Transcript: Season 3 Episode 53: A Hardware Problem

A Knight of Shreds and Patches Transcript  

Season 3 Episode 53: A Hardware Problem

Transcript by Cameron Robertson

Intro:  

[hurdy gurdy music begins]

Nick: Welcome, listeners, to A Knight of Shreds and Patches. An immersive actual play podcast. This episode features the talents of –

Penn:  Penn Van Batavia as Marathon Messenger and Gwendolyn Rozenthall.

Kit: Kit Adames as Birdie Foundling and Vaus Foundling.

Cameron: Cameron Robertson as Emma Blackwood and Janus Foundling.

Sydney: Sydney Whittington as Cassidy Shard and Winifred Foundling.

Nick: Nick Robertson as GM and Narrator.

Sydney: Hello listeners, this is your editor, Sydney, with today’s messages:

Has it finally warmed up a little where you are? I know the groundhog saw his shadow, but even with the prediction of a longer winter, we’re really pushing for no more ice in our communities. Really, it’s about time to abolish ice entirely. Snow is way better anyway.

While we may not be stuck in a Groundhog Day timeloop this year, if you do need to listen to some characters stuck in a cycle of question-answering and contemplating the mysteries of a different universe, consider backing our Patreon, which gives you access to bonus episodes, campfire conversations, and other fun rewards.

And with that, we wrap up today’s announcements and head into Season 3, Episode 53: A Hardware Problem. And so…

“Join us, for now our tale to yours attaches

To carry hope: a Knight of Shreds and Patches.”

[hurdy gurdy music ends]

[electronic beeping]  

[robotic powerup noise begins]  

Distorted Robotic Voice: Power restored. Systems online. Reconfiguring audio connection.  

[robotic powerup noise fades to radio frequency static]

[over radio]  

Cameron (as Emma):  Last time on a Knight of Shreds and Patches, Winifred and I continued our trip into the innards of Sasnak Traveling’s core which was super interesting. I hadn’t considered going into a computer like this before…but I guess it seems vaguely similar to how  Zee-O talked about interacting with the Knight. Anyway the goal is that when I get back to the Knight I kinda know what is going on and have a better chance at fixing it if for some reason I ever end up in a situation where I have to manage it by myself. We had to get creative to get around the levels of security protecting the core of the core, and I really thought hacking a system like this would involve more computer skills, but I’ve been climbing trees and wandering around hedge mazes which seems very unsoftware-like to me. Then again I’m rather new to having to deal with software this complex, so maybe this is all just normal and I had silly boring expectations. We left our bodies under Cassidy’s watchful eye and hopefully no other groups of mercenaries show up that they have to deal with without us. I kinda feel bad for leaving them since Birdie, Marathon, and Karma are all injured, but I really wanted to get more hands-on software experience with Winifred while I had the chance and being a better mechanic will make all of our lives easier in our travels so really I’m doing it for them. I’m gonna keep telling myself that while I continue to interact with the freaking core of Sasnak Traveling - like this is wild! 

[radio static]

Episode Start:  

Nick:  The sounds of combat echo through the cavernous chamber at the heart of Sasnak Traveling. Marathon, Birdie, Cassidy, and Karma are close to the center of the room, looking towards the open hallway, but much more in their focus is the group of mercenaries who have charged them out into this open space. Cassidy has just finished removing one of the major threats of a rifleman further down the hallway. Marathon blocked a sword attack with her brass knuckles. Karma is bloodied on one knee trying to take aim with her rifle, and Birdie has also entered the fray, having been rebuffed the first time, but attempting to assist. And at the start of the initiative order, we have the guy with the shotgun who is currently aiming at Marathon at close to point blank range. Disoriented one, so he gets one black die on his roll. So they are at close range, so I need to roll one yellow and a green with a black die and one purple die. And then do you have any Ranged Defense, Marathon? 

Penn:  One.

Nick:  Okay, so an extra black die, so it'll be two black die total.

[dice rolling]

Cameron:  Two failures and two advantages.

Nick:  Dagnabbit. So this mercenary isn't able to hit you, Marathon, how do you dodge this shotgun blast?

Penn:  While Marathon is focused on blocking the swords in front of her with her arms, she hears the mechanisms of this shotgun beginning to lock in on her, and she uses a very fast thrust kick behind her to knock the shotgun to face up into the air as it fires, instead of at her as she returns to fight the people in front of her, thinking that she might have to deal with that very soon as well. Meanwhile, Marathon is wobbling a little having lifted herself onto the leg that's been shot.

Nick:  So now that the shotgun was fired and missed, we are at Karma's initiative slot. What is Karma doing?

Sydney:  Karma being jammed up by the sword guy who had rushed in, she doesn't think, especially with her shoulder hurt, that she's gonna be able to free herself enough to use the rifle as a projectile weapon, and instead tucks the rifle in and goes to stab the adjacent sword person with the bayonet. So she'll be rolling one yellow and two greens against a red and a purple, because she has an additional difficulty from her shoulder wound. 

[dice rolling]

Sydney:  Two threats.

Nick:  Okay, those two threats, I think it's just going to leave Karma open due to her injuries, so that she's going to have blue die against her for anything that attacks her.

Sydney:  So Karma is coming up against the limits of her mobility and how fast and how accurately she can move, both from the disorientation from having been punched in the face with her eye already swelling that she can only see out of one eye, and that her shoulder wound is not treating her well right now. She tries to chamber the rifle into her waist and then stab forward in that textbook bayonet maneuver, and as soon as she brings it back, her shoulder twinges, and the sword guy pushes forward against her pinning the rifle up to her chest, instead of in a position where she can pull it away enough to actually do a stab with it. And instead, now her rifle is stuck, and she has no choice but to take a couple of steps back, and then is pursued by the sword person staying so close to her that she's not in a good position to defend against any other incoming attacks.

Nick:  With that being out of position that'll be to blue die against Karma if anyone attacks her, and up next is a PC slot.

Penn:  Marathon, crowded by these assailants, peeks through the chaos to see Karma being assaulted by a goon with a sword, and seeing the position that she's left Karma in, we will start to see her eyes widen and she tries to hop over one of these sword goons that she's dealing with in the moment to try and shoulder check the one attacking Karma instead speeding forward on her skates.

Nick:  All right, make me a Brawl check at average difficulty. And I'm going to flip a GM story point to upgrade the difficulty of this check.

Penn:  So I'm rolling four yellows and a green versus a purple and a red.

[dice rolling]

Penn:  Five successes and two advantages.

Nick:  That's enough to activate Disorient, if you want. 

Penn:  Yeah, with my brass knuckles, of course. She'll charge forward, and as she's shoulder checking, she'll have one fist out as well to punch forward as she lands into this mercenary scrub. So five successes, plus four Brawn plus one from the brass knuckles, so then that'll be 10 total damage. 

Nick:  The guy that you're hitting doesn't drop, but he is very unhappy with his state of life right now.

Penn:  Does he go bouncing back at all? 

Nick:  Yeah, he bounces away from Karma. He's no longer locked with sword poised to strike.

Penn (as Marathon):  How death risky are you right now, Colonel?

Penn:  Marathon says without looking down at her, keeping her eyes on the thug that she just bounced back.

Sydney (as Karma):  No talking, more fighting.

Penn (as Marathon):  Can do. 

Penn:  And Marathon skates forward.

Nick:  So that mercenary stumbles back out of Karma's immediate engagement, and up next is another PC slot.

Kit:  After Birdie's last attempt at helping her friends and whatever Karma is failed, she moved to go back to her pack and is just running through everything that she has in her backpack while she's not the center of attention so she can figure out something in close range that doesn't completely explode and draw more people near. And I think she finds the rest of the bottle of ethanol. And while ethanol is really good for killing octopuses, it's not the best for killing or very grievously injuring people without fire involved. So there is a very split second mathematical equation in her head of explosion bad, fire, still okay? Question mark? Probably. And she'll take out her butane lighter that she can flick open, and it'll stay on, shrug to herself and go, 

Kit (as Birdie):  Oh, here he goes, nothing. I guess this will just be slippery, if I miss, whatever. 

Kit:  And she's going to try the surprise attack of foul smelling liquid being poured on someone who looks uninjured, of the swordsman, and then she'll just gonna throw a lighter at them. Birdie wields a softer plastic bottle than the ones that they used against the octopuses in the Guts weeks ago, and will give a non committal shrug as she flicks open her lighter, and she'll get as close as she dares to an uninjured swordsman, reach her hand out with the bottle and just start spraying wildly to cover as much surface area of this random person as possible before tossing her lighter and aiming for a flame to catch with their newly extra flammable clothes.

Nick:  Okay, so to pull this off, I'm going to need a close Range Light attack, but you're going to have two black die because you're trying to do two actions, one with each hand, and trying to get this person soaked enough that they're going to catch fire. So that's pretty difficult to do.

Kit:  Okay, Birdie is going to be rolling three yellows, one green, one purple, and two blacks. A success and a Triumph. 

Nick:  Nice. So gonna say, because this guy is on fire, the group is shrunk by one as one guy drops and is trying to put himself out. We'll have him handle that at the top of the round, but we'll just say that this group is impeded for now, and that guy is taking four damage to start. And every time he fails, he'll take another four damage. Eh, five damage. We'll say five damage. So Birdie, you set one of these mercenaries on fire, he immediately drops to the ground and starts trying to roll and put the fire out. You could use the Triumph to advance the fire by five so he only gets one chance to put himself out before he burns to death, if you want to do it that way. 

Kit:  Yeah.

Nick:  So yeah, with that Triumph, the person that you set on fire, is extremely on fire, and is screaming as he rolls and tries to put himself out. So at the top of the round, he gets one chance to try to put himself out, and if not, he's just going to die. So that guy's extremely on fire, the two remaining sword mercenaries are going to try to swing at Karma. They're reduced in effectiveness because one of their party is on fire currently, so they will only be rolling one yellow and a green but they will have two blue die because Karma is currently open to attack because of her threats, but they will have a black die because one of them is currently Disoriented.

Sydney:  And they have a second black die because Karma on her feet, instead of sitting on the ground, has 1 Defense.

[dice rolling]

Cameron:  2 successes, 1 advantage.

Nick:  Oh, boy. So 2 successes, so that is 8 damage coming at Karma.

Sydney:  So Karma has 2 soak, so she's taking only 6 damage. However, she's currently at 9 of 14 Wounds, so this knocks her unconscious with 15 exceeding her Wounds.

Nick:  Okay, which means she gets another Crit on her because she just went unconscious. So let's roll that up.

Sydney:  So with the Crit from Marathon, plus the Crit from her shoulder, it would be at plus 20.

[dice rolling]

Cameron:  I rolled a nine, so 29 Discouraging Wound: Move one player pool Story Point to the Game Master pool. Reverse if NPC.

Nick:  So Karma is slashed across the ribs by a sword that gets in under her guard and falls unconscious with a wide gash being added to her list of injuries, and she collapses to the ground. Up next is a PC slot.

Sydney:  Cassidy had swung her rifle away from the hallway, back to the melee in front of her, and didn't even get a chance to bark out an objection before Birdie lit someone on fire next to all of this sensitive machinery, but it quickly becomes a lower priority than seeing their Ramp Girl escort felled and assessing the threat. She takes another shot at the shotgun wielder, who's still up as the one capable of causing the most damage in this moment.

Nick:  Is Cassidy offset from the rest of the group. I feel like she is because she came around the pillar.

Sydney:  Yeah, I think she's still closest to the pillar of any of them. 

Nick:  So medium range, I would say.

Sydney:  She is gonna take her Maneuver to Aim and make sure that she's picking a time to shoot that does not overlap with any of her teammates trying to engage. And she'll be rolling three yellows and two greens against the two purples, plus two blue dice for the Accurate two of the rifle. 

[dice rolling]

Sydney:  Two advantages.

Nick:  So I think what happens is the shotgun wielding mercenary sees that you're drawing a bead on him, and he starts to duck back out of your line of sight and into the group of your allies.

Sydney:  With my roll of two advantages, I'm going to use this opportunity to trigger my Natural Talent, and once the session re-roll my Ranged Heavy check.

[dice rolling]

Sydney:  Seven successes and an advantage. 

Nick:  That's a little bit better roll.

Sydney:  So that'll be 16 damage, Pierce 2. 

Nick:  Yep, that guy's fucking dead. 

Sydney:  So the shotgun wielder tries to duck behind the crowd, and Cassidy considers trying to force a quick shot, takes a deep breath and lets him move into the crowd, and knows that there is at least one swordsman on that side of the crowd between him and the other members of her party, and he's going to have to keep circling in one direction or the other if he wants to get his own shot off. And just a couple of seconds later, he makes an appearance on the far side of the melee and is immediately taken down. She calmly works the bolt, hoping that the rate at which these enemies are being eliminated is going to be enough to keep the remaining members safe.

Nick:  And we go back to the top of the order. I need ‘guy on fire’ to roll a yellow and two greens against two purples.

[dice rolling]

Cameron:  Two failures and two advantages.

Nick:  And so we see these two sword wielding mercenaries cover each other's back having seen that their two mercenaries giving them weapons cover are both dead. Cover each other with their swords as they assess what to do as the third mercenary expires while trying to put out the fire that he is dealing with and we are going to cut away back into the technological heart of Sasnak, where Emma and Winifred are currently at a panel looking to restart the city. 

Emma and Winifred, you have made it to the center of this maze, to the bottom of this tower inside the technical heart of Sasnak Traveling, and you've made it to the access panel that has been your objective all along. There are no more manholes leading further down. You have managed to avoid most of the security in this layer and all that's left is to access this panel and attempt to restart the city.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] All right, so behind this should be the abstraction that represents the controls. It might even just be the controls. We'll see how that renders here. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Yeah, thats - okay. 

Sydney:  Winifred reaches out and opens the panel.

Nick:  So inside the panel is a swirling vortex of light and what you would almost describe as flashes of sound. It's just a very overwhelming amount of data, and your brains are trying to process it, but it is more than you can comfortably handle as you realize this is the main heart string, basically, of the entire city and the systems that keep it running. You can tell that something is amiss, because this is not flowing in a smooth way. Parts of it judder and go against the current. But you all are going to have to both translate what this information is, and then access it and then influence it, all of which are going to be pretty difficult.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Ooh, okay. There's still a lot of information coming through this. We're - don't, don't look directly at that.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Yep. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] So what I've done, on a smaller scale, when presented with these kinds of nodes, is I can flush it out to a distributed data stream and kind of do vector processing to break it out enough that we can see individual threads, and then we can try to filter for controls that are relevant. You probably don't have the background to disagree. So 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Yep, I will follow your lead, Winifred. Tell me what you need me to do.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Emma, can you materialize me a whiteboard, a stack of sticky notes, and some string.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] How big a whiteboard? Like one of the ones from your office?

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] The one in the big conference room with the cows.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Ooh, okay. 

Cameron:  And Emma closes her eyes and looks up to just be not looking anywhere towards the panel so that she still isn't, still seeing the light behind her closed eyelids, and you can tell she's focusing really hard. And then the items that Winifred has requested appear, but then also a backpack appears on Emma, because it's very school themed.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Okay, yeah, you're you're getting a little better at it. I'm sorry that I can't help, but here we are.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Yep, no, it's fine. My hedge maze is your hedge maze, so

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Oh perfect. Well, you're doing a good job. 

Sydney:  And Winifred goes to start basically drawing the breakdown of a multi layer convolutional neural net as she's trying to figure out what the best way to lay out a path for the data to go through as far as there's one stream, now there's two smaller streams, now there's smaller streams batched by specific attributes and getting wider and wider and wider on the whiteboard all the way across.

Cameron:  As Winifred turns towards the whiteboard, she notices that Emma is blushing slightly, and this is, she knows for a fact, the first time that Emma has blushed after a comment that she has made to her.

Sydney:  Winifred sees the blush and gives Emma a wink and goes back to work. 

Cameron:  Wink does nothing. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Just make sure you're holding these in mind so stuff doesn't move around.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Mhm.

Nick:  So I need you to make me a daunting Wild Tech roll, please. Y'all can assist each other.

Sydney:  Winifred has four yellows in Wild Tech, and I think in this circumstance, Emma is adding a blue die.

Cameron:  Yeah. 

Sydney:  So this will be four yellows and a blue against four purples. 

[dice rolling]

Sydney:  One success, an advantage, and a Triumph.

Nick:  Oh, that was lucky for you. You're able to map out exactly how this works and essentially transfer the data to something that you can understand and tolerate the complexity of quite well.

Sydney:  Winifred finds this particular setup is actually helping her in a noticeable way that she's not having to hold both the theory of how she's breaking the data down and the abstractions that she's interacting with. Like having Emma do the mind picturing and leaving her to do the logic is actually really helpful.

Cameron:  Emma looks really cute with her backpack on. She's been focusing really hard and has undone her single long braid and is braiding it into two side braids.

Nick:  So I think the Triumph is also, as Winifred is charting this out and Emma is keeping everything locked firmly in her mind, Winifred, you see between the lines of all this data to part of the system that you wouldn't be mapping normally, but you see exactly how the underlying security protocols work here, and where they would be, and how easy it would be to trigger them, and are able to map those as well and avoid a majority of them before you come across them as you are getting ready to attempt to restart the city, basically circumventing the self defense protocols of the city systems and avoiding any additional issues there, which is huge. 

Sydney:  The number of sticky notes continues to explode, and Emma sees that now there are in addition to the yellow and green that are marking data flows, there are occasional red sticky notes and Winifred goes 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] It's really good that we saw these before they popped out at us. Still security here. 

Sydney:  And she gives a relieved smile over to Emma before getting back to work connecting the string.

Cameron:  Emma has taken some of the string and is making friendship bracelets for her and Winifred.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Okay, so we're getting close now. I've left all of these strings trailing off the end of the whiteboard.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Mhm.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] They should be roughly color coded according to function, but this is where it becomes your job again. We'll need to, however you think about weaving these back into a tapestry that is human readable and human pokeable and that should give us access to the status readings and any of the features and hopefully the controls for the reset. I think I've trimmed enough of the irrelevant data that everything we see here should be something either very critical to the function of the city or affected by whatever's going on. So 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] All right.

Sydney:  And Winifred steps back and looks critically at her handiwork of this board that's been stretched out, it has been going a significant speed faster than what real time would have been. Winifred has not been having to hand squiggle on every individual note as they've been going, but it's not been a quick process.

Cameron:  Emma traces along the path that leads to where they're trying to get access to with her eyes and glances kind of side eye slightly towards the bright, pulsing, spinning vortex behind the access panel, while still keeping it in her peripheral vision so that she doesn't start seeing stars and blind herself. After sitting with it for a moment, Emma finishes the friendship bracelet that she was making, and ties it off and absent mindedly hands it to Winifred, while she looks back towards the board, and then while starting back up at the top and looking at the first few breaks within the tree, she reaches over towards the vortex and grabs it like it's a very wide wire, almost, or it transforms into a cord like as she grabs it and pulls it towards her, and then starts treating it as if it is a multi thranded piece of yarn, and starts disassembling it into all of these divisions that Winifred has written up on the board.

Nick:  So thanks to Winifred's mapping and the fact that the security system is now very clearly identified, this will only be a hard Wild Tech check, Emma, and you can still collaborate with Winifred - you're just taking point on this one.

Cameron:  So I'm taking my four Intellect and Winifred's four skill.

Nick:  Yeah so I guess the only difference is you don't get the blue die.

Cameron:  So I'm going to flip a Story Point. So I'm rolling four yellows, a green, and three purples.

[dice rolling]

Cameron:  Five successes, a Triumph, and a threat.

Nick:  Huh? So this is going to be completely successful. Good job. I would say five successes pretty much outweighs a threat as far as anything that is going to happen. You're going to be able to isolate the thing that is causing the city to stop, and you're going to be able to turn it back on again.

Cameron:  So Emma starts following the path down the whiteboard and is separating this giant strand in her hand into two, and then she gently lets go of one half of it, and then she takes the other side and splits it into two, and then drops the one that doesn't follow the correct path down the tree. And continues to do this until about the fourth split. And then it's reached the point where it's now small enough that she needs to look at it to be able to tell which thread she needs to continue following. And so Winifred sees her close her eyes again and put her head down, and then she looks back up and knocks her head down sharply, and a welding mask pops down over her face. And then she starts looking at the threads directly, and then looking up, comparing it to the board and going back, and continues dividing up this cord of computer until she has one piece isolated, and then she just lays it across her palm. 

Sydney:  Winifred - we see her stick her hand out and then look at it in confusion, before she remembers that this is not her abstraction, and she can't just materialize sunglasses like she would normally. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Hey Emma, can I have some sunglasses?

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Yeah.

Cameron:  A very fancy rhinestoned pair of sunglasses pops onto Winifred's face.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Perfect. Thank you. 

Sydney:  And Winifred gets close to look over Emma's shoulder. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] This is that thread. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] All right, cool. I'm gonna drag this and expand it all the way out so we can see what's going on. 

Sydney:  And Winifred gingerly takes the thread and starts stretching it like it was a piece of hot sugar candy, where it just gets longer and thinner and longer and thinner, and then she gets 30 feet away and goes, 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Okay, can you anchor this here?

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Over there? Yes.

Cameron:  A flag pole pops up where Winifred is standing with a little hook on it for the thread to be clipped into.

Sydney:  Winifred clips it in. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Okay, now I think if you just give that a strum, we should have a control menu.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized]  Cool~.

Cameron:  Emma reaches out and flicks the stream of light. 

[high tension wire thrumming]

Sydney:  The string vibrates, and then continues, vibrating wider and wider and wider, and Emma and Winifred can make out now a what looks like a fairly standard status screen. There's a decent number of green lights, there's a decent number of yellow lights. There are a few red lights. Things are labeled with numbers, and then there is a long legend off to the side, and Winifred starts scanning down the legend. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Okay, do you see? What is that? 1724?

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Umm~ yes. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] What color is that? 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Yellow.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Okay, so movement systems are not destroyed. They're just inactive. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] That's good!

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Huh. 1901?

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] I would assume that's further this way. 

Cameron:  And Emma scooches over to the side while reading the numbers.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] That one is red.

Sydney (as Cassidy):  [digitized] So I guess we have inertial dampeners, and those are down. Has there been like? Have the buildings been falling over more than normal?

Cameron:  Emma had started nodding slowly as soon as Winifred said the words inertial dampeners. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Uh yeah.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] [concerned citizen noise]

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] It's not catastrophic levels, but I would say a lot of the things that would have fallen in the next few Turnings are either already down or at great risk, to quickly make their way there.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Okay, we'll definitely need to get that back on before we get moving. Okay, 003, that'll probably be all the way over there?

Cameron:  Emma does a little jog. It's not really a jog, but she's moving her arms as if it's a jog. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Uh yellow again.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Okay, so that should be the master locomotion control. Is there a toggle switch?

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] So not broken.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Yeah, let's, let's just try rebooting it. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Will that also turn on the initial dampeners? Because that would it, would it be this whole section that it would reset? 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] That is a good question. 

Sydney:  Winifred goes back to scanning.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized]  Uh 0-1-.,

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Okay, that's also right here, also yellow.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] That's master auxiliary support systems.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] That seems like the category that they'd fall under.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Yeah, that's that's probably safer to hit first, 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Okay.

Cameron:  And Emma flips a very old timey switch that kind of looks like a joystick, flips it into the up position with a small click.

Nick:  The light turns green. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] I've got a green light for this one now.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Check the initial - well, here I can.

Sydney:  And Winifred walks over. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Yeah. Inertial dampeners are green. Now that's good. I hope I'm not missing anything else, but let's try that master locomotion and 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] I've got, there are a few over here that are flashing yellow now?

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Okay.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Does that mean that, like they might have some power with what I just flipped?

Sydney:  Winifred looks around in vain for a light color key. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] This is - this is a lot less info than I'd love to have to be able to do this, but sure, turn those on. What numbers are those?

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] 014 through -

Cameron:  Emma looks over to the side

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] 023. If I was making an assumption about what flashing yellow means, it looks like, it means that like, it's primed and like, ready.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Yeah, there's. More support systems. There's a waste management system that's probably, I mean, the city's so complicated, everything is important to some degree. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Yeah.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] It wouldn't be lasting this long if things didn't still work. But sure, let's turn those on.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Okay, I will flip them slowly, and if anything weird happens with the other lights, we can stop.

Sydney:  And Winifred takes a step back and looks at the wall of blinking lights.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Alrighty.

Cameron:  Emma starts flipping switches, and then will flip one and look over her shoulder to make sure that there's not a look of terror on Winifred's face. And then when she doesn't see one, she goes and she flips the next one and repeats the process all the way until they hit the final flashing yellow. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Okay, they're all on. They're all green.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] All right. That's as much as we can hope for. I think we're doing things as long as this isn't like a fake control panel, if I've done my job right. Yeah.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] That would be incredibly rude for this to be a fake control panel.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] I think one level more of security than they needed. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Okay.

Sydney:  And Winifred looks around to knock on wood, and there is no wood. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Should, should we try the which one was it? 3? 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Yeah, let me. Let me hit this one for my own sake. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] [happy to offload responsibility] Okay!

Cameron:  Emma takes a big step back with her hands up.

Sydney:  Winifred gets close and contemplates the button and the amount of access that she has right now, and wonders briefly what more she could discover in a not so high stakes time and then reaches up and flicks the switch.

Nick:  There is no change for one breath, then for two. And just as you both start to wonder if something is wrong, a cascade of green goes across this web that the two of you have constructed together. Winifred, you see that parts of this web are still dark, while a majority of the systems are now operating, based on the yellow lights and yellow flashing lights you saw before, there are parts of this system that make up Sasnak Traveling that have presumably been off or broken or disabled for decades, if not longer, and the city has chugged on without them. But this main locomotion switch flashes green, and everything connected to it begins to light up green as well. Even as buried within these systems as you are, you imagine you can feel the vibration of the ground as the city slowly reboots, and with a grinding screech, begins to roll across the plains once more, but right before you begin to celebrate your success, that same wave happens in reverse, first in yellow and then in red, or lights extinguishing as the city shuts back down again. There is a scrolling of flashing errors, and your attempts to reboot the city have failed spectacularly. 

Emma, with that Triumph that you rolled earlier, you are able to see exactly what caused this reboot to fail. Whatever the mercenaries have did to shut down the city in the first place is still there, clinging to the underside. It's a hardware problem, not a software problem.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] What the hell? Why did it turn off? 

Sydney:  And Winifred starts checking her work. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] No, this all looks right. What?

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Um, huh. 

Cameron:  Emma goes and slowly starts flipping all of the switches that they had done before the final one. So, getting the inertial dampener light to come back on green, flipping all of the other systems that they did, and just doesn't flip the final one that Winifred flipped, and then turns back to Winifred. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] So not fully comprehending this whole we're in a computer thing, I don't know how I know this, but I do know that why it turned off originally, and why it just shut down again when we turned it back on, is that on the underside of the city there is a hardware device that's latched on and plugged in to one of the city ports that is causing the basically power outage.

Sydney:  Winifred is scowling and nodding. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Yeah, that would do it.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] I know exactly where it is, on the bottom of the city.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Hey, turn around for a second. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] O-kay~.

Cameron:  Emma slowly turns.

Sydney:  And Winifred gets up real close and looks at the braids that Emma had woven and sees that there's one tiny strand off of the main one that got woven in with her braids, giving her a direct link to the data that would be relevant. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Oh, that's cool. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] What's cool? 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] You're getting raw information from the city, and you're not overwhelmed.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] What? How -

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] It's in the braid.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] My braids? 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Yeah, you, you braided all the machine, all the all of the threads earlier?

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Uh huh.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized]  You braided the threads before the your own braids before that. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Yeah.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] You, you picked up a data tap. That's a nice trick.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Huh. That's interesting. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Take note of where that is, because we're gonna have to go, I guess, physically intervene?

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Yeah, um huh.

Cameron:  Emma is just running her hand down her two braids that she's done. She can't see where the port is with just the parts that she can see if she holds her braids out. But just like for comfort and familiarity, just stroking her own hair.

Sydney:  There's one just tiny gossamer thread, almost like a one single silver hair that is just snaking its way through. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized]  Huh. Yeah. So along with knowing exactly where it is, I know once we get it removed, we will be able to restart the city. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] That's great news.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] And we proved out that this right here will do it. It just that it shut down again.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Yeah.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] But at least the dampeners are turned back on. So 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Yeah, we should be, well, it'll be a literal weight off of a lot of people's shoulders. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] [laugh]

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] It can't be too much, because people would notice getting on the city, but

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Yeah, but it, I mean it, there's still the whole mercenary problem to deal with, but at least less falling, -

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Yeah.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] - debris and buildings. So~ now what?

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] I don't know if we can keep this user session open, if you if we need to go physically intervene.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Mhm.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] We might have to do the same thing again, after we get -

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Can I take this chord with us, do you think? 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Um.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Like not out of the session, but up towards where we got into the system?

Sydney:  Winifred is thinking and looking up into the far distance. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] That seems like a worthwhile shot, sure.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Because that way, at least we don't, we don't go through the whole thing to get here again. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Yeah, we would get straight back into the interface. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] We could do it immediately, and then probably even just -

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] And it's still behind the firewall, so they would still need the trophy if anyone else happened to show up that wasn't us.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Mhm.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Yeah.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] But then, like, we can, it would be right there, once you got past it, and then once you've turned it back on, you can just release it back and it should - given that this is how my brain thinks it works I think this is how this works - it should just snap back if something's not holding it on. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] No, I agree. I concur. 

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Okay.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Let's do it. Now remember, if you think about it, you can fly in here.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Uh huh.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Just take me with you.

Cameron (as Emma):  [digitized] Okay.

Nick:  Emma and Winifred, you are able to fly very quickly back to the original access point in this system, the strand of information stays attached to your braid until you're ready to log back out, and you affix it somewhere to where when you re-access the system and go through the firewall, you think you'd be able to access the web that you've created and avoid having to re-infiltrate all of these layers of security.

Sydney:  Winifred ties it to the handle of Emma's big fence with the friendship bracelet to make sure that everything stays in place and then she gives Emma a thumbs up.

Sydney (as Winifred):  [digitized] Cooperation.

Nick:  The two of you log out and pull the VR paraphernalia loose and stand feeling pretty stiff after sitting for so long without moving, and you smell gunpowder, burnt flesh, and blood. As the two of you realize that something has gone wrong and hurry around the column, you see Karma on the ground and the Patina fighting a mercenary incursion. The last two mercenaries, two men with light armor holding swords, seeing that they're outnumbered, and more people joining the fight, turn and sprint off down the hallway that they presumably came from. There's a moment as everyone looks to see if anyone's going to stop them, they continue to run as Cassidy makes the pointed decision to not shoot them in the back and as they turn around a corner, there is an explosion, screaming, and then the sound of footsteps as Juno comes walking back down the hallway. You all have reunited, having protected Winifred and Emma as they infiltrated the system, and Winifred and Emma, you have successfully logged back out and rejoined the group.

Penn:  Marathon is breathing heavily, bracing herself, crouched down, hands on her knees. 

Penn (as Marathon):  Y'all, city moving again? I'm still nauseous as hell.

Cameron (as Emma):  Good news, we turned the city on. Bad news, the city turned back off. Good news, we know how to turn the city on. Bad news, there's hardware attached to the bottom of the city that we're gonna have to go down and manually remove before we can turn the city back on, because it's blocking the city's signal from turning back on, and it's just gonna keep shutting down as many times until we actually remove the hardware. 

Kit:  Birdie looks up at this moment from where she's trying to at least get Karma stabilized and says, 

Kit (as Birdie):  Well, at least she's unconscious and she didn't hear that.

Penn (as Marathon):  I didn't hear that, and I was conscious.

Sydney (as Cassidy):  Emma go - Marathon's got a gunshot wound in her leg, and also punched Karma in the face -

Penn (as Marathon):  [in background] That wasn't my fault.

Sydney (as Cassidy):  - before the fight. 

Kit (as Birdie):  No, 

Sydney (as Cassidy):  Somehow.

Kit (as Birdie):  No, it was [fake ha ha laughing] That one was your fault. Not this. 

Penn:  Marathon tries to start wagging a finger at Birdie, and then as she picks up her hand off of her knee, she has to take a deep breath out and put both hands on her knees again to catch her breath.

Cameron:  Emma walks over and gently forces Marathon to sit down so she can start wrapping up her leg and quietly enough that the rest of the group can't hear her says, 

Cameron (as Emma):  [quietly] I can't believe you punched her when I wasn't here to watch. What the hell Marathon?

Penn (as Marathon):  [quietly] Look she was asking for it. We both know it. I'll save it for you next time.

Sydney:  Cassidy has walked over to the burned figure on the ground. He is no longer moving?

Nick:  Nah. He is very dead. 

Sydney:  And Cassidy, feeling Wyatt's influence on her, gives a short head nod knowing that that's a bad way to go out, and looks over at Winifred. 

Sydney (as Cassidy):  So do we know what we're doing next? 

Sydney:  Winifred waves to Juno as they're approaching. 

Sydney (as Winifred):  Yeah. We'll need to make a plan for that and for her.

Sydney:  And she points to Karma's fallen and bleeding body on the ground.

Nick:  And with the Patina and their Foundling allies reunited, they prepare to plan for the next step in getting the city started again and repelling this mercenary incursion.

[hurdy gurdy music swells]

Outro:

Penn (as Marathon):  Welcome back folks, you’re tuned to Going the Distance: Traveler’s Guide on road dial 1558. That’s a wrap on today’s log and we’re set to loop after these considerations. Further detail for the following is cataloged in the show notes.

This has been A Knight of Shreds and Patches, an actual play podcast using the Genesys game system from Fantasy Flight Games. The show is edited by Sydney Whittington, and features the talents of:

Kit Adames as Birdie. Kit can be found on Twitter and Instagram @ venusvultures. Kit is also a voice actor for Elevator Pitch Podcast, a queer genre-hopping anthology podcast that can be accessed on Spotify and YouTube.

Penn Van Batavia as Marathon. She can be found on Twitter @ acquiredchaste and in drag as horror king JOHN on Instagram @ john.is.risen. Penn is an indie TTRPG designer whose most recent work includes SLICE IT OUT, a grisly carving RPG about cutting pieces of yourself out to fit in. Check out faer other work at pennharper.itch.io. 

Sydney Whittington as Cassidy. Sydney can be found on our Discord server, which is linked in the show notes, and on Twitter @ sydney_whitt. She’s also a contributing editor and occasional guest player for the Orpheus Protocol, a cosmic horror espionage actual play podcast.

Cameron Robertson as Emma. Cameron can be found on Twitter @ midnightmusic13 and on Instagram @ reading_and_dreaming. Cameron is also a player on Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars Edge of the Empire actual play podcast.

And Nick Robertson as narrator. Nick can be found on Twitter @ alias58. Nick is also the GM for Tabletop Squadron. Nick can also be found as a player on the Orpheus Protocol.

This podcast features the musical talents of Dora Violet and Arne Parrott. You can find Dora at facebook.com/doraviolett. You can find Arne at atptunes.com.

The official artwork for this podcast was created by Rashed AlAkroka, who can be found on  Instagram and Artstation @ rashedjrs.

You can follow the Patina on Twitter @ akosap_podcast or visit the website: www.akosap.com. To further support the show, consider joining the Patreon at www.patreon.com/AKoSaP, where we’ll be bringing you weekly content including bonus episodes, campfire conversations, and other fun rewards.

Until you tune back…

…stay bold and stay kind