICK: Might as well.

LAURA: Because might as well.

NICK: Ah-ha-ha. … Oh, swap one of those purples out for a red. He has Adversary 1. I forgot to mention that. You can pick which one you want to get rid of since I didn’t tell you soon enough.

CAMERON: A despair. (laughs)

LAURA: Thank you!

(laughter)

LAURA: Two successes and a despair that has no failure.

NICK: Okay. Hey, one of the despair things I can do is ‘ranged weapons run out of ammunition.’ Isn’t that interesting?

LAURA: Cool…

NICK: Another one is ‘ranged attack hits character engaged with target.’ He’s not technically engaged.

CAMERON: No one is currently engaged with him. (laughs) They’re still in the courting phase, not engaged yet.

LAURA: Yes.

NICK: Yeah… So, what I’m going to do is, that initiative slot is now being used last in the initiative order. That’s one off the sheet. Isn’t that cool? That doesn’t mean you get to reuse it. It means if it goes to another round it’ll go down. What that looks like is, Xianna pops around the corner and she takes a shot. How much damage does she do?

LAURA: That would be eight damage.

NICK: Woo-hoo. He does not like that. It hits him pretty good. It hits him in the back of the arm and he drops. Xianna starts to get real, real, real jittery, and kind of has some muscle spasms going on and some double vision, and has to duck back around the corner and collect herself, and loses some time trying to get back in the zone.

CAMERON: Auto Zone.

LAURA: (laughs) Yeah.

HUDSON: God.

CAMERON: (giggles)

NICK: But yeah, that fun side effect brought to you buy Fantasy Flight Game, Star Wars: Edge of the Empire roleplaying game. You hit him, he did not like it, it appeared to do some pretty solid damage to him… and we’re to another player slot.

CAMERON: “Y’all got this, right?” Karma says, turning away from the fight that she was fighting in and facing the guys coming down her hallway now.

HUDSON: “Yeah.”

LAURA: ‘Maybe. I think so! Maybe. (giggles) Sure!”

HUDSON: “Of course.”

CAMERON: She’s gonna run from the crate she was at to the one in front of her so that she’s still shooting over a crate and has cover, but is now just having cover the other way.

NICK: Sure.

CAMERON: And she’s going to shoot at those dudes.

NICK: Okay. You’re at close range, because they’re also running towards those same crates. Is that going to negatively affect you?

CAMERON: I don’t know. Hold on.

NICK: What are your weapon’s trait things?

CAMERON: Ranged heavy, medium, stun setting.

NICK: Yeah. I think you can just shoot them, so it should be easy.

CAMERON: Okay, but do they have cover currently if they’re running towards the boxes, or are they in between at the moment?

NICK: We’ll say they’re up in the air.

CAMERON: If I ran up to get cover again, that was my maneuver. Right?

NICK: Yup. You could take a strain to still aim if you wanted to.

CAMERON: Nah. I’ll flip a light side point though to really upgrade this.

NICK: Great.

CAMERON: (laughs) Three yellows against one purple. Four successes.

NICK: How much damage is that?

CAMERON: Thirteen.

NICK: Ooh. Yeah, you got enough to roll out. You take out two of the dudes.

CAMERON: Ha-ha!

NICK: What does that look like? You shoot them in the face with your stun setting?

CAMERON: Well I shoot one of them, as he’s running towards me he kind of does a thing where his upper body falls backwards but his legs keep moving for a second, and his blaster comes up and he just smacks his friend in the face and it breaks his nose into his brain and he dies.

NICK: Oh. Great.

HUDSON: (laughs)

NICK: That’s pretty intense.

CAMERON: Yup! (laughs) But it wasn’t Karma that killed him, his friend killed him, so it’s okay!

NICK: I think Karma probably killed the drug lord.

CAMERON: Eh, it’s fine.

NICK: Get it? Like karma, like karmic justice. I made a joke. (smiling)

LAURA: No.

HUDSON: Nuh-uh.

CAMERON: What?!

NICK: No?

CAMERON: I don’t think that was a joke, babe.

HUDSON: (laughs)

NICK: Oh… Okay. Anyway! That brings us to an NPC slot. Boss guy is going to level his gun at Tink who is at close range and try to shoot him while Tink is busy dealing with the guys standing over the fallen assassin droid. That is two yellows and a green. Can you flip me a dark side point to upgrade that to three yellows, please?

CAMERON: It’s one purple, because you said close?

NICK: Yes. This might hurt real bad.

CAMERON: I’m sure it’ll be fine. … Oh shit, no. That is three successes and a triumph.

HUDSON: Egh…

NICK: So that’s 13 damage, because he’s using Karma’s gun.

CAMERON: You get soak.

HUDSON: Yeah.

NICK: And I would like to roll a crit please, with my triumph.

LAURA: We have a chart.

CAMERON: It’s a 96.

NICK: OOH!

LAURA: OOH! Bye Tink! (laughs)

HUDSON: Nooo!

CAMERON: No, it’s not 140-something.

NICK: Crippled: One limb is impaired until healed/replaced.

HUDSON: Not my typing arm!

CAMERON: Shit! (laughs)

NICK: Plus one difficulty to all checks using that limb. I’ll let you pick. What limb do you want to be impaired?

HUDSON: My left leg.

NICK: Your left leg. Any kind of moving that you’re doing, and I’m gonna say attacking with your axe you probably attack with your legs for more strength, so it applies to attacks too. He rolls towards you, and from very close range he sets the gun to burst, and he says, “I’ve always hated Wookies!” He shoots a three-blast into your kneecap and just tears it up real bad.

LAURA: (shouting) That is racist!”

CAMERON: (shouting) “He is not a Wookie!”

NICK: “Uh- Oh, really?” And then we’re gonna go to the next initiative slot. (laughs)

CAMERON: “Learn yourself!”

NICK: I guess it’s Tink, actually.

HUDSON: Yep. Give me a second, I’m writing down ‘left leg goners.’

CAMERON: Yup. (laughs)

NICK: Crippled. You didn’t actually lose it. It’s savable.

HUDSON: So, I’m like, “(shouts and groans in pain).”

NICK: “See, a Wookie!”

CAMERON: (smiling) ‘No!”

HUDSON: “No, I’m a Gigoran you kriffin’… (grumbling snarl).” Alright. Am I close? Am I like short range to him?

NICK: You can do a maneuver to get to that guy if you want.

HUDSON: Yeah, I want to get to that guy in particular.

CAMERON: (laughs) He’s got a purple and a red, right? Because he’s Adversary?

NICK: Yeah, one of those purples is a red.

HUDSON: Oh. That’s right, because from now it’s that way.

NICK: Well, yours is an extra purple, so it’s two purples and a red, because it adds a difficulty and the red is because he has Adversary which means it’s harder to attack him. Those are for like big bads. He’s just not that big or bad.

HUDSON: Three threats and two successes.

NICK: Okay… You hit him, it does eight damage. Ooh. He takes it in the shoulder, he looks like he’s in very bad shape and he’s not doing well. There’s a lot of blood and he gets a look on his face of someone who’s thinking, ‘I’m at least gonna take one of these suckers with me.’ He kicks out at you as the axe bites into his shoulder and hits you in your injured knee, and you fall prone. (dramatic bass noise)

HUDSON: “Ow! This always happens to me!”

LAURA: “Your center of gravity is just off.”

CAMERON: (laughs)

HUDSON: “No, this was a leg this time!”

LAURA: “I know, but I think your center of gravity is also off! Maybe you should try some yoga or something, maybe center yourself!”

HUDSON: “Where’s the lube?! Knock them prone, all of them!”

NICK: (laughs)

CAMERON: “We do have that yoga studio if you sink the hot tub!”

LAURA: ‘Wait, are we inviting them back? Is that why the lube is…?”

CAMERON: “No!” (laughs)

LAURA: “Oh no! Yes! We were going to throw it down the hallway! It is too late for that!” (laughs)

CAMERON: ((laughs)

HUDSON: (weakly) “Alright…”

NICK: We are up to an NPC slot. We’re going to do the one dude left facing Karma. He’s going to actually get up close and pull out a vibro-knife and try and stab Karma. “You shot Morty!”

CAMERON: (snorts, giggles)

NICK: He only has one green, because you took out all his buddies.

CAMERON: Aww. Nada.

NICK: Yeah. How do you stop him from stabbing you, like a cool person?

CAMERON: So, I have my carbine on a harness, so I’m gonna let go of my carbine for a second and I want to turn and pull out my vibro-sword slightly and catch his knife on my vibro-sword.

NICK: Ooh, very cool.

HUDSON: Ooh.

CAMERON: Yep.

NICK: Then do you re-sheath it or do you draw it?

CAMERON: I re-sheathe it.

NICK: (laughs) Okay. You just (sound effects of unsheathing, blocking, and re-sheathing), and then grab your gun again?

CAMERON: Yeah.

NICK: Cool. Well, he’s useless. We’re back to the top of the order with a player slot. Right now we have one guy engaged with Karma, one guy standing over the assassin droid just waving his gun around looking useless, and the big boss man who just kicked Tink down to the ground and is standing over him with an assault rifle.

LAURA: Xianna’s gonna lean out of the closet and shoot the big baddie by Tink, help him out. She’s gonna aim and everything. Let’s see…

CAMERON: Two purples for the distance.

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: Yes! Yes!

LAURA: (nervously) Okay!

(laughter)

NICK: Here we go.

LAURA: So what I have is a despair and a triumph. I don’t… I would assume the success of the triumph cancels out the failure of the despair.

CAMERON: Yes.

LAURA: So I have a failure-less despair and a success-less triumph.

NICK: Here’s what the despair is going to be. I was reading it earlier. Ranged attack hits character engaged with target. So you’re gonna hit Tink. You didn’t have any successes so it’s just going to be the base damage.

HUDSON: Nooo.

NICK: What’s the base damage on your pistol, Xianna?

LAURA: Six.

NICK: That’s six damage going at Tink. Are you still conscious?

HUDSON: Oh yeah. I have five left.

NICK: Oh bummer.

CAMERON: He’s strong.

HUDSON: I’m stronk.

NICK: Oh I know, he can take it.

CAMERON: (mimicking Xianna’s accent) ‘Oh sheet! You are just so beeg!’ (giggles)

LAURA: “Tink! Stop being so big. You are in the way. It is your fault.” (laughs) “Sorry Tink! Sorry~!”

HUDSON: “Ow!”

LAURA: “I did not think you were going to be there!” (laughs)

HUDSON: “I was literally- How did you not think that?”

LAURA: “I don’t know, honestly.” (laughs)

NICK: At this point you can just hear the boss guy going, “Heheheheheh.” That was a player slot, now we’re to an NPC slot, and it’s going to be him. He is just going to shoot Tink. He gets a black die because Tink is prone. He is two yellows and a green.

CAMERON: One advantage.

NICK: Okay. He misses.

HUDSON: Ha-ha!

NICK: I’ll give a blue die to Knifey McKnife or whoever goes next. How do you dodge this guy shooting you at point blank?

HUDSON: I do a roll and roll over my very, very injured left leg and go, “Aghhh~!”

NICK: “See! A Wookie!”

CAMERON: “Still no! That’s incredibly … speciest?”

HUDSON: (growling through pain) “I’m. A. Gigoran!”

NICK: With that, we are to a player slot.

CAMERON: Alright. Karma’s gonna take it. I want to look at the guy who just tried to stab me. “Sorry babe, you’re not worth my time,” and turn around and walk away and go shoot the boss man. (laughs)

NICK: Okay. We’ll say you use a maneuver to get out of the hallway and back to where you can see him. It probably puts you at medium range.

CAMERON: Cool. That’s a red and a purple?

NICK: Yep.

CAMERON: (laughs) That’s just a threat. (heavy exhale)

NICK: Okay. You do that. I think the guy goes, “Hey!” and shoves you from behind as you’re shooting, and your shot goes wide.

CAMERON: Two of my dice came up blank.

NICK: That’s a bummer.

LAURA: Why are we like this?

NICK: (laughs) I don’t know.

CAMERON: I was doing real good before I tried to help y’all.

LAURA: I mean, I just keep rolling the weirdest shit, just… a triumph and a despair! Because why not.

NICK: No, that was fun. That was a player slot, so we are to an NPC slot. We’re gonna say the guy who shoved Karma is going to stab her again since she faced away. He was able to bump into you so that you couldn’t shoot his boss, Karma, and now he’s going to try to follow that up with a stab. He gets a blue die, because you were obviously ignoring him.

CAMERON: One success.

NICK: Yay! A vibro-knife does two, he has two Brawn, and one success, so that’s five damage.

CAMERON: (smiling) Karma soaks all of it. (laughs)

NICK: Yeah, so he drives a knife into you and… you’re the combat character, and it does nothing.

CAMERON: I look over my shoulder. “Oh, are you still here?”

HUDSON: (scoffs) Oh dang.

CAMERON: (giggles)

NICK: (laughs) Roll for sad.

CAMERON: (laughing) Alright. What’s that gonna be?

NICK: The last one is the guy standing over the assassin droid who is still up because everyone has decided he’s not important. He’s actually going to use his maneuver to get to close range with Xianna, and he is going to shoot Xianna.

LAURA: Okay. I have some cover from the closet. I also have one defense for ranged.

NICK: Great. That’s two black dice, and he only has one green.

CAMERON: So it’s a green, a purple, and two black?

NICK: Yeah. Let’s flip a dark side point though. He’s really motivated.

CAMERON: Ooh, it’s a yellow.

NICK: I only need one crit. I’m gonna shoot her in the foot again.

(laughter)

LAURA: If you take my foot! (laughs) I will only come back more powerful!

CAMERON: One failure.

LAURA: (quietly) yes!

NICK: Alright, so he comes running around the corner, and he sees you. “Ha!” Then he reenacts that scene from Pulp Fiction where he empties the clip of his blaster pistol, even though they don’t have clips, and it goes all around you and does not hit you at all, and you end up just kind of staring at each other awkwardly for a second. Now we are at the bottom of the initiative order where the player slot that used to be at the top is. That’s Tink.

HUDSON: Yeah, I’ll go. I’m lying there. I just dodged a bullet, or a laser blast, a sblaser.

CAMERON: Blaster shot.

HUDSON: A blaster shot.

NICK: A sblaser. (laughs)

HUDSON: A sblaser. So, I grab my vibro-axe and I go after boss man.

NICK: Okay. Do you stand up?

HUDSON: I could just do it from the ground. Does that give me a disadvantage?

NICK: Yeah. That would give you a black die to do it.

HUDSON: For the theatrics, sure.

NICK: Sure.

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: Do you want to flip a light side point?

CAMERON: Yeah!

HUDSON: Yes.

LAURA: That adds a green.

NICK: I will say, it won’t add another purple, because if you’re swinging from the ground you’re not using your legs so you won’t get that crit issue. All upper body.

HUDSON: Three successes.

NICK: Whoa… Alright. How do you wanna kill this guy?

HUDSON: Oh. I don’t even need to give you damage, do I?

NICK: No, you got him.

HUDSON: I’m on the floor, and I swing around and I cut him off at the knees and watch him scream in pain, and then cut him off the middle.

NICK: Phew. Tink has a vendetta there. Yeah, you silence him. He is done. If you, with that description, can you roll me a green versus two purples please?

CAMERON: A threat.

NICK: Just a threat?

CAMERON: Just a threat.

NICK: Okay. They’ll have a black die, but they’re not gonna totally break. I was thinking these two henchmen were probably like super done, they don’t get paid enough for this, but apparently they’re very loyal to mister now has a hole in his chest. Up next is a player slot. We’ve got a goon standing near Xianna, we’ve got a goon standing near Karma.

LAURA: Yeah, Xianna will shoot the goon.

NICK: Okie-dokie.

LAURA: The goon is at what range?

NICK: Close range.

LAURA: Close range? Okay. I don’t have to upgrade~

NICK: Yeah, he came to you.

LAURA: I’m gonna also aim, since…

NICK: Weird.

LAURA: …I can.

NICK: (musically) Playing Star Wars.

LAURA: Yes. Two successes and two advantages.

NICK: That’s how much damage?

LAURA: Eight damage.

NICK: Yeah, you kill him.

LAURA: yeah!

NICK: You just shoot him in the face?

LAURA: Oh, I shoot him in the neck.

NICK: You shoot him in the neck? Oh, so we get that lovely—

LAURA: oh. There’s that gigantic just Monty Python level blood spurt, where it just goes, and he falls, and it keeps going. (giggles)

NICK: So, for the listeners at home who wonder why our combat usually ends pretty quick, it’s because when I let this team get going it gets real bad. He drops, you get his boot heels rattling on the ground as he suffocates under his own blood. Thank you so much for that. My mom listens to this show.

LAURA: Hi Nick’s mom!

NICK: Hi~!

LAURA: (smiling) I shot a dude in the neck. I’m sorry.

NICK & CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: Not really. (laughs)

NICK: Yeah, me neither. Well, that was his thing, so another player slot.

CAMERON: Can I have a blue die from your advantages?

LAURA: Sure! I’ll say that the blood spurt was so dramatic that it just was going so much, and the guy made a horrible yelping noise that it distracted the goon that Karma is facing, and he did that wide-eyed stare giving Karma a bit of an advantage.

CAMERON: (laughs) Alright. I’m gonna flip another light side point to upgrade again, because we got them so might as well.

LAURA: (musically) We wanna kill them.

CAMERON: I’m going to back up from the dude again, “You can do better than this,” and shoot him. (laughs)

NICK: (sad laughs)

CAMERON: Because my gun’s on stun, so he’s gonna be okay.

NICK: Maybe.

CAMERON: We’ll see. That is one success, one advantage.

NICK: That’s what, 10 damage?

CAMERON: Ten damage.

NICK: Yeah. You shoot him with that blue, weird ringy thing. He does a fun electrocuted hand gesture and collapses to the ground, and the building falls silent.

CAMERON: I stand up and start collecting badges.

NICK: Alright. You get badges from all of them.

CAMERON: Ah-ha!

HUDSON: I crawl with my broken leg over to the one that’s really bloody that Xianna shot in the neck and I just slowly pull off their boots. “I got boots for you, Xianna.”

(laughter)

LAURA: “Those boots are not my size.”

HUDSON: ‘You haven’t even looked at them yet. What is your size?”

CAMERON: “Yeah. What size do you need? I’ve got three guys over here.”

LAURA: “I wear a galactic 6 ½ women’s.” (laughs)

CAMERON: Can I flip a light side point for one of the guys to be wearing a galactic 6 ½ women’s, and they’re very nice boots?

NICK: Sure… and that’s how we’re gonna end the episode.

CAMERON: “Oh hey! This guy’s got a pair!” (laughs)

LAURA: “Oh! Fuck yes!” (laughs)

CAMERON: ‘They’re nice, too!” (laughs)

NICK: End of episode!

ALL: Ba-naaa~!

CAMERON: Yay~!

NICK: Gosh.

CAMERON: (laughs)

LAURA: (singing) …ooh-ooh, for the longest time.

## Outro

CAMERON: Thanks for listening to Tabletop Squadron. If you’ve 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 and give the squad warm fuzzies when we read them.

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.

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 want to talk to anyone who listens to the show. Reach out! See you next time.