Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 44:
A Fishy Situation

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.

First of all, I’d like to thank CurseOfStu for their kind iTunes review. Your cat is great, you’re great. Thanks for telling others about us. I also want to thank The1BShipes for their very kind review. We are all very happy to hear that you’re enjoying the crew’s shenanigans.

Finally, I want to take a second to thank our newest patron! Jackie Betts, you’ve made a special effort to show appreciation to the show by talking to us, sharing wonderful art, and supporting our Patreon as well. Thank you, so much, from the bottom of all our space hearts for all that you do. Welcome to the ship. I think there may be a loth-rat somewhere onboard, so if you could track that down before it chews through the wires I’d appreciate it.

Podcast music this week is GIGA METAL by Loyalty Freak Music and Lost Sad Lament, Piano and Cello by Solar Flare.

Now, let’s get into the episode.

##

NICK: Hello! Welcome to Tabletop Squadron, Episode 44. I’m your hosting game master, Nick. I like the color of the walls in here. It’s pleasant. It’s like a light avocado.

LAURA: It’s like the palest green.

NICK: Yeah! It’s really mellow. It’s nice.

LAURA: I hate it.

HUDSON: I’d say it pales in comparison to other walls.

CAMERON: Boo.

NICK: That means it—

LAURA: I mean, it does. I hate it.

NICK: Oh. Good!

CAMERON: [laughs]

NICK: Yeah, fuck these walls.

LAURA: Because it’s too light of a green! It looks like it’s white that went bad.

HUDSON: I’m not observant, so I thought it was white. If you would have just taken me out of the room and been like what color was that room wall—

NICK: Hudson, look at the door. What color is the door?

HUDSON: White.

NICK: What color is the wall?

HUDSON: Where?

CAMERON: [giggles] In this room.

NICK: Like, next to the door.

HUDSON: Oh, next to the door? Avocado.

NICK: There you go. Nice.

CAMERON: [laughs]

LAURA: That is not the color of an avocado!

NICK: It is if it’s a bad one. I would know. Anyway, already doing great. Yeah, so we’re gonna go around the room. Everybody say who you are and who you are playing today, and your favorite color of avocado, starting with Cameron.

CAMERON: Hello. I am Cameron, and I’m playing Karma Nailo, the Nautolan bounty hunter. I like normal, kind of dark green avocados…?

NICK: Hmm. Okay. Interesting. Up next we have Laura.

LAURA: Hi. I’m Laura, and I play Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler, and I like that sort of medium bright green.

NICK: Solid. Good choice.

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: And last but not least, we’ve got Hudson.

HUDSON: Hi, I’m Hudson, and I play Tink, a Gigoran slicer, and my favorite color of avocado is dark green, and I like it—well actually, it kind of scares me when people have the knife after it’s cut in half and they, like, just throw it into the brown thing in the middle, the circle that looks like a—

[laughter]

NICK: The pit?

HUDSON: Yeah, the pit, and they just pull it up. It’s kind of weird.

NICK: Yeah, that’s a thing. Fun kitchen fact for the day: If you put the pit of an avocado in your guacamole it won’t turn brown as fast.

LAURA: That is not a proven scientific fact!

NICK: I am science!

CAMERON: Proven!

LAURA: The best way is to put a thin layer of lime juice for the acidity and then smoosh plastic wrap on top to prevent oxygen from reaching it, because the brown is from oxidation.

CAMERON: Mm-hmm!

NICK: As I started talking I was like this is not gonna go well for me. [laughs]

CAMERON: Or, best solution, just eat your guacamole really fast, and then it won’t go bad.

NICK: That is—

HUDSON: No, no-no-no.

LAURA: So if you cover the entire surface with pits it might reduce browning just because anywhere the pit is sitting on won’t oxidize as fast.

CAMERON: [laughs]

NICK: So, before we get started with the recap, let’s do the Destiny Roll~!

CAMERON: One dark side.

LAURA: One dark side.

HUDSON: One dark side.

CAMERON: Oh no.

NICK: [sinister laugh] Okay! So brief recap from last episode. You all started your assault upon the beach and the artillery pieces. Tink, you hacked the communication network of the star destroyer and kept them from asking for reinforcements as Karma shot a rocket launcher at a bunch of stuff. HK shot a bunch of stormtroopers, got shot, jumped off a building, and just started shooting everywhere because that’s like what he does. Xianna almost drowned, made it to the beach, was not happy about it, and then shot a stormtrooper. And then Tink, you did some hijinks down a hallway, including leapfrog, and hit a bunch of stormtroopers with an axe, and then figured out that there were 15 more stormtroopers and ran away and hid in a room.

The last thing that happened when we left off was Tink was pinned down by enemy fire in a small room and Karma and Xianna were on the beach trying to figure out where to go. You are having to deal with Tink potentially getting shot. A whole bunch of enemy stormtroopers are currently launching assaults upon the shield facility, which if it falls will result in your eminent orbital bombardment and demise. Also, one of your artillery things is moving slower but is still up and moving and also heading towards potentially a firing position upon the shield facility. That’s where we’re going to kick it off.

Xianna, you were last holding two grenades and your blaster pistol. What are we doing, folks?

LAURA: Yep. Gonna go get Tink.

NICK: So, Xianna, you are running towards the technology district. Did you bring Smith and Weathers with you?

LAURA: I mean, they were there. Whether or not they followed me is their own choice.

HUDSON: Weather or… Oh, oh, oh! Whether or not, W-H.

CAMERON: [giggles] Smith and whether or not they came.

HUDSON: Weather or not they came.

NICK: Heh, um…

CAMERON: You’re welcome.

NICK: Okay. Xianna, you are heading towards Tink, presumably as reinforcements. Tink, you are I guess currently fighting back against the stormtroopers that are shooting everywhere.

HUDSON: Oh yeah.

NICK: Okay. And Karma, you had not yet made your decision. Xianna, I think you took HK with you, didn’t you?

CAMERON: Yes…?

LAURA: I think HK was at least gonna follow me.

NICK: Yeah. We’ll say HK took off after you. Karma, you are on the beach, Xianna and HK are heading towards the technology district to rescue Tink. There is a large artillery piece rolling up the beach with no external weapons you can see besides the huge cannon that is firing periodically upon the city. It looks like however this thing operates they haven’t really been able to see outside of their vehicle and what their objective is or they decided to ignore what was going on and try to complete their objective. The shield facility, you can hear from here, just the sounds of combat beginning. What do you do?

CAMERON: I don’t have any explosives on me.

NICK: HK did.

CAMERON: Yup. [defeated chuckle]

NICK: You could probably catch him.

CAMERON: Alright. Yeah. I’m gonna order HK back, grab the explosives from him.

NICK (as HK): Indignant Statement: You didn’t have to order me. You could have asked nicely.

CAMERON (as Karma): Sorry, you were just running.

NICK: HK comes stomping back towards the beach with a satchel.

CAMERON (as Karma): Thank you~ Here, take this droid repair kit and have Tink fix you whenever you meet up with him. I’ll trade you for the explosives.

NICK (as HK): Acknowledged.

NICK: And HK goes traipsing off. His mechanical run on loose sand looks pretty unstable combined with his damage and also just kicks big plumes of sand everywhere. It’s pretty awkward as he makes his way back off the beach, which also puts him behind Xianna by a good probably quarter mile at this point, because he had to turn around.

CAMERON: I put the explosives in my backpack, that I have.

NICK: Sure.

CAMERON: I’ve got a mom backpack.

NICK: Sure.

CAMERON: And I’m gonna go swim towards the artillery.

NICK: Okay, so you are attacking the artillery. Who do we want to see first? I feel like a scene of Tink’s desperate resistance is probably next up on the plate here. Tink, you are pinned down in a room full of smoking, destroyed computers that you destroyed yourself. You have with you Neato, who is leaned up against a wall, trying to peer around the door, but just can’t because of the amount of blaster fire going through. You also have Specialists Talon and Kevin who are ducked behind a ratty couch that is occasionally taking angled blaster fire with their hands on their heads, taking cover. Neato, from his position by the door, says:

NICK (as Neato): Well chum, it looks like we’re gonna become Selonian cheese quick without a little hand here. Any idea on how to get out of this sticky wicket?

HUDSON (as Tink): Uh, uh, uh… Let’s, uh… Oh! I got it. Okay! Let’s take those mainframes and throw them at the door to block them from coming in, because they’re heavy.

NICK (as Neato): So your plan is to hole up here and wait for help?

HUDSON (as Tink): Yeah, pretty much. I mean, do you want to take on 15 stormtroopers?

NICK (as Neato): I’m not particularly interested in getting blasted. I could probably take about 14 of them, 15 is my limit.

HUDSON (as Tink): It only takes one of them to shoot you down, so uh…

NICK (as Neato): It’s a good point. We’re fine with this. Is someone coming to get us? I thought this was a solo mission.

HUDSON (as Tink): I sent out my signal.

NICK (as Neato): Is anyone actually coming to help?

HUDSON (as Tink): You know, sometimes you just gotta believe.

NICK: Karma and Xianna, you have an open com channel, so if you wanted to say something to Tink reassuring you could.

CAMERON (as Karma): You got this, buddy.

CAMERON: And I dive into the water. [laughs]

NICK: Sploosh!

HUDSON (as Tink): Alright. I just heard Karma say something super encouraging and then a sploosh sound.

CAMERON: [laughs]

HUDSON (as Tink): Maybe she’s in the bath? I can’t think of where she would be. Either way, it sounds like they believe in us.

NICK (as Neato): Well that’s good. I’m a fan of Karma, but that doesn’t help with all the stormtroopers outside.

HUDSON (as Tink): Hmm.

NICK: Heh. Let’s leave that scene, and make me an Athletics roll for how quickly you can throw these mainframes to barricade the door. Athletics is a skill that is Brawn-based.

HUDSON: Wouldn’t it be just pure Brawn? Because Athletics…

NICK: Eh, I would say weight lifting is not just how strong you are. Technique also comes into play. Lift with your knees and not with your back.

LAURA: Is it Brawl or Melee to use an improvised weapon?

NICK: That would be melee.

LAURA: So what if he used his Melee skill to throw them as if he was using them as an improvised weapon.

NICK: [deflates]

HUDSON: I don’t even want to do that stretch.

CAMERON: I feel like if he’s throwing them it becomes Ranged: Heavy.

NICK: No, that’s very funny though.

[laughter]

HUDSON: No, I’m okay going with the just Athletics.

NICK: What was interesting to me is you were arguing for pure Brawn which is exactly the same.

HUDSON: Yeah, I’m now connecting that it was. What’s the difficulty?

NICK: Let’s say average.

HUDSON: Yay.

NICK: You could use it as a Melee attack, but you couldn’t barricade the door. You would have to throw it at the stormtroopers.

HUDSON: Yeah. That might be my backup if the barricade doesn’t work.

NICK: Alright. Let’s try a barricade. You can have a… Who would you like to help you?

HUDSON: The spirit of Karma? I would like Kevin help.

NICK: Okay, a black die then, because he’s bad at this.

[pause, laughter]

HUDSON: Alright.

NICK: It was a subtle ploy.

HUDSON: Ha-ha. One failure and one advantage.

NICK: Hmm… The failure, I think that Specialist Kevin is not really very helpful, obviously. You try to each lift up an end and he can’t really do it, so it turns—

HUDSON (as Tink): Put your back into it, Kevin!

NICK (as Kevin): Look, it’s really heavy, and I’m a computer person not a lift things person.

CAMERON: “This is more of a hardware issue, I’m really more of a software guy.”

[laughter]

NICK: That’s a good line. I like that. Yeah, so he’s just in the way. You end up tripping over him. You are able to knock it over, but you’re not able to slide it anywhere, and the stormtroopers move up some firing position-wise and they’re starting to get more accurate, and swaths of the room are now melting under blaster fire. You are not able to walk through the middle of the room. It’s you and Kevin on one side of the room and Neato and Talon on the other side of the room as you hear them saying:

NICK (as Stormtrooper): Move up. They’re not returning fire.

NICK: You can hear the slow clomp of boots. They are moving slowly, because they don’t want to walk into a bad situation. That doesn’t work. Is there something you would like to spend your advantage on?

HUDSON: Can Neato come up with a good idea? Or is that too much?

NICK: Um… That would be more a triumph, I think. If you want Neato to do something helpful we can boost that.

HUDSON: Okay.

NICK: You could probably say for an advantage that as they’re moving up Neato, with his skills, is able to… You see him lean his disrupter rifle around the corner without looking, and he makes eye contact with you with his one galaxy patterned eye—because remember, he has an eyepatch, we haven’t talked about that a lot but he super does.

HUDSON: [laughs]

NICK: He makes eye contact with you and says…

NICK (as Neato): It’s a no-look shot.

NICK: …and he takes a shot, and you hear a stormtrooper go:

NICK (as Stormtrooper): [dorky pain groan]

NICK (as Neato): Score one, bull’s-eye.

NICK: We’re going to cut away. The advantage is they have not entered the room and killed you all, but you were not able to slow them down as much as the server would do.

HUDSON: And now it’s at Neato’s limit, so really Neato could take them all on according to Neato. [laughs]

NICK: Theoretically.

CAMERON: If he just shot one they’re down to 14.

LAURA: He just 360 no-scoped a dude, so…

HUDSON: True.

NICK: That’s one of the 14.

CAMERON: Oh, no, that’s true. It doesn’t reset?

NICK: No.

CAMERON: OH, okay.

NICK: That’s for the scene. [smiling] This is apparently a mechanic now I have introduced.

CAMERON: Well, if you switch away now then that was the scene, so then when you go back to Tink and Neato it would restart and he’d be able to take them all, right?

NICK: No, that’s not how scenes work. [laughter] Xianna, you are currently pelting down the alleyways of this occupied city, you are followed closely by Smith and Weathers, and in the distance if you haven’t turned a corner around a building in a while you can hear the distant clanking of HK running after you. As if from a distance you hear:

NICK (as HK): Assessment: It sure is good I don’t get tired.

NICK: Clank, clank, clank. So, are you trying to get there fast or are you trying to get there stealthily?

LAURA: I think I’m just trying to get there, so I would assume fast.

NICK: Okay. I won’t make you roll an Athletics for how fast you can run ,because I don’t like that, but I will make you roll me a Force die just on if you happen to intercept any patrols or anything.

LAURA: One dark point, dark side point. What do we call them?

CAMERON: Dark side.

NICK: Dark side point.

LAURA: One dark side point!

NICK: Sure. Go ahead and, what is your Coordination?

LAURA: I have Rank 3.

NICK: Okay, and your Agility is 4 or 5?

LAURA: My Agility is still 4. My Cunning is 5.

NICK: Okay. So, if you could roll me, Cameron, a three yellow versus three reds and a purple.

CAMERON: One success, three threats.

NICK: [pauses, laughs]

[laughter]

LAURA: They fall prone!

[dramatic bass noise, stopped abruptly]

NICK: I’m getting there!

LAURA: Ha-ha!

CAMERON: Ha! But they do shoot you.

LAURA: They do shoot at me, but they fall prone!

[dramatic bass noise finishes playing]

HUDSON: On stairs, which means they fall down, the stairs.

NICK: So, you’re able to go a majority of the distance to this technology district very quickly. You have been this way before actually, or most of the way, because this is kind of back the direction when you originally came to meet up with Tink and karma and Neato. It probably only takes you five or six minutes. Smith and Weathers are close behind you. You round this corner and it comes into this large, open courtyard with a dry fountain in the middle, and it’s been scorched. There’s been some fires and there’s some craters in this courtyard, but otherwise it seems very quiet, and a little warning flashes in the back of your head of there’s no cover here, there are a lot of sightlines, but like you said you’re in a hurry, you’re trying to get to Tink, you’re on a mission. So you cut across this courtyard, and the first thing you feel is a feeling of getting just punched in the back of the shoulder by something just really heavy and you’re spun around and dropped to the ground, and you take [wincing] 11 damage.

CAMERON: Shit.

LAURA: Did you include the fact that I have a 1 in Ranged Defense and a 1 in Melee Defense?

NICK: No. Roll me a black die for that, please.

CAMERON: If that’s the case, just three threats.

NICK: God damn it. Okay.

LAURA: Ha-ha!

NICK: That’s so much less dramatic! Oh well. So yeah, I think you still get hit. It’s down to just the defense of your coat keeps you from getting hurt.

LAURA: I roll my shoulder so that it glances off. You know? Did you not see A Knight’s Tale? You roll your shoulder back and it glances!

[laughter]

NICK: It’s not- It’s not-

CAMERON: That’s how that works.

LAURA: You roll it forward and then it glances away.

NICK: My description still stands. You feel like you got punched in the back and you are spun around and dropped to the ground. You have that moment of, you’ve been shot before, it very much feels like that first moment where you get shot where you don’t really feel the burn of the blaster or anything ,it’s just the kinetic force, and you feel at your shoulders and your chest and you realize that you’re not bleeding, and your coat has absorbed the blow of the shot, and you can see in front of you a large carbon scoring where a majority of the shot did not hit you. Your coat has saved your life.

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: Then you hear:

NICK (as Stormtrooper): [nerdy pained wailing]

[laughter]

NICK: And a scout trooper just like- I think this trooper was on a fire escape and just blended into the shadows of it. The screws that held it to the building crack and it shifts and they lost their balance, and they just fall over, and they fall… [dramatic bass noise] …gosh, like three stories to the ground, so that’s like—

LAURA: Oh! That’s so much damage!

CAMERON: Ooh.

NICK: So they just turn into mist, just (splat). The scout trooper falls prone [dramatic bass noise] out of this fire escape, and then falls three stories to the ground, which by the rules of Star Wars is—Actually, could we look up what the actual fall damage is? Because I think it’s like 5 damage and 5 strain per 5 feet or something like that. It’s really, it’s too much.

CAMERON: Does Soak apply to fall damage?

LAURA: Falling Damage—

CAMERON: The rulebook says 10 damage for falling a short distance.

LAURA: Medium is 30.

CAMERON: Heh. They dead.

NICK: Thirty damage?!

CAMERON: For medium.

NICK: Ugh, that’s so much, and it’s medium range, I said it was. Three stories is like the far end of medium range. So, according to the rules, it’s 30 damage. Yeah. They’re super dead. I’ve made this reference before, but it does that high pitched squeaky click that it makes when they throw the scout troopers on Endor into the tree, and the stormtrooper just goes (splat) and is done. They are done. There is no more scout trooper, and you are able to continue on to the technical institute without any other issues, because you can see it on the far side of this clearing. So, you’re able to continue onward. From there we are going to cut away to… karma.

Karma, you are currently swimming underwater. What do you think it feels like to be breathing water, on a planet that is not your home, that has been… like, the home of war machines for the last while and is scorched by cinders and blown up buildings and stuff?

CAMERON: Breathing the water feels like drinking water in Lubbock.

NICK: That’s going to apply to three people.

CAMERON: Yep, but it’s a perfect description for that.

NICK: Those three people are gonna be like heck yeah.

CAMERON: It’s a very bad, weird water taste where it’s just any time you’re traveling and you drink tap water and you’re like this tap water tastes wrong. It’s like that, but more so, because Lubbock.

NICK: So it’s got a metallic tinge to it, and you can feel it kind of coating your… however you breathe.

CAMERON: My lungs.

NICK: Well, I think they’re amphibians, right? So you just breathe through your skin?

CAMERON: Sure.

NICK: Ew… I don’t like that. Anyway.

CAMERON: We don’t have to think about it. It’s fine.

NICK: Yeah, let’s not. It’s fine. There’s gills under your head tentacles or something.

CAMERON: Hiding next to my ears.

NICK: Or they are your ears. Who knows.

CAMERON: [snickers] Okay.

NICK: So you have some explosives. You are swimming to this artillery craft. What are you doing?

CAMERON: I am looking for the holes caused by the last explosion.

NICK: They are myriad and obvious. There are probably three or four big old holes.

CAMERON: And I’m putting the explosives that I have with me, depending on how large the hole in the hull is, reaching it in and sticking it farther inside so that it hopefully does more internal damage to the ship and not just surface hole stuff.

NICK: Okay. I’m gonna need some sort of roll here. My thinkings are they could be Athletics, because swimming up to a moving craft very quickly and placing these things without cutting yourself on jagged craters and things could be difficult, or you could argue that it’s Weapons: Heavy if you have a lot of explosives experience and you’ve done this kind of thing before, I could be persuaded. I feel more Athletics than that.

CAMERON: I feel more Athletics. I feel like with being a bounty hunter often times you’re not using explosives because you need something to turn in for the bounty.

NICK: Yeah, no disintegrations.

CAMERON: yeah. So I’m fine with Athletics.

NICK: make me a hard Athletics roll. Flip me a dark side point though, to upgrade that, because… it’s hard.

CAMERON: Because reasons.

NICK: Mm-hmm! See Hudson? We’re doing it again.

HUDSON: [laughs]

CAMERON: Nicholas… But can I have a blue die, because they haven’t gone yet this encounter? [laughs]

HUDSON: Is that a skillset?

NICK: Is this a Stealth or Coordination roll? Oh no, wait, it’s not an attack roll. You just said you’re checking your Athletics not your ability to place the explosives.

CAMERON: Yeah, okay.

NICK: So I’m gonna say no.

CAMERON: [giggles] Dang.

NICK: I almost always give you that one. This time I am not going to.

CAMERON: I know.

NICK: I do appreciate the optimism, though.

CAMERON: Okay. I had to try.

NICK: Yeah.

CAMERON: [rolls]

NICK: I thought that was a despair. I was super excited.

CAMERON: No. One success, two threats.

NICK: Okay. I think you are able to place the explosives. Do you swim away to a distance and then detonate them?

CAMERON: Yep, I just swim back to shore, and then cool action hero style, as I’m walking out of the water—

NICK: Aw man!

CAMERON: There’s water flying, it goes slo-mo for a second, my head tails flail out and I press the button and it explodes behind me.

NICK: Uh-huh, and we get you walking away from this big explosion.

CAMERON: And I don’t look at it.

NICK: The camera angle changes to you striding up the beach. You pick up the gear that you dropped, because I’m assuming you weren’t swimming around with an empty rocket launcher for instance.

CAMERON: Yeah, I set it down.

NICK: So you’re picking it up and you turn to press your hand to your coms and keep track of where everybody else is, and then behind you we hear the thunderous explosion of another shot coming from the artillery. It is stopped, it can’t reach the shield facility anymore, but it was on the lip of that beach. Your threats are that it didn’t sink, because that’s how you’ve been destroying them so far with these hand explosives. It’s also at a weird angle. This shot goes mostly up and then comes down like two blocks away and explodes, because it’s hanging off, so it’s not gonna really affect much but they’re just destroying as much of the city as they can at this point.

I think you see one of the people in the general Veers helmets with the open front and the big goggles open up a hatch and stick their head up, and they’re at a weird angle because of the way the ship is, and they put binoculars on, and you hear them go “Kriff!” and then close the hatch and they just keep shooting periodically. So that’s that, you have stopped the artillery but it is still around. Where are you headed next?

CAMERON: I am running towards the field generator.

NICK: You are running back to the main generator.

CAMERON: Mm-hmm.

NICK: Cool. We will come back to you in a minute, because more pressingly… Tink, you don’t know for certain that anybody’s coming to help you. you can hear the stormtroopers moving up. They are gearing up to have an assault on the room that you are in. you can kind of hear their radio chatter as they’re preparing for this. What are you doing to take cover or try to hold them back?

HUDSON: So, I’m on the far side of the room and they’re coming to the front door and all of my peeps are around me.

NICK: Yep, although it is kind of hard to walk through the middle of the room, because there’s a lot of laser death in that area.

HUDSON (as Tink): Alright guys, we’re gonna hug the wall, go to the left side, uh, and then I have these grenades.

NICK (as Neato): You’re not planning on using those boom spheres in here, are you chum?

HUDSON (as Tink): I mean, there’s no enemies in here, so what do you think, Neato?

NICK (as Neato): Well, but they’re coming through the door.

HUDSON (as Tink): I’ll throw it before they get in there.

NICK (as Neato): Alright!

NICK: As he says that, I think a squad of three stormtroopers come in, and Cameron could you make me a roll please of a green and two yellow? This is an average difficulty, because they’re right in the door. Give them a black die, because they are just jumping around the corner and shooting at Tink. Let’s roll it up.

CAMERON: [rolls]

NICK: Uh-oh.

HUDSON: [laughs] It’s okay. I have a plan.

NICK: Okay good.

CAMERON: Three successes, two threats.

NICK: Oh, only two threats? What a bummer.

CAMERON: Yeah, one of them cancelled.

NICK: What a bummer. I wanted everyone falling down today. So three successes, that’s 10 damage coming at you. Now I’ll give you an option, the 10 damage can hit you, or it could hit someone else in your group.

HUDSON: I think it needs to hit someone else in my group. [laughter] I’m gonna have it hit—

NICK: Oh, it’s Kevin. Kevin is getting shot.

HUDSON: Kevin. I was about to say Kevin.

CAMERON: Oh no.

NICK: Yeah. Three stormtroopers jump around the corner. You hear one of the stormtroopers say:

NICK (as Stormtrooper): They’re to the left. Fire!

NICK: Specialist Kevin looks up with his little light blaster pistol and goes…

NICK (as Kevin): What?!

NICK: …and just gets unloaded on by these three stormtroopers.

HUDSON: Ha!

NICK: He was the one furthest—That’s messed up, my dude.

HUDSON: Sorry. [laughs]

CAMERON: Whoa!

NICK: He was the one furthest from the wall where the rest of you were, he was on his way to you, and he just gets dropped. Talon says…

NICK (as Talon): No~!

NICK: …and shoots back and starts shooting the stormtroopers, and Neato says…

NICK (as Neato): Take this, bucket heads!

NICK: …and shoots them. So, those three go down very quickly in the doorway making a temporary barricade, and you can hear the radio chatter as the rest of the stormtroopers back up and make a new plan, because that didn’t work. Kevin is leaning up against the wall just, you can see he’s in very, very, very bad shape. He’s been hit multiple times.

HUDSON (as Tink): Kevin, what are you doing on the floor? Put your back into it!

[somber music starts]

NICK (as Kevin): [groans] I… I can’t… It’s getting so dark, Tink. Talon… Talon, where are you?

NICK (as Talon): I’m on the other side of the cover.

NICK (as Kevin): Talon, I just wanna tell you…

NICK: And then he falls unconscious and sprawls on the ground. [music fades out] So, I think at this point, Xianna, you and Smith and Weathers have gotten up to the fourth floor of this building, so you’re in the stairwell and you can hear the stormtroopers moving around up ahead, and it’s pretty obvious where you need to go. Do you call Tink or anything?

LAURA: Yeah, I get in the coms.

LAURA (as Xianna): Tink! Hey, are you hulled up somewhere? And you know, secured?

HUDSON (as Tink): So we’re hulled up somewhere. We’re not secured. That’s not the word I would use.

LAURA (as Xianna): Okay. So if say, hypothetically, I was to throw some grenades into this hallway here and blow up some stormtroopers, you’d be okay?

HUDSON (as Tink): How close are they to my room? I don’t really, I can’t really tell. And actually, my room is the computer room that looks like a lot of blaster fire has hit it.

LAURA (as Xianna): Okay, I’m sure it’ll be fine.

HUDSON (as Tink): Okayyy.

CAMERON: [giggles]

HUDSON (as Tink): Real quick, before you get off the line, I have some grenades too. You wanna make a grenade sandwich over here?

LAURA (as Xianna): Okay! In 3, 2, 1… Grenades!

LAURA: Heh.

HUDSON: I put the grenade pin in my mouth and pull it out like an action movie.

NICK: Which is super interesting, because most of the grenades in Star Wars have buttons, but we’ll go with it.

LAURA: Yeah.

HUDSON: [laughs]

NICK: Neato’s like, “Where did you find grenades with pins?!”

HUDSON: [laughing] And I throw the grenade. It’s a frag grenade, by the way.

NICK: “Because those are absolutely my jam.”

LAURA: “Those must be thousands of years old!”

NICK: “Or they’re new technology, depends on the arc!”

[laughter]

HUDSON: Okay. I throw this frag grenade at the same time that Xianna throws it.

NICK: Okay. I would really like a Ranged: Light attack from both of you, just to see placement-wise how this goes.

HUDSON: Ha!

NICK: [chuckles] I know. This arc has been asking people to do the skills they’re not good at.

HUDSON: What’s the difficulty?

NICK: Average. You’re just chucking grenades down a hallway. It’s not…

HUDSON: Oh, okay.

LAURA: Can we say we aim?

NICK: [smiling] No. You can’t aim grenades. We had this conversation before.

LAURA: [smiling, defiantly] Why can’t you aim grenades?!

NICK: What? With what?!

LAURA: Staring very intently.

[laughter]

NICK: You line up that red blinking arc that comes up in video games.

LAURA: Yeah.

HUDSON: Earlier, when they were coming through the door, what I wanted to do was if they weren’t there yet and they were coming through the door about to shoot, and I got an action, I was gonna throw the grenade, slide it on the ground so it goes under their legs, and it blows them up so they blow up and go towards us, so then I could get them with my axe if they’re close enough, or they’re dead.

NICK: I’ll say depending on how this goes it’s possible that some people will get blown towards you, because I like that image very much. You can still do it.

HUDSON: It doesn’t have to happen. I was just saying what my plan was had they not arrived with grenades. I like the sandwich grenade.

NICK: Well, and like who knows, this is explosives, we’ll see what happens.

HUDSON: One failure.

NICK: Aw.

LAURA: Two successes, three advantages.

NICK: Okay. Do you want to send your three advantages to activate Blast on all of these?

LAURA: Sure.

NICK: Okay. We’ll say because you threw, what, roughly four grenades total? How many did you throw, just one?

HUDSON: I just threw one.

NICK: So three grenades?

LAURA: Yeah.

NICK: Three grenades in a small hallway with 15 stormtroopers—

CAMERON: Uh, 11 stormtroopers.

NICK: Sorry, 11. Oh yeah, because three more died.

CAMERON: Yep, I’ve been keeping track.

NICK: I’m glad You can count. There’s just a large explosion and you hear (several overlapping wimpy stormtroopers whining and shouting in pain), and a single stormtrooper is chucked bodily by the back, arms and legs pinwheeling, into your office where you’re hulled up, Tink, and hits a wall and starts to get up and reach around for their blaster. What do you do?

HUDSON: I take out my axe, I run over, and the hand they’re reaching out to get their gun, I chop it off.

NICK: Ooh… Okay. They’re super concussed. Okay, you- Are you trying to take them out or are you trying to capture them?

HUDSON: I don’t wanna kill them straight away.

CAMERON: [laughing] “I wanna play with them first.”

HUDSON: I don’t want to play with him either, but like…

NICK: Getting dark.

HUDSON: I wanna make sure he doesn’t—We could use him to get out of here maybe, with credentials or finding the best way or having him call in something.

NICK: Okay. let’s say that you cut off his hand, and he goes (extended shout of pain) and falls unconscious, and if you need a stormtrooper for some reason… As you walk out into the hall you can see that it’s just a mess. You’re harkened back to that time that Val used a fuel air bomb in a small space facility. This is a lot of explosive in a small space with a bunch of people. They’re just in piles kind of smooshed up into the corners. There are no other people standing here. Xianna, you’re able to bring your group in through the hallway and meet up with the rest of this squad.

LAURA (as Xianna): Ello Tink~

HUDSON (as Tink): Hey Xianna.

LAURA (as Xianna): How are you?

HUDSON (as Tink): A little tired.

LAURA (as Xianna): Well, I almost died, so there’s that.

HUDSON (as Tink): Um, I almost died, so there’s also that.

LAURA (as Xianna): No, no, like I was drowning. It’s been a day.

HUDSON (as Tink): No-no-no, like, there was blaster fire in my face. I don’t think that’s anything like what you were dealing with.

LAURA (as Xianna): Well, um…

NICK (as Neato): Not to rain on your space parade, but Specialist Kevin is definitely actually dead, so…

HUDSON (as Tink): Aw man.

LAURA (as Xianna): Wait, is he dead-dead, or like… unconscious dead?

[somber music starts]

NICK: [laughs] You look over and Neato just kinda prods him with a foot and he slouches over, and Talon is just looking out a window trying to keep it together.

NICK (as Neato): Yeah, he seems to have gone cold fish, chums.

LAURA (as Xianna): I just told you I almost drowned today, and you use a fish pun. Rude.

NICK (as Neato): I think that pun was the last one. I’m fin-ished. … Ha-ha.

[music fades]

LAURA: Xianna looks down at her hand holding the blaster, [laughter] and you can see in her eyes that… this day has for some reason hit closer than most of the others have, and she starts to raise it and then kind of walks away and mutters to herself.

LAURA (as Xianna): No… No. Karma would be disappointed. It is not worth the trouble.

NICK (as Neato): Wow Tink, that was closed. I thought she was gonna hit me and then I’d have a sock eye.

CAMERON: [laughs]

LAURA: Xianna turns back into the room, leans in, like pops into the door frame.

LAURA (as Xianna): No! I would have shot you dead!

HUDSON (as Tink): I think she’d do it.

NICK (as Neato): I’ve been shot before.

HUDSON (as Tink): Mmm…

LAURA (as Xianna): Well so have I, and you know what, I think we all have been shot. Whatever. I would have killed you. Shot you right in the face. Goodbye, and good day!

CAMERON: Karma comes over the coms.

CAMERON (as Karma): Everybody stop clowning around and get to the shield facility.

NICK (as Neato): You’re right, karma. I can tell we’re starting to flounder down here.

CAMERON: [giggles]

[somber music resumes]

HUDSON (as Tink): hey Talon, you wanna, um, carry Kevin for a proper… uh, burial?

NICK (as Talon): Uh… I mean, if the rest of this assault is going on we can come back later if we live. I think our priority is to take care of whatever’s next. You can’t really be carrying… [deep breath] dead comrades around in the middle of a battle.

[music fades]

NICK (as Neato): Well, it looks like the squad’s back together. what do we do now?

LAURA (as Xianna): Did we blow everything up?

NICK: Karma, I think you can answer in on this radio conversation. You’re currently running towards the facility.

CAMERON (as Karma): Artillery is blown up. Artillery still has gun power, but artillery can’t move and isn’t hitting anything important, so I’m running to the shield facility as they… There are a lot of stormtroopers over there.

NICK: You can hear in the background, when Karma is coming in, rapid footsteps and breathing. She is hustling.

CAMERON (as Karma): This rocket launcher is heavy.

NICK: [laughs]

NICK (as Neato): So, the artillery is taken care of. Is there an assault on the shield station?

CAMERON (as Karma): Yeah, like 20 drop pods.

NICK (as Neato): Oh. That’s really bad, actually.

CAMERON (as Karma): Yeah, that’s why I’m running there. Run there. I assume y’all are safe, because you’re talking to me.

NICK (as Neato): Are we safe? Well, most of us. Okay. Well chums, what do you think? Should we head towards the shield facility, try to end this little shindig? By the way, we’ve upgraded to shindig. No, we were already a shindig. It was a hootenanny…

LAURA (as Xianna): Are we not in a hoedown?

NICK (as I think you’re right. I think we’re at a hoedown.

LAURA (as Xianna): You know, I feel like we had a whole system set up for the difference between hootenannies, hoedowns, and shindigs, and I think we have forgotten it completely.

CAMERON (as Karma): I thought hoedowns involved barns.

LAURA (as Xianna): It’s kind of like a rectangle square thing where if it is in a barn it is a hoedown, but not all hoedowns happen in barns.

CAMERON (as Karma): Okay.

LAURA (as Xianna): It’s just that if it is a barn it’s definitely a hoedown.

HUDSON (as Tink): I wanna have lunch.

LAURA (as Xianna): Well, we can’t all have everything we want, so let’s just go kill some people I guess.

NICK (as Neato): Alright, off to the hoedown.

NICK: You all—Gosh. You have Smith and Weathers who did nothing, they’re still in the stairwell [laughter] securing your escape route. Neato, Tink, Xianna, and Talon, and you get to the stairwell and you hear clank, clank, clank. As you all get to the door, HK is there and the barrels of his gun are spinning.

NICK (as HK): Directional Query: Point me at the stormtroopers.

LAURA (as Xianna): We are going that way. Follow us.

NICK (as HK): Expletive deleted.

NICK: As you all run down the stairs past him, and you hear a mechanical (heavy sigh), and the droid starts to head down the stairs after you as you run the other direction.

LAURA (as Xianna): If you had just ignored karma you would have been here first and you could have killed some “meat bags” as you call them, but no.

NICK (as HK): Secondary direction overridden by primary user.

LAURA (as Xianna): I mean, that sounds like your fault, but anyways. I’m sure there will be stormtroopers for you to kill where we are going next.

NICK (as HK): Adjusting direction following percentage for secondary user.

NICK: So, you all are just running straight for the shield facility? You’re the reinforcements?

LAURA: Yeah.

HUDSON: We are the only reinforcements that I’m aware of.

CAMERON: Are we gonna sandwich them though?

NICK: Yeah, 20 drop pods and eight of you.

CAMERON: We got this!

NICK: Okay, so that happens, you all shut off the coms. Karma, you arrive at a scene of, just, it’s a disaster. It’s not going well. These stormtroopers have gotten through all of the barricades. You’re able to climb over the barricades. There are the bodies of both stormtroopers and militia people strewn everywhere. You have a scene like the rubble of the buildings that got hit by the artillery before you were able to destroy it, and some of the resistance militia smooshed in amongst the rubble. You’re reminded of the militia officer from when you first got here that Neato had said that he was with, just gives you a quick flashback to that.

CAMERON: [dramatically] I wonder what was on his holo-recorder.

NICK: [smiling] It doesn’t matter, because it got smooshed. So, you’re able to walk up one of the last barricades, it’s actually the one that you originally entered the parade grounds in, and you can see in front of you three large groups of stormtroopers. They have, they’re not tanks, but it’s like if you took a tank and stripped all the armor off the top and sides and just left the tracks and the big, scary cannon and the heavy repeating blaster on the front, so they’re like these open air vehicles with mobile cover on the front that are slowly advancing towards the shield facility. A majority of the militia troops have fallen back into the large dome that is the shield facility except for some troops who are hulled up in little bunkers made out of sandbags out front. as you run up you see one of these bunkers of sandbags get exploded by one of the cannons, because cannon beats sandbags most of the time. What do you do? This is probably 80-90 stormtroopers with three large pieces of military hardware all moving in three separate groups towards a facility that if they take will open you to orbital bombardment, and you are by yourself. And yes, this is a difficult decision and situation. It’s almost like you had to choose what your priorities were.

CAMERON: Mm-hmm. Weird.

NICK: And that this is what happened to the smallest priority, but also Tink is alive, so you know.

HUDSON: I get on the coms and talk to karma.

HUDSON (as Tink): I believe in you, Karma. If you go in you will survive.

CAMERON (as Karma): Aw, thanks buddy.

NICK: I really like the idea of Karma standing on this barricade, no one’s noticed her yet, there’s flame and smoke and a stormtrooper sprawled over the barricade right next to her, Karma with her hand to her earbud saying “Aw, thanks buddy,” holding her big thermo-sensitive assault rifle.

CAMERON: So, there’s the shield facility, there’s some bunkers in front of it, you said there’s like 90 stormtroopers…

NICK: Yeah.

CAMERON: What is the positioning of the cannon-mobiles in relation to the stormtrooper squads?

NICK: They’re broken into three large groups being led by these three cannons, basically like 30 to a group, and they’re just like spaced equidistant moving their ways up. They’re not moving very quickly, but they’re basically cover that the troopers can hide behind. And they’re sprawled out further back behind it, the cover mostly is protecting the ones that are operating it, but it does make it so they’re able to defend themselves better as they cross this open ground, almost completely negating the advantage of a large, open ground.

CAMERON: I was trying to figure out a way for me to pick off some of them without drawing all of their attention to me while I wait for my friends.

NICK: The other thing that I’ll add to this image as well is that the circle of stormtroopers has moved past the armory tent, so you could potentially make it to the armory tent without being noticed.

CAMERON: Can I sneak to the armory tent then to get something that shoots more than one at a time?

NICK: Yes, you can try and do that. Yeah. Ooh, can we Rambo it? Can we find you a mini gun?

CAMERON: I’m down for a mini gun.

NICK: Okay. Well, you gotta make it to the tent first.

CAMERON: I know, but I’m—

NICK: This is going to be very embarrassing for you to just die in this cinematic thing.

CAMERON: It is. It’s gonna be very sad.

NICK: This is going to be a hard difficulty check, because you are crossing open ground with 80 potential people to see you who are all being very alert, because combat.

CAMERON: But they are all facing the other way.

NICK: Which is why it’s not daunting.

CAMERON: [laughs] Okay. What’s my Stealth? Hmm, that’s a thing. Note to self: Up my Stealth later. I do get two blue dice for my Stalker talents.

NICK: Mm-hmm.

CAMERON: Okay… Four successes, two advantages.

NICK: Yeah, they don’t see you at all. Do you want to spend your advantages that the weapons tent hasn’t been looted in any way and has even some gear that you didn’t notice the first time you were in there?

CAMERON: Yup. Some stuff got returned since we were last here.

NICK: Yeah, in the 30 minutes that it’s been, because you haven’t been gone that long.

HUDSON: [laughs]

CAMERON: Sure. Just so much has happened.

NICK: With stuff being returned, you could get another rocket or two.

CAMERON: If they have any other rockets I’m grabbing them.

NICK: Okay. We’ll say that there are two rockets. You’re  not sure where they came from. You notice there is some stuff missing, like a lot of the rifles and things have been taken, and it’s like there were two rockets under a pile of rifles that you didn’t see before, so you’re able to grab those. Is there anything else you want?

CAMERON: I would like a turret mini gun.

NICK: Like a heavy repeating blaster I think is what they’re called.

CAMERON: Yeah, like one of the ones with the shield in front of it for setting up a turret for defense.

NICK: Yeah, there’s one in there. Moving it by yourself is gonna be pretty dang hard.

CAMERON: It’s okay, I’m strong!

NICK: Okay, so what is your plan?

CAMERON: My plan is, I setup so they’re all in front of me and I’m kind of behind them, angled in a way that my shield is mostly protecting me, and I get on my coms.

[action rock music starts]

CAMERON (as Karma): Hey everybody, I’m here. If y’all could hurry up that would be super fantastic.

CAMERON: And then I’m gonna take a page out of HK’s book and just start laying down suppressing fire back and forth just so that they can shoot back at me and hit the shield, but they can’t really approach. Just trying to mow down as many stormtroopers as possible.

NICK: Make me a heavy weapons roll.

CAMERON: I get a blue die because they haven’t gone yet this encounter.

NICK: [laughs] That’s true.

CAMERON: What’s the difficulty?

NICK: This one’s gonna be hard, because it’s you versus 90 people, and you should know, like, you’re not gonna win this. You can hope to slow them down.

CAMERON: Oh yeah. I’m just- I’m providing a distraction [laughs] so hopefully some of the people who are still alive inside can do something. I’m not gonna aim though, because I’m not aiming at a specific person, I’m just shooting in general. Is that fair?

NICK: Yeah, I think that’s fair.

CAMERON: Seems like a reason not to use the blue die. I got two successes and two advantages.

NICK: So I think this plays out like you said. Not all of the assault force turns around, but a decent amount of them do. They seem very well-coordinated, and you can see that there are several stormtrooper officers mixed in. Very quickly you take some of them out and you’re able to strafe back and forth, and the cannons do stop advancing, and very quickly there’s some hand signs exchanged and you can hear on the stormtrooper com that you still have orders being exchanged, and roughly a third of the troops turn around and start firing back. You can feel your large repeating blaster heating up and taking damage. You know you’re gonna have to bail out of this pretty soon, because you’re getting shot by like roughly 30 people. This is not designed to do that. It’s supposed to take errant shots while you do stuff. But you’re able to slow them down for probably a solid couple of minutes with that and your setup time. The gun does start to disintegrate around you.

Now, I will make you a deal. You can do sizable damage to this group but the gun is going to explode on you, or once they start to concentrate fire you can bail and run for cover but you’re not going to have damaged the group much.

CAMERON: I’m sticking it out.

NICK: You’re sticking it out. Cool. So, you’re shooting into this group and blaster fire is hitting it. What actually happens, the gun doesn’t explode, the shielding starts to melt and boil away – kind of like when Han Solo is let out of the carbonite and it peels back and it’s all weird and metal and slurpy, it’s a weird noise.

CAMERON: And wet.

NICK: And wet for some reason.

HUDSON: Moist.

NICK & CAMERON: [sounds of disgust]

NICK: But that starts to peel back and you’re able to strafe back and forth a couple more times, and a couple of shots make it through the cover and hit you. You’re going to take a shot from a large group of stormtroopers. That is going to be four yellows versus your defense. It’s gonna be average difficulty. Do you have any Ranged Defense?

CAMERON: No.

NICK: Okay…

CAMERON: I’ll flip a light side to make it harder for them.

NICK: That’s fair.

CAMERON: Can I use my advantages to give them a black die?

NICK: Sure. Yeah, you can give them a black die.

CAMERON: Okay.

NICK: Roll it.

CAMERON: [giggles nervously] Oh shit… Well, that’s interesting. Three successes, a threat, a triumph, and a despair!

NICK: So they have a despair…

CAMERON: Uh-huh. [laughs]

NICK: Wow. That’s actually very good for you. That’s interesting that the most accessible part of this is that they screw up. So… [laughs]

CAMERON: That was a really good use of my own light side point. [laughs]

NICK: Yeah. So, three successes, you’re going to take 15 damage, which is a lot.

CAMERON: Meh.

NICK: How much health do you have left?

CAMERON: I mean, I have 4 health left.

NICK: Oh yeah, you’re fine.

CAMERON: I’m fine though.

NICK: You’re like coughing blood from the corner of your mouth.

CAMERON: It’s totally fine.

NICK: So, roll the crit that they did on you.

CAMERON: An 86.

NICK: Which is what?

CAMERON: Which is… Compromised: +1 difficulty until the end of the encounter, so an extra purple die, for everything.

NICK: Okay. So you’ve been shot, your gun has been turned to slag, you are getting pinned down. The despair is that in the hubbub of all of the shooting and things, while you were getting hit and you fall back, your gun overloads and shoots three very, very powerful charges into the middle cannon and it explodes.

CAMERON: Huzzah.

NICK: So, you have taken one of these large cannons down.

CAMERON: [silly] How many, approximately, stormtroopers would you say are now deceased?

NICK: Like 15-ish, for the explosion, and then like… since you stayed in it, probably you took down like 20 besides that, so you did, as advertised, a sizable chunk. They were not expecting for a large emplacement to open up at their unprotected flank. But, you are hit, you fall backwards off of the embankment that you had setup, the stormtroopers are pretty close to the shield facility, because it took you a while to drag this big, heavy gun there quietly and not be seen, so you are laying, your feet are up on this embankment, you’re kind of upside down, blood is trickling out of your mouth, you have a massive set of scorch marks across the chest of your armor, and you see – kind of upside down, we see from karma’s view, just the assorted feet of the rest of the squad and their assorted NPCs walking up to you upside down.

CAMERON (as Karma): Oh hey, y’all.

[music stops abruptly]

HUDSON (as Tink): Hey.

LAURA (as Xianna): Ello.

NICK: [smiling] You all, as you went up, saw Karma with this big explosion, the sound of shattering metal, and then saw Karma get tossed backwards off of this embankment.

HUDSON (as Tink): Karma, stand still, I know how to do this best. Close your eyes.

CAMERON (as Karma): I’m… I’m laying down.

HUDSON (as Tink): Oh. Close your eyes.

CAMERON (as Karma): Okay.

HUDSON: I hold her down by her neck and get two stim packs at once in one hand and just stab them into her.

[laughter]

LAURA (as Xianna): Oh, I don’t—Okay. I mean…

HUDSON (as Tink): No-no-no, if you do it like this, then it flows through the blood differently.

CAMERON (as Karma): Ow!

CAMERON: [laughs]

LAURA (as Xianna): If you say so.

NICK (as HK): Assertion: Boss Man is “becoming medicine.”

HUDSON (as Tink): Ah, yes.

NICK (as HK): Boss Man, did I say that as instructed?

HUDSON (as Tink): Yes, thank you, thank you. Did you read the for-ward?

NICK (as HK): I did not read your textbook. You just told me to say “becoming medicine.”

LAURA (as Xianna): The “for-ward?”

HUDSON (as Tink): Yeah, the thing that’s in the front of the book, the for-ward.

LAURA (as Xianna): The forward.

HUDSON (as Tink): The for-ward.

LAURA (as Xianna): The forward.

CAMERON (as Karma): No, when you’re talking about medical texts it’s for-ward, because hospital wards.

HUDSON (as Tink): Yeah.

LAURA (as Xianna): Nooo~!

[laughter]

CAMERON: And Karma rolls her head to look at Hank.

CAMERON (as Karma): [dazed] I think I’m winning on the stormtrooper count. I’d have to math, but I’m pretty sure.

NICK (as HK): Debate: There were no witnesses for your body count. Doesn’t count.

CAMERON (as Karma): But I’ve got bodies.

NICK: [laughs]

CAMERON: Karma starts to get up as the stim packs kick in.

NICK: Yeah. You can see- It’s not a great move. There’s definitely instructions all over these stim packs that are like “use individually.” The burn marks do lose a lot of the angry, red swelling, but they also are discolored and the skin is not in a good place. Karma is up and moving because mechanically that heals freaking 9 wounds, because it’s 5 and then 4, but you’re probably gonna have a really wicked come-down off of this once we’re done.

CAMERON (as Karma): [dazed] I’m fine. Let’s get going.

NICK: So, you are all standing in a group.

NICK (as Neato): So, how goes it on the home front?

CAMERON (as Karma): I killed one of their cannons. I think, uh… approximately 35 stormtroopers.

NICK (as Neato): Thirty-five?!

CAMERON (as Karma): Yeah.

NICK (as Neato): That’s the Emperor’s dozen.

LAURA (as Xianna): Excuse me?!

CAMERON (as Karma): What?

NICK (as Neato): An Emperor’s dozen, 35 stormtroopers.

LAURA (as Xianna): That makes no sense.

NICK (as Neato): You make no sense.

NICK: Neato belly crawls up this embankment and looks over.

NICK (as Neato): Oh wow, there’s still, uh, quite a smorgasbord of stormtroopers out there.

CAMERON (as Karma): Oh yeah, I was just entertaining myself while I waited for y’all.

NICK (as Neato): That’s some kind of entertainment.

LAURA (as Xianna): Karma, I do not know if killing people is entertainment, and I feel like if I am the one saying moral ethics at the moment… something’s wrong with that, right?

LAURA: Turns to Tink.

LAURA (as Xianna): That’s wrong, right? Heh.

HUDSON (as Tink): Wrong, right. Left, right. Up, down. You know.

LAURA (as Xianna): You were not listening, were you?

HUDSON (as Tink): Ehh.

NICK (as Neato): Morality is in the eye of the sarlacc.

CAMERON (as Karma): What?!

LAURA (as Xianna): I don’t think sarlaccs have eyes.

NICK (as Neato): Exactly!

CAMERON (as Karma): [laughing] What?! I can’t handle this.

[laughter]

LAURA (as Xianna): Ohh. Are you a nihilist? I understand. Heh.

HUDSON (as Tink): Nihilist? Okay, so morals are subjunction to each person.

CAMERON (as Karma): Guys, guys, guys—

NICK: Jesus.

[laughter]

LAURA (as Xianna): Why am I the philosopher in this group?! What?!

CAMERON (as Karma): We can have this conversation later on our ship, in the hot tub, after we’ve rescued all these people, but for the moment there’s still a smorgasbord – as Neato said – of stormtroopers that are in the way and holding down these poor people who live on this planet and we need to help them, and I’ve had a rough day. Actually, it was like a rough past five minutes, but we should go.

LAURA (as Xianna): Okay, a smorgasbord, so… 74.

HUDSON (as Tink): No-no-no, a smorgasbord is like upper 70s. It’s more of a cornucopia. I’d say below 70.

LAURA (as Xianna): No, no, a smorgasbord is 74 exactly. A cornucopia is just like around 60, 70, 80.

CAMERON (as Karma): Okay, then it’s not quite a smorgasbord then, because I think it’s 55 and two cannons.

NICK (as Neato): It’s more of a buffet, really.

LAURA (as Xianna): That’s not—That’s a buffet.

HUDSON (as Tink): That is a buffet.

CAMERON (as Karma): Anyhow. HK, look what I found for you, all of these stormtroopers.

NICK: We see everybody coming up the embankment at once. You do have a pretty sizable group. We’ve got Xianna, HK, Tink, Karma, Specialist Talon, Neato, Smith and Weathers, so there’s eight people. We have all of you coming up and doing the dramatic superhero silhouette thing along this, and we see over your shoulders to all of the stormtroopers down below, and everybody poses with their weapons ready to go, and HK says:

NICK (as HK): Emotional Statement: If I had eyes I would be crying right now.

NICK: And that’s the end of the episode!

ALL: Ba-naaa~!

## 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 will make the squad giggle like school children when we read them. If you’re so inclined, you can also help support the show through our Patreon which can be found in the show notes, on our website, and basically anywhere we post things. We have all sorts of Patreon levels including some of my favorites: Bantha Buddy, Tarkin’s Underwear Drawer, and Build-A-Beru which all have fabulous rewards and super great names.

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

Tink is played by Hudson Jameson. 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, and join our Discord and share all of your food and cute pet photos with us. We also sometimes talk about Star Wars. You can find the link to join our Discord on our website and in our pinned tweet. See you next time.