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Wompty Dompty Dom Center is what the British call a BDSM brothel.
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Sep 11, 2020 22:27
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 06:31 |
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Golden Bee posted:So we were OK cops? Y...you do remember the bit about how we responded to a mildly drunk public nuisance trying to break our clipboard by a) being far more drunk and b) beating him senseless with it before using his kneecap to try and perform concussive maintenance on the internal drawer, yes? It sounds like, by the end there, we maybe aspired to 'ok cop' and possibly may have spent some time as Botchcop.
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Sep 12, 2020 21:57
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We were not the Worst Cop. It's entirely possible to be The Worst Cop, though. Although there's no way to make rapey jokes, so we'd still have a leg up on Mills.
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Sep 13, 2020 02:54
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I just recently finished my second playthrough of the game, and after now catching up with this thread I feel extremely loving stupid for not going for a chat with Evrart after Joyce has left. I was kinda trying to be some kinda muscly idiot cop (never put a single point on INT or PSY skills) but partially failed at that by accidentally succeeding at a bunch of 3% smartypants checks. And having high motorics skills isn't exactly idiot material either. Also I deliberately left some things undone to see if they'd result in something funny or interesting, but nothing really came up, at least with my skill setup. All in all it was a bit of an underwhelming run, but this very good LP has given me a feeling for having a third go.
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Sep 14, 2020 17:47
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vdate posted:Y...you do remember the bit about how we responded to a mildly drunk public nuisance trying to break our clipboard by a) being far more drunk and b) beating him senseless with it before using his kneecap to try and perform concussive maintenance on the internal drawer, yes? we were a great cop. a legendary cop. there is a reason the boys back at the precinct are willing to put up with our poo poo, and it is not that they are kind and cuddly people. even in our hideously degenerated state, we are an incredibly useful asset to the force. we solved the Unsolvable Case! in related news, we were also just the worst loving human being imaginable
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Sep 14, 2020 20:44
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There's not a lot of info about what Harry was like before, but he was a drat good cop, and not the type to draw down on a perp without cause. He just took the loss of the Apricot Chewing Gum Scented One hard. This is especially true with high Pain Threshold, where your life turns into one of those sappy lost love songs where everything you see reminds you of her.
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Sep 15, 2020 17:11
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Harry was in fact a superstar cop. Just not the singing type.
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Sep 15, 2020 19:29
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Chapter 45: 15:09-17:28: The 2mm Hole In the World  ANDRE: “Ecstatic vibrations! Totally transcendent! And I’ve finished setting up the new compressor, too!” He looks at the imposing black box in the corner that’s churning out the sound.  ARIST: [Easy: Success] Let’s get some input from Kim first. KIM KITSURAGI: “I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t build a club and I wouldn’t name it either.” ANDRE: “An underground place with no name? Sounds like something the crab man would say.” ACELE: “We’re not going with anything the crab man would say.” NOID: “Why not? The crab man has *ideas*, Acele. Ideas from another level of consciousness!”  SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “I don’t.”  ANDRE: “The name…” He appears to mull it over, one hand idly touching his hair. “Everything I manage to come up with sounds just *wrong*.” ACELE: “Andre’s overthinking it,” says the girl with the microphone. NOID: “Yes, *you* should do it, detective.” The speedfreak with yellow beads aroundhis neck is looking at you. “It would be good for the sines.”  ARIST: [Challenging: Success] Ignore them. This is a lot of pressure and you might just be able to slip out of it yet. ACELE: “How about something simple, like The Club?”  EGG HEAD: “YEKOKATAA!” The freak with the large head yells from the stage, waving his hand in the air. “YEKOKATAA, THE PLACE TO BE!” ACELE: “Yekokataa, the zone of ecological catastophe? That’s too morbid, Egg. Got anything else?” EGG HEAD: “HARD CORE!” A witless, victorious smile adorns his face. “HARD CORE TO THE MEGA!”  NOID: “The Amnesia.” ACELE: “Like… the I-can’t-remember-the-name-of-the-club amnesia?” EGG HEAD: “AMNESIA!”   ARIST: [Medium: Success] Fine. What about… this? NOID: “Like that Dolorian word for the world, you mean? Elysium…” ACELE: “But *Disco* Elysium…” She looks unsure. “Isn’t it wacky? Disco’s kind of gone, isn’t it? Forgotten.” EGG HEAD: “THE PAST IS THE FUTURE, BUT THE FUTURE IS DEAD!” ANDRE: “No, it’s beautiful. Beautiful and brave! Like we want it to be.” NOID: “*And* short. *And* memorable!”  Yeah! Title justified!!!      ANDRE: “Yes, my man!” He jumps up and down with glee, his moves punctuated by the stroboscopic flash of the club lights. COMPOSURE: [Easy: Success] Talk? What is there to talk about if you can express yourself with *moves*?  ANDRE: “It’s to express my individuality.”  ARIST: [Medium: Success] Don’t comment on the balding thing. He’s probably sensitive about it.     LIMBIC SYSTEM: …but just *imagine* the moves you could pull to this futuristic beat!      EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] With wonder in his sharp eyes.  KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes. You really came through. For the hard core underground.” He spreads his arms, looking around at the speedfreaks setting up shop. “How come?” ANDRE: Andre is busy cutting some slightly less lame, but still quite ungainly shapes on the church floor, sweating profusely. ACELE: Acele is using her contact mike to listen to a tree, underwater. EGG HEAD: The one with the large head is blasting the dance track on repeat, while the stained glass window behind him is rattling from the bass.  KIM KITSURAGI: “Okay.” The lieutenant keeps it laconic.   NOID: “That’s right. The first settlers built it, plus six more like it. On the coast here. Was one of the first things they did… must’ve been really scared of something. But I understand… Alone on an uninhabited archipelago, forced to face themselves and nature. Pre-industrial quantities of solitude. The sea. Perhaps something more… fundamental.” NOID: [Medium: Success] He means something para-natural. He must…    NOID: “Like that woman there,” he nods toward the stained glass window. “Vertical, thin, white, a false image of grandeur. The source of the system is up there, you’re at the bottom. They really dug that power vertical.”   NOID: “Stands to reason it used to be white on the outside.” He peeks out of a small window in the dark. “Before the sea wind took all the paint off.” VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success] Year after year, flake after flake, white washed clean, then covered in green moss…   NOID: “‘I saw some piglets suckling their dead mother’—have you heard this one, cop-man?” He continues without waiting for an answer: “‘After a short while they shuddered and went away. They had sensed that she could no longer see them and that she wasn’t *like* them anymore. What they loved in their mother wasn’t her body, but whatever it was that made her body live.’”   NOID: A three-thousand-year-old tyrannical regime of History, built and maintained by hundreds of generations of self-appointed *intellectuals*…” He looks around. “It’s false-core.”  NOID: “*I* only said: *Unity*. One word. Figures of authority always misquote you.” He points to his friends.  NOID: “But were you wrong? The Founding Party is okay with everything. Look around.” He spreads his arms. “They do not have enough love for the *human crew* to oppose anything anymore. We’re on our own.”  NOID: “Well…” The young man pushes his chest out, the skeleton of suspenders rattling… ANDRE: “Noid-man! Mellow out,” the dancing hedgehog yelps at his friend. “Stop aggroing the law!”  ARIST: [Formidable: Success] That was a weird outburst. You okay, man?   NOID: “No wonder.” He cracks his neck. “We have to get rid of it. Dismantle it. Can’t dance with a giant *mass murderer* lookin’ at you. Not a good look for the club.” ANDRE: “Mellow, man! Mellow!” yells his friend. “No one’s a mass murderer, this is a house of *love!*”    RHETORIC: [Easy: Success] What a strange choice of words… EMPATHY: [Easy: Success] Caustic, overflowing with negativity.   NOID: “Hard to say, cop man. Sines in here are distinctly *wild*. Gonna take a while before everything’s properly *synced*…”  NOID: “Anyway, he’s been giving me kind of a *psychic rundown* of this place…”  NOID: “Have you been listening to what Egg’s been saying? Love is *hard core* man, and a mother’s love is the hardest core of all… The man picks up on stuff. And he knows *a lot* about the church. I got a lot to learn from him…”   Ah man, we circled back to the main conversation branch. Put those at the end, dammit!     NOID: “Encasement. Confinement. Of something they were afraid of. Something new and unheard of on the isola.” He looks up, into the darkness beyond the beams. “I think that’s what the crab man is experiencing when he climbs around upstairs…”  NOID: “I dunno… and it’s not something they properly understand either. What it does. But it’s what this Soona person is looking for, and trying to measure.” He nods toward the woman. “It’ll be fruitless, though. She won’t be able to measure it. People like that always want to measure everything, all those things they really can’t.”   NOID: “No, it’s pretty loving *un*-sound if you ask me. They should have built a club for anodic music around it instead.” He grins… “Anodic music will *definitely* contain whatever we’re dealing with.” His words echo in the chamber…  NOID: The young man rubs his chin, in silence, then mumbles: “…like a concentric ring spreading out… the struggling villages…”    NOID: “Suspicious people are esoteric people. We don’t go around spilling everything to Johnny Law. They don’t call me Noid for nothing.”    NOID: “Oh, it’d be easier to list stuff I’m not suspicious of. I’m not suspicious of sound and colour. Mechanics and chemistry also have a trueness about them. Most anything else deceives. Wants to steal your life away.”  NOID: “I don’t have a top ten list of things I’m most suspicious of. But if I *had* one, the left-right complex would be number one. Number two would be their sole accomplishment—the pig/wheat paradigm.”  NOID: “Nope. Politics is an inert complex of daily corruption and inane thinkpieces. The real paradigm is economic and it concerns pig and wheat.”   NOID: “I prefer not to. Both ask the wrong questions. Any spark of light from either one is accidental. Their combined movement’s only concern is producing enough pig and wheat for everyone—the end goal of humanity… The original mistake was assuming that words have more being than bodies. That’s what led us astray, far from our true lives. But we may yet find a way back.”      NOID: “Beats and bright lights to shatter falsehoods. Nerve impulses for the collective body. We are very much alike in basic structure. A hard enough beat would awaken everyone to a truer calling—in unity!” Just like that the speedfreak is right in your face, his eyes burning. His comrades look on worriedly. EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] The young man is dead serious about this.     NOID: “Utmost dedication. Thoughts from the spinal cord. It’s a potent superlative as well.” ENCYCLOPEDIA: [Medium: Success] The term also signifies certain varieties of pornography that depict penetration, just so you know. ARIST: [Challenging: Success] Thanks for that. Really. NOID: “Egg Head actually has a better concept of the hard core. He just really likes saying *hard core*.”  NOID: “That’s a pretty hard core coincidence, don’t you think?”        Wow… uh… really wasn’t expecting to pass that one. Was actually kind of hoping I’d fail it so I’d have an excuse to potentially savescum some others without getting called out, drat!      HARD CORE TO THE MEGA… is something we will not be saying because we like having our Interfacing skill at 5, thank you very much.   Oh god, the ones column of the clock has been destroyed, we’ll never know what minute it is again!!! (It flipped over to the next minute when I took this shot and I didn’t notice I guess, but also I’m not retaking it just for that) SHIVERS: [Medium: Success] A hawthorn tree on Rue de Saint-Ghislaine. Tangled in its branches, something bronze flutters in the wind… ARIST: [Challenging: Success] Oh, quiet you. We already did that. EGG HEAD: He stands on stage behind a table, nodding along to the music and waving his hand in the air. In front of him—the audio mixer, one reel spinning.  EGG HEAD: “Yeeaaaagh! Back on the case, no disgrace!” He pumps his fist in the air. “Bring it down to party place!”   ARIST: [Challenging: Success] You’re getting nowhere here. Talk to Soona, or at least Acele.  ACELE: “Hey, there.” She gives you a shy smile. “I’ve been recording some new audio from all these beams and rafters. The sounds travelling through the wood are pretty cool—creaks and stuff. Like you’re underwater, you know… But, like, underwater inside a tree.”  ACELE: “Good, I think. Noid is getting a read on the place, I think he finds the carpentry very impressive. Andre’s been setting up the compressor and… dancing. Egg Head’s keeping the party up, he’s got the stage under control.”    ACELE: “Uh… she’s a bit odd, I have to say. Doesn’t talk much. I’m not really sure how to vibe with her, y’know? Seems like she’s not in a very good mood most of the time.”  ACELE: “Oh, the crab man.” She shudders. “Still gives me the creeps, the way he moves… But he doesn’t actually come down that much, just climbs around the rafters.”     ACELE: “Andre? He’s a cool guy. Doesn’t really come off as one, but he is. To me at least…” PERCEPTION (SIGHT): [Medium: Success] She rubs her sides, but not from cold. Her shoulders are relaxed. She must have taken a hit or she’s on an upswing.  ACELE: “Nothing. But then again… there’s nothing to organize around here either. He really wants the church thing to work… Must have taken it as a sign when he found it abandoned like that. Said it was an *augury*. I don’t know where he got that from.” She smiles. “Andre’s not super intelligent… I’ve never seen him so psyched about anything though—and he’s often psyched. Looks sort of desperate, like it’s his last chance or something. Or maybe he was just high…”   ACELE: “Come to think of it, yes!” She laughs. INLAND EMPIRE: [Medium: Success] This is the first time you’ve heard her laugh.    ACELE: “He’s a Faubourger I guess, like the rest of us. Okay, maybe not Egg, I don’t know about him, but Noid and the rest are from Faubourg, making the pilgrimage up north to visit The Paliseum.”     ACELE: “Sir,” she gives you a switchblade smile. “I abide by *the law*.”           ACELE: “Anyway, even if you don’t have vocals you still need someone to say something every now and then, right? To urge things on. That’s where the party boy comes in… He basically just stands on the stage and dances and yells how awesome everything is. It’s very catchy.” KIM KITSURAGI: “I understand. People are usually afraid to do things if others aren’t already doing them. Dancing makes you dance like sneezing makes you sneeze. Or yawning makes you…”  ACELE: “Actually, we don’t know where he’s from. Or who he is, really. One time we were out partying, somewhere in backwater Faubourg. Or maybe even Coal City, I can’t remember. Maybe it was Coal City…” ENCYCLOPEDIA: [Medium: Success] The worst of the *banlieues*. A wretched heap of closed-down mines even west of Jamrock, on the dusty slope of Monte Martin. The remotest possible area of Revachol, no one even wants to exploit those people anymore. ACELE: “Egg was yelling along to some jams someone was spinning, all night long. Just kept yelling until he didn’t have a shred of voice left. When the sun came up over the mines… there were mines? Yeah, it was in Coal City!” She nods. “Egg came with us. He made this wheezing puppy dog sound all the way back. Couldn’t even speak. It was definitely Coal City, because it took us two days to walk back to the Fau. He just wheezed the whole way, we never really asked him why he came with us. Or who he was. I think his name is Germaine… People are sweet,” she says quietly. EMPATHY: [Easy: Success] You can see it must have been a great night. The memory causes her to go silent for a moment or two.    ACELE: “I told you, I’m a silver bird.”   ACELE: “Alright.” She picks up the tape recorder and looks you in the eye…       ARIST: [Medium: Success] Okay, we’re *finally* getting to Soona. You know, the reason we’re here?           ...I’m sorry, all White Checks? As in ALL OF THEM!?  ...Holy poo poo. (Some if not most of these are no longer available to retry due to our having progressed *around* them, but it’s worth showing that yep, every single one of them is open again)   EGG HEAD: “Oh… oh… she used 3.5…” An uncomfortable pause follows. “Yeah, the auxiliary line-in is 4.5 mm. These two don’t mix.” KIM KITSURAGI: “Oh no.” The lieutenant closes his eyes. “We’re going to be in this church *forever*.” EGG HEAD: “Don’t worry, I have an *adapter* for it right here!” He searches for the cable on the ground and picks it up, looking at the jack. “Hang on—this *is* a 4.5! We’re all good, people!” With a grin he sticks the plug into the auxiliary line-in. You hear a satisfying click. INTERFACING: [Medium: Success] Whooh, thank god—adapters noticeably degrade the sound quality.  EGG HEAD: “Everybody, everybody! Don’t panic, I’m going to turn off The Arno for *just a sec*,” the young man shouts as he clicks a switch on the mixer, “for a *special scheduled event*…”    SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Okay, but…” She seems hesitant, her eyes still fixed on Egg Head. “Think you can ask him to turn the volume down a bit, just in case?” EGG HEAD: “MAXIMUM!” shouts Egg Head, a great smile still adorning his face, larger than a red dwarf star. “MAXIMUM IS THE ONLY WAY!” SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “I know, I know it is, but… could you *please* turn it down just this instance? Just *this* one time—maximum is *not* the only way, okay?” EGG HEAD: “Pump it to the brick, pump it to the hard master! There is no other way. Glue-style.” INTERFACING: [Medium: Success] Glue-style? Okay, there *literally* is no other way. The mixing desk is glued to maximum. ARIST: [Challenging: Success] Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of a mixing desk?  SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Because I’m afraid that something might happen. It’s an unknown phenomenon…” She turns to Egg Head. “We can always turn it back up if there’s a need.”  SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Of course it is.” She shrugs, consigned to her fate. EGG HEAD: “YEAGHHH! PERMANENT ENLIGHTENMENT. RAY OF SOUND.” SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Never mind then, let’s get on with our project… I am going to unmute the speakers on a count of five. Everyone ready?” She looks around the church.     ARIST: [Easy: Success] A tiny, rogue element within your imagination conjures up an image of Tiago whispering “Ready,” secluded from his perch.  REACTION SPEED: [Medium: Success] Not so stoically—his hand moves to the gun holster.   SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “No, we should definitely do this. I *am* going to do this.” She pauses, looking around the church—everyone stares at her hand on the keyboard. “Ready?”  SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Five… Four… Three… Two… One…”  PERCEPTION (HEARING): [Easy: Success] No wind outside. No waves. No floorboards creaking. Total, continuous silence. This is… unnatural. SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: The woman looks around. In the silence, you see dust move on the floorboards. The driver of the speaker vibrates in the air and then stops. Plasterwork begins to crumble down the walls…      ANDRE: “Guys, what’s going on?” There’s alarm in the man’s voice, as he steps back to scan the surroundings. A slight rattle fills the fair, joining the chorus. NOID: “It’s getting louder…” says Noid, his eyes riveted on the strange circle of water basins. PERCEPTION (SIGHT): [Medium: Success] In the basins—the water looks like it’s *boiling*. EGG HEAD: “HOSIANNAH! MOTHER OF MEGA!” You hear Egg Head yell—then something else, but his voice is growing faint…  EGG HEAD: “The BEAUTY AND THE BEAT! The future of dance, PLANETARY!” ACELE: “No, Egg! It’s the window.” The glass shared around Dolores Dei’s vacant heart appear to be vibrating from the sound. It almost looks as if she’s alive. KIM KITSURAGI: In the corner of your eye, the lieutenant steps aside cautiously, his eyes searching for a possible evacuation route.  PERCEPTION (SIGHT): [Medium: Success] Cracks appear on the stained glass window. Cracks run up the wooden pillars in the dark… EGG HEAD: “COME DOWN TO US! LOVE!” VISUAL CALCULUS: [Medium: Success] It’s shaking the building’s foundation. The floor twists… COMPOSURE: [Medium: Success] A great PULSE arises in your flesh…  EGG HEAD: “OH, I WANT TO FEEL THE HEAT WITH SOMEBODY!” SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “poo poo, it doesn’t stop!” The woman is furiously pressing down on her kayboard—but the sound doesn’t stop. “Acele, have you…?” ACELE: “Yes, I’ve turned it off!” She yells, holding the contact mic in her hand. “Andre, pull the compressor! The place is gonna come down…” ANDRE: “gently caress…” Andre frantically smashes buttons. “I can’t shut it up, the signal’s passed… It’s not *in* here! It’s…” LOGIC: [Medium: Success] In the mixing desk now. Building into a positive feedback loop.   ACELE: “Egg…” EGG HEAD: “I pulled the plug,” he says, calmly. “It was getting *too* hard core.” ANDRE: “You did good, Egg…” Andre breathes a sigh of relief and inspects the window. “Most of the place seems to be intact. loving L… Programmer-lady, tell me you were recording that!” SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Four years…” the woman whispers. “Twenty-two people, millions of reàls… Just erased it…” Her lip trembles. “Sulisław isn’t gonna believe this.” ANDRE: “Yeah, but did you record it though? It was dope, I think we can use it.” SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Yes, Andre.” She composes herself—wipes the dust off her sweater and rests her hands on the keyboard. “I recorded it. drat, I need to send some letters now…”  KIM KITSURAGI: “It was *very* hard not to. I think you’re right,” he turns to the woman. “There *is* something going on here—and you need to be *very* careful with it.”  SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “It was mathematical information—from the anomaly—presented as a waveform. That’s what it was *technically*—theoretically…” She shakes her head. “I have no idea. I’ve never even heard of anything like this.”  SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Yes. Our lead designer. And maybe some of the producers too. And some of the writers, if they’re sober enough to open a transmission. They need to hear…” EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] That it wasn’t her fault. Or theirs.    SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “I don’t care,” she blurts, then reconsiders: “But thank you anyway.” VOLITION: [Medium: Success] That’s the best she can manage for Andre. It’s quite a lot, in truth. For her, at least. SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Now…” Her hands move on the keyboard. “I have a theory to come up with. *Some* kind of preliminary explanation to all this, or the letter will sound like I’ve lost my mind…” KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes. And we have to get back to stabilizing Martinaise…” He breathes out, trying to shake off tension. “Instead of demolishing it with loud bass noise of unknown origins.”     LOGIC: These thoughts formed in you somewhere, in a long forgotten discussion. Behind a kitchen table, in the evening light.    SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: She looks up into the darkness under the nave, then back at you. RHETORIC: [Challenging: Success] You have her full, undivided attention.  SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Then… what *is* that?”      SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “And information,” she nods. “Causing data losses in the East-Insulindian front. Have you considered why it’s formed in a church? And, also, *when* or *how* it might start growing? Or—if it has other effects? In addition to sound and data…” EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] An intellectual hunger fills her now, casting fear aside. KIM KITSURAGI: “I also have a question—since we’re piling them on. How do *you* know this? I’m not doubting you,” he explains, “I’m simply curious as to how a detective of the RCM…”   SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “I have considered the same. The bad news is—there were *seven* pinewood churches built in the first decade of Revachol’s settlement. Most of them were burnt down during the Revolution, or re-purposed before, during the Suzerain. I’m not saying *all* of them have one in them, but…”  SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “You think the presence of that *puncture* has somehow… influenced the outcome of events here? Even, say, software development?”     KIM KITSURAGI: “An amateur-entroponetic police officer… I’d like to say I’ve heard stranger things, but I’m not sure. This is a hell of a guess, however. Well-worded I might add…”   SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “I’m going to leave that out—but the rest… some of this I can use to *start* to explain this to the rest of the team. Maybe I’ll sound mad, but…” KIM KITSURAGI: “Ma’am, you will *certainly* sound mad.”  SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “I wouldn’t go so far as to…” EGG HEAD: “YEAAAGHHH! ONCE THE LIGHT IS ON IN THE UNIVERSE—IT WILL NEVER GO OUT!”  SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “The creepy woman!” She slaps her forehead. “We were wondering about that when we worked there… but I had completely forgotten about it ever since! It must be entroponetic crosstalk. The kind you get in radios and long-distance calls… Now it makes sense, with pale right on the doorstep.”  SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “It’s quite common actually. When the signal gets routed through pale, all kinds of irregularities take place. You may hear snippets of someone else’s conversation, or the voice of your former lover, or an echo of an event that took place 100 years ago.”    And here’s Cleaning Out the Rooms. ARIST: [Formidable: Success] And as you turn to leave Soona, you try not to think about the fact that you, with the help of those speedfreaks, almost just destroyed the world (or at least Insulinde). Oops. Arist fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Sep 16, 2020 |
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Sep 16, 2020 01:28
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Almost destroying the world is a small price to pay for the absolutely most kickin' beat.
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Sep 16, 2020 02:23
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Truly the most hard core.
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Sep 16, 2020 06:32
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Is our idea of hardcore clothes really the apparel of a couch/PE teacher?
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Sep 16, 2020 09:10
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If Egg-Head thinks poo poo's getting too hardcore, you know you're in deep. Also I wonder just how many Scooter references there are in Egg's dialogue tree. I've picked up three but I don't actually listen to Scooter. There must be more.
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Sep 16, 2020 09:24
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God drat, why do they even have the option to shut the speedfreaks down
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Sep 16, 2020 11:53
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Noid rules.
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Sep 16, 2020 15:51
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Xarn posted:Is our idea of hardcore clothes really the apparel of a couch/PE teacher? There's a reason you can accumulate an entire set of FALN sportswear.
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Sep 16, 2020 22:11
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HOLY poo poo. I really do love this game. I also love that "I helped the union out and discovered a hole in time" can happen and both feel meaningful.
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Sep 17, 2020 00:29
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The speedfreaks are good dudesNordick posted:If Egg-Head thinks poo poo's getting too hardcore, you know you're in deep. The only Scooter I know is DOOP, so can't help you there
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Sep 17, 2020 07:42
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Chapter 46: 17:28-19:45: Dancing With Oblivion We’ve resolved Soona’s quest for the source of the anomaly, but there’s still a few loose ends here in the church. Let’s talk to Egg Head to resolve one of them.  EGG HEAD: “Yeah! It was awesome, and scary. Very hard core!” His voice booms through the chamber, then gets silent.   EGG HEAD: “Ooh. Ooh!” His puzzled face turns into a wicked grin. “But how?!”       Well, poo poo.  Thankfully, we have a couple skill points left to use, so we put one down in Interfacing to try again.     INTERFACING: Listen, you can use the compressor to select between which track it’s compressing, either the auxiliary signal or the main input from the tape. Make it alternate between the signals.  EGG HEAD: “Side-chaining it, you said?” He turns down the music, his hands moving deftly across the mixer, setting up the necessary controls… Then he puts on his headphones and his eyes go wide, wider than they’ve ever gone on drugs. He starts jumping up and down with bliss, in total silence—still listening to his headphones.  EGG HEAD: “ARE YOU READY, POSSE?!”        ACELE: “What in the world is going on?” Acele looks on, amazed at the display. “The way melody and bass flow together… it’s unnatural.”  ANDRE: “God drat it,” you hear Andre say to himself over the thumping beat, “this dance club idea might just work out.” EGG HEAD: “DOLORIAN CHURCH—THE PLACE TO BE!” Egg’s losing himself in the sound. “Pump it, pump it!”    ARIST: [Medium: Success] It suddenly occurs to you that you never actually made an offering to the window. Present a figurine.    REACTION SPEED: I don’t know. What are we thinking of? Part of your mind has gone on to other things already… INLAND EMPIRE: [Medium: Success] Only a strange little sadness remains.  ARIST: Well, poo poo, so much for that.       ACELE: Your words echo through the hall. The wooden boards all groan and creak. She remains silent.   ACELE: “Okay.” Her teeth rattle. She takes the device from you and places it in her lap. “I’ll stick to it.” SUGGESTION: [Medium: Success] Something changes between you two. She looks at you differently now—as an equal. A fellow human being.    Woo! Double sixes!  ACELE: “Excuse me?” She casually brushes her hand through her hair.   ACELE: “All right,” she concedes. My father was a Zemlyaki. He died years ago. He was a bad man. Not a lot of good things to say about him and what he did.”  ACELE: “What do you think? The competition came and took everything away. It was like in a war zone…” She’s gritting her teeth.  ACELE: “It was a stupid idea and I’m still disappointed *I* came up with it.” KIM KITSURAGI: “Aren’t there any local authorities who might look down on such activities?”  ACELE: “Not in person, but I let them know. You can’t do anything without the fat ones getting wind. It wasn’t too difficult to convince them, really… It’s a good thing you ended that mes, though. I felt I was turning dad-wise, into a corrupt business-person. Unpleasant.” AUTHORITY: [Medium: Success] Hear that? Set justice on its feet. CONFRONT EVRART.  ARIST: [Challenging: Success] You’re right, that’s a bad idea. This isn’t even meaningful evidence, and you already knew about the drugs anyway. The absolute best case scenario is the same as the absolute worst case scenario: You have to go face Evrart loving Claire again after he’s already played you, and you won’t get anywhere from it. Actually, scratch that, worst-case is he laughs at you, so they’re not *exactly* the same.      ARIST: [Easy: Success] What else could possibly be wrong? It’s definitely that thing you said about the working class.   Let’s go finish this off by talking to Andre. He had a check we failed earlier, so let’s try again.       ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: GOD?     SPINAL CORD: Psst. I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. Every vertebrae in your spine is an unformed skull ready to pop up and replace the old one. Like shark teeth. The one you’re currently in has a little brain forming in it. Waiting for its turn…    SPINAL CORD: Foolhardy! Do you even *know* what’s happening on the surface? Maybe a thousand years have passed? Or maybe you started spazzing out like two seconds ago?    VOLITION: [Medium: Success] Free from self-awareness. No deliberation, only—and I mean *only*—execution.  EGG HEAD: With his reel-to-reel mixer blasting the anthem of a future that will never come, the young man observes your moves for a second…      ACELE: The young woman lifts her headphones up slightly and raises her chin, looking at you expectantly. SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: She cuts in before you can repeat your question. “Acele, aren’t you going to dance?” ACELE: She turns to Soona, then back to you, then briskly shakes her head and puts her headphones back on. “No. Recording.” SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: The lead programmer throws the other young woman a knowing glance before turning her attention back to her own work.     SAVOIR FAIRE: The dynamic motion of your flailing body is bordering the extreme. You’re going off the charts…  No, we’re missing one…   Not yet.  KIM KITSURAGI: “What’s going on here?” The lieutenant looks at you and the speedfreaks grinding around in the church, a group of unhinged lunatics. “Delinquents,” he grumbles.  KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant squeezes the bridge of his nose. The lights reflect off his glasses… EMPATHY: [Easy: Success] He’s obviously having trouble adjusting to this new reality.  KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant crosses his arms with a bemused look.    KIM KITSURAGI: “Oh, c’mon, Harry…”       KIM KITSURAGI: “Sheesh, okay…” He backs up with his hands raised in the air, observing the criss-cross of your feet… “Okay, you psychopath…” He adjusts his spectacles, then pops his collar as high as it will go. “I see what your doing there. It’s jacked-up footwork, plus some… Is that Ubi folk dancing?” EGG HEAD: “Nah, it’s not *Ubi folk*, it’s hard core!”  KIM KITSURAGI: “Oh yeah? I did 15 years in the Juvenile Crime Unit. I can *do* age-inappropriate. Now check *this* poo poo out!”       SHIVERS: I AM LA REVACHOLIÈRE.  SHIVERS: I AM A FRAGMENT OF THE WORLD SPIRIT, THE GENIUS LOCI OF REVACHOL. MY HEART IS THE WIND CORRIDOR. THE BOTTOM OF MY AIR IS RED. I HAVE A HUNDRED THOUSAND LUMINOUS ARMS. COME MORNING, I CARRY INDUSTRIAL DUST AND LET IT SETTLE ON TREE LEAVES. I SHAKE THE DUST FROM THOSE LEAVES AND ONTO YOUR COAT.  SHIVERS: THE MODULATIONS OF MY VOICE ARE NOTED DOWN WITH THERMOMETERS AND BAROMETERS. YOU FEEL ME IN YOUR NOSTRILS, ON THE LITTLE HAIRS ON THE BACK OF YOUR NECK.  SHIVERS: YOU ARE AN OFFICER OF THE REVACHOL CITIZENS MILITIA. *AGENTES IN REBUS*, WHEN YOU WEAR YOUR COAT YOU WEAR MY SOUL. YOU MOVE THROUGH MY STREETS FREELY IN MOTOR CARRIAGES AND ON FOOT. YOU HAVE ACCESS TO THE HIDDEN PLACES. YOU ALSO CIRCULATE AMONG THOSE WHO ARE HIDDEN. I NEED YOU. YOU CAN KEEP ME ON THIS EARTH. BE VIGILANT. I LOVE YOU.   NOID: “gently caress yeah!” ANDRE: “I bet you did! Those were *some* advanced moves, man.”   EGG HEAD: You might be imagining it but it feels like Egg Head turned the volume down. Such is his respect. ARIST: [Formidable: Success] Actually, you’re definitely imagining it because as we covered earlier, the mixing desk is set to max, *glue-style*. ANDRE: “Man… now… now, man… now…” The would-be leader stutters with excitement. “Now imagine if we could do that, right? But with, like, a *thousand* people?”  ANDRE: “Alright!”   Goodbye, speedfreaks.    We decide to buy an extra Thought Cabinet slot and put in Cleaning Out The Rooms. Here’s something funny: Waste Land of Reality and Cleaning Out The Rooms are offset in progress by one minute (5 hours 36 minutes vs 5 hours 35 minutes). They’ll activate right after each other.  Well, let’s tell the last two storeowners of the Doomed Commercial Area the truth about the place.  PLAISANCE: “What do you mean the *actual* source?” She clutches her pendant anxiously. “Are you talking about the… *Third Presence*?”  Oh god, forgot about this nonsense.   KIM KITSURAGI: “Ma’am—what he’s telling you is true. We found an entroponetic anomaly in the Small Pinewood Church down the coast. I don’t mean to be an alarmist—and more research *is* needed—but… it’s not looking good.” PLAISANCE: “But… but… *that’s* not in any of the ancient texts! How am I supposed to protect my bookstore from *that*?!”  PLAISANCE: “Close… the shop? But it’s all I have! No, there *must* be a way… Especially now that Annette is settling in at school again. She’s finally making friends in this place!” She looks at her daughter, quietly studying in the corner of the shop. “No, we can’t leave Martinaise. We can’t.”  ARIST: [Challenging: Success] That went about as well as you had expected. Plaisance had tried for years to stave off the “curse,” but there was no recourse in the end, because the true cause was so much bigger than her. Existentially of course, the 2mm hole is tiny.  Now to tell Neha.    NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “Excuse me?” She sits up, visibly agitated. “A 2mm hole in reality? This can’t be true.” KIM KITSURAGI: “I’m afraid it is, ma’am. Soona Luukanen-Kilde, the former lead programmer of Fortress Accident, made the discovery.” NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “Soona is involved in this?” She appears to take this in while the chatter from her headphones continues unabated… “So it’s even worse than I thought. It’s not just the commercial area that’s curse, it’s *the entire world*.”  ARIST: [Challenging: Success] Are you lying? Simply naïve? Or is there genuine hope for the future within you? Even I cannot say. NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “Just Martinaise?” She gives you a rueful smile and takes a look around…    Two double sixes in an hour, huh.   NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “What are you talking about?” she says, shaking her head. “My address is exactly the same—Rue de Saint-Ghislaine 10.”  NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “This doesn’t make any sense.” She looks around the makeshift nest that she has carved out for herself, bewildered.  NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “And what, does it mean that I’m safe from failure?”    NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “It’s a mourning ring,” she replies. “I made this when my first company failed. It was a small jewellery shop right here in the East Delta Commerce Centre, built with the little I inherited from my parents…”  NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “It wasn’t just the jewellery shop either. I always thought that it was just the world, that you were supposed to try again and again until you finally succeed.”  NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “Yeah.” She stares out of the window, not really hearing your words. “Or maybe it’s the entire world that’s cursed? It’s such a precarious place. Nothing ever works out the way you wanted. That’s why people like role-playing games. You can be whoever you want to be. You can try again. Still, there’s something inherently violent even about dice rolls. It’s like every time you cast a die, something disappears. Some alternative ending, or an entirely different world…” She picks up a pair of dice from the table and examines them under the light.  ARIST: [Challenging: Success] Should you have told her that? You may have done some damage there. Her worldview is now compromised.   Wait—*ALL* Red Checks fail!? What!?  Let’s finally go and talk to the washerwoman we’re renting from about that bullet we found last night.  WASHERWOMAN: “God drat that girl,” she murmurs softly. COMPOSURE: [Medium: Success] And without anger. A long and harsh life has taught her not to buckle under pressure. KIM KITSURAGI: “A bullet?” The lieutenant turns to you and gives you a little nod… then turns to the washerwoman: “You didn’t put it there, did you? *She* did.”  WASHERWOMAN: The old woman sits in silence, her hands moving into the water bucket. Some water sloshes over the edge. Slowly she speaks, wringing out a rag: “Yes, I let my room to that Ruby girl…”  WASHERWOMAN: “She came last Friday. Left on Monday, in a hurry…” Her wrinkled hand kneads a blue rag in the water. “What has she gotten herself into, that girl?” EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] She seems genuinely worried about her previous tenant. She’s seen her hiding out from trouble before, but this seems different.  WASHERWOMAN: “Yes, early, with the dogs—around 8 o’clock, I think.”    WASHERWOMAN: “No.”  WASHERWOMAN: “She’s good company. Knows how to talk to an old woman.” She rubs her cold hands together. “At my age, you don’t get a lot of quality conversation, so I really appreciate that about her.” KIM KITSURAGI: “Did she talk to you much during her last stay?”   WASHERWOMAN: “How would I know? She’s a gruff one, but not violent. She doesn’t go around toting a gun.” She looks back toward her shack, thinking.    KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant stops writing for a moment. He looks at you, then at the old woman. WASHERWOMAN: She tilts her head to the side, looking up at you, deep in thought. Then she makes up her mind. “No, she’s a fighter.”  WASHERWOMAN: “Nothing of the sort.” She shakes her head. “Sure, she was no stranger to the bottle… she fit in, that way. But I only knew her to have a beer on the beach while watching the sunset…” INLAND EMPIRE: [Challenging: Success] The sun sets for everyone.  WASHERWOMAN: “Not that I know of, though she was into nice music. She once showed me a few mixtape-milieus she’d made.” She brushes her forehead with the back of her hand. Water drips to the ground. “Although I guess she was pretty handy with the mechanical and technical stuff. Even fixed the heater in the shack. You should be thankful for that.”  WASHERWOMAN: “I don’t know… further up the coast. She tried to leave quietly but the hinges on that door screech like a cat in heat—woke me up. I heard her rushing in those heavy boots, heading up north.” VISUAL CALCULUS: [Medium: Success] It’s a peninsula. She might be *trapped*. WASHERWOMAN: After a moment of silence, she says, “You’ll never find her, you know.” Her tone is without malice. “She knows the coast like the back of her hand. *You* only just arrived.”   INLAND EMPIRE: [Trivial: Success] The ‘Feld Electric’ mural… you feel like you should go look at it again. Step *closer* this time.   EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] She really means it. It’s an honest plea.   ARIST: [Challenging: Success] Before you go check out that mural, you spot the payphone from earlier. You could use some entertainment, so you decide to try dialing some random numbers again.  Unfortunately, Harry decides this time to use his hands instead of his mind to lift the handset. That or they patched that since the last time we used this phone. Whichever.  PAYPHONE: Calling… Still calling… AUTHORITY: [Easy: Success] Again? Seriously? PAYPHONE: Someone with a masculine voice picks up: “Hello, Girard speaking!”   PAYPHONE: “You shouldn’t mess with people like this…” His voice is very calm. “You go have a nice day now.” Phone hanging up.  ARIST: [Challenging: Success] Okay, good start, do the same thing next time with the subtle difference of *not* totally loving wussing out. PAYPHONE: Calling… Calling… Calling… Still calling… *Still* calling… “Stop calling me, man!” Someone picks up. The voice on the other end is slightly hysterical.  PAYPHONE: “My *debt*? I don’t loving owe you, it’s…” The young man realizes something. “Who is… ah never mind, I don’t have time for this…” SUGGESTION: [Medium: Success] He does not seem to be overly thankful of your kindness as he hangs up. PAYPHONE: Disconnect tone.  ARIST: [Medium: Success] You don’t really get the concept of a *crank call*, do you? PAYPHONE: Calling… “I’m tired…” A man answers, fast this time. His voice is hoarse from cigarettes. You hear typing in the background.  PAYPHONE: “If I could go just one month without writing. No, two months… I could regenerate my brain. loving liberalism…” The man disappears with a sigh. You do not hear the customary disconnect tone, just silence in the handset—the machine is still waiting for you to dial a number. LOGIC: [Easy: Success] Seems like it did not have time to swallow the coin. This sometimes happens.     INTERFACING: You dialed 001. This is not the area code of Revachol. It is another destination—on another isola. Some far-off nation state.     INTERFACING: 451—you have dialed god knows how many numbers. The headset has been waiting silently to relay a signal—surely nothing can come of this, you think. But it does. A connection. PAYPHONE: An ultra-long-distance call. Your ear fills with a crackle, the wash of a strange ocean full of white noise. A little bird starts ringing in there, not like the local calling tone before. No, a small ring in a cage of distortion, far away, a distant network of phones… Calling… Calling in the night… EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] The saddest sound in the world. PAYPHONE: Calling still…      PAYPHONE: Calling… Calling… Calling… Calling… Calling still… Then the ocean breaks. Out of the depths, a woman’s voice emerges. Small. The dearest thing you’ve ever heard.     PAYPHONE: “Dora.” She’s still confused. “Who is this? The connection is bad…” INLAND EMPIRE: [Medium: Success] Dora. The name feels like a *gift*. A gift that was meant for you—to make it possible to live. PERCEPTION (HEARING): [Medium: Success] In the distorted distance you hear someone turning next to her. Bedsprings rattle.      PAYPHONE: “Do you know what time it is? It’s so late here…” Sounds like she’s looking for a clock on the night stand.            PAYPHONE: “Harry…”    PAYPHONE: You dial the number again—twenty-six pulls of the rotary dial. The machine eats the coin and a terrifying ocean of distance rustles in your ear… In the middle of it—a familiar ring. Small. Distorted. Calling… Calling… VOLITION: [Medium: Success] Put it down.  ARIST: [Impossible: Failure] You need this you need this YOU NEED THIS, SHUT UP! PAYPHONE: Calling… Calling… Calling… Calling… Calling…   PAYPHONE: Calling… Calling…   PAYPHONE: Phone hanging up.  ARIST: [Impossible: Failure] Please… Just one more time… PAYPHONE: You dial the number again—as you’ve done many times. You remember it well now: 001–41–44–47–11–17–361–451–67–451–451. Calling… Calling… Calling… Calling… Calling…      ARIST: [Formidable: Success] You stand there by the boardwalk for a good while. Your knuckles are bleeding profusely while you lean against the payphone on the verge of tears, your head and heart full of empty. Kim stands off to the side, probably pretending to ignore you, unsure if he should step in. Maybe he should. Maybe you should have drank yourself to death on Sunday instead of this weird half-death you’re walking around in. You’ve never been thirstier, and all you’ve got right now to quench it is the bottle of blue fire. You still almost drink it. gently caress. gently caress this. Arist fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Nov 30, 2020 |
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Sep 21, 2020 22:41
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I've... what? What?
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Sep 21, 2020 23:39
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Holy poo poo that was some INTENSE whiplash. Going from busting the funkiest moves with Kim to nearly having an utter breakdown at calling an ex(?). You know this was bad when Authority of all checks is earnestly pleading you to stop.
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Sep 22, 2020 00:03
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This is incredible.
Poil fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Sep 22, 2020 |
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Sep 22, 2020 08:24
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Man all of this really was just because he was a lovely partner and got dumped. It makes all the flowery melodrama really disgustingly pathetic in retrospect, I was honestly expecting it to be something more tragic
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Sep 22, 2020 09:44
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I was so weirded out by the dance scene I was still trying to process that when I read the phonecalls so they didn't really affect me. This whole time I was assuming he had gotten dumped and it turned out that was what happened. So dunno.
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Sep 22, 2020 12:12
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So, uh, nobody's gonna talk about dancing so hard that we were able to use it to communicate with the Spirit of Revachol, huh? Is... Is Harry an Actual Para-Natural Detective? Or is this more of his outrageously overactive imagination at play? Wait. Before - in the fisherwoman's hut. We couldn't have known about the floorboards without Shivers, then. So that's one sign that something odd is happening here. (I suppose ecstatic dance is an element of some religious ceremonies, but somehow I don't think this was the spirit Harry was trying to venerate.) vdate fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Sep 23, 2020 |
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Sep 22, 2020 15:43
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vdate posted:So, uh, nobody's gonna talk about dancing so hard that we were able to use it to communicate with the Spirit of Revachol, huh? Yeah, Shivers (And to a lesser extent Esprit de Corps) are the only actual paranatural skills. Everything else is just good detective work, but Shivers is that tickle at the back of your neck, your Spidey-Sense. A lot of good fictional detectives have it, just a sense that something is wrong, nothing definite. The game goes a bit further with it as a hint system and connection to the genius loci. Also, that Authority check to get Kim dancing was where I spent a lot of time savescumming. It's a tough one, deep in a conversation tree, that it's real easy to not be dressed for if your Authority skill is naturally low (Although Arist seems to not be changing Harry's clothes to affect skill checks very much. I am, however, pleased at the wild flailing of the tare bag. I tended to have my hands free for conversations because of my 9mm finger pistols  ). You do not want to fail that check. Unless you're going hard into fascist cop.So. I, uh, never got that phone call, because I took Kim's little throat-clearing as "We should really be getting back to the case, detective."
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Sep 24, 2020 00:52
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Dareon posted:Yeah, Shivers (And to a lesser extent Esprit de Corps) are the only actual paranatural skills. Everything else is just good detective work, but Shivers is that tickle at the back of your neck, your Spidey-Sense. A lot of good fictional detectives have it, just a sense that something is wrong, nothing definite. The game goes a bit further with it as a hint system and connection to the genius loci. Inland Empire is also fairly paranatural, considering that whole corpse talk we had way back when. I see it as Shivers being what the city knows, Esprit de Corps being what the police know, and Inland Empire being what you shouldn't know.
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Sep 24, 2020 05:07
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I don't think any of those skills necessarily are supernatural. 99% of the time it's just our brain-rotted cop stopping in the street and mumbling to himself about how the spooky ghosts of the city are whispering to him The bullet under the floorboards could be explained by him noticing that a board was loose or deducing that Ruby may have wanted to hide something in that room and that's the only place she could have hid anything. Then he just tells himself he figured it out because a ghost said so
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Sep 24, 2020 08:34
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CountryMatters posted:I don't think any of those skills necessarily are supernatural. 99% of the time it's just our brain-rotted cop stopping in the street and mumbling to himself about how the spooky ghosts of the city are whispering to him Sure thing Kim  it's not the plasmic vibration ghosts, it's the obvious loose floorboards.
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Sep 24, 2020 10:42
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Zeniel posted:Sure thing Kim *Adjusts my glasses*
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Sep 24, 2020 10:46
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Chapter 47: 19:45-23:47: Game Night ARIST: [Challenging: Success] You’re still standing in place by the phone, still bleeding, still crying. Are you even sad? Or just angry? Maybe both. Maybe neither.   We pop some pills and heal up the 3 Health and 4 Morale damage we took in that taxing conversation.  ARIST: [Challenging: Success] You’re struggling just to walk after what just happened. You need a distraction, something to re-set your mind and get your detective instincts back on track.  Perfect.  SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: The cover features a charming illustration depicting a mass of grinning labourers loading goods onto a ship while a richly dressed administrator oversees their work.  SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: The box has a nice haft to it. You hear the rattle of individual wooden tokens and feel their weight shifting back and forth… INLAND EMPIRE: [Medium: Success] What treasures wait in store for you?   SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: There’s a hiss as the lid slides off. Inside you find a thick, full-colour rulebook and more than a dozen pouches of various wooden components.  ARIST: [Medium: Success] See? You’re already feeling better.  SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: The colourful illustrations depict cheerful workers picking apricots, hauling marble sculptures out of crumbling temples, and harvesting a strange, magenta-leafed plant. Everyone is smiling.  SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: The instructions are opaque at first, and introduce many concepts you’re not familiar with. Fortunately, there are many diagrams and examples throughout…  SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: That’s where the suzerain’s vassals come in. The game features four vassal nations, each one home to an economically important resource… Each turn the player collects resources from vassals where they’ve placed worker. They may then rearrange their workers, fulfill contracts for coin and bonuses, or build structures back in Revachol…     SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: Each cardboard token makes a satisfying *chhhk* as you pop it out. Soon a neat pile of cardboard tokens and counters has accumulated before you.   SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: In addition to the worker and building tokens used by each player, there are also several piles of colourful resource tokens, each representing one of the game’s four principal resources… From the Empire of Safre: orange apricot tokens, From Ile Marat (the ancestral name of Iilmaraa): gray marble block tokens. From the Semenine Islands: white sacks of sugar tokens. And from Supramandi and Saramiriza: magenta tokens for unprocessed cocaine leaves.   SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: The lieutenant looks over the rulebook before he sees something that makes his eyes go wide… “Holy poo poo, the average playing time for this game is one to *six* hours… I’m not sure we can afford to set aside *that* kind of time for a *game*.”         KIM KITSURAGI: “Hmmm, I do feel like my thinking has become somewhat *rigid*. Maybe a little diversion to keep the mind limber is just what’s in order…” SUGGESTION: See? He’s doing the hard work himself. All he needed was a little nudge…  SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: You explain the basic set up procedures to the lieutenant, who seems to be a quick study. You each take your bags of tokens and counters and unfold the board between you… In the centre is the crown of Revachol. Radiating outward are her colourful vassals, each one supplying some raw material desired by the suzerain… Apricots from Afre, archaeological treasures from Ile Marat, sugar from the Semenine Islands, and magenta cocaine from Supramundi and Saramizira… There’s also a neat little log to keep track of your progress, in case you need to put the game away and return to it later… KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant goes first. He draws a contract card and moves several of his workers to the Safre territory of the board and the others to the Semenine Islands… “Alright, detective. Your turn.” SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: You have a few options available to you: Will you try to fulfill contracts right away or rearrange your workers to maximize production on future turns?  SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: You draw a contract card offering a number of coins in exchange for archaeological treasures… You place all of your workers on the Ile Marat territory. On your next turn you produce six units of archaeological treasures and fulfill the contract for a handful of coins. KIM KITSURAGI: “Not bad, detective.” RHETORIC: [Easy: Success] But not good enough, the lieutenant seems to be saying. KIM KITSURAGI: As he completes his own contract card, the lieutenant is rewarded with four coins and a round wooden token that he places in the centre of the board…  KIM KITSURAGI: “Come on, detective, don’t be a spoil sport. You’ll have plenty of chances to earn your own points.”   KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant shrugs. “There are some *paranoid* types who believe the Moralintern keeps detailed score sheets for everyone in the Reál Belt, but that’s obviously nonsense… Otherwise, no. There are no points, just your actions and the consequences of those actions.”  KIM KITSURAGI: “That’s just the way it is.” The lieutenant doesn’t seem to find much value in dwelling on the subject… “Now, I believe it’s your turn…” SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: Glancing over the board, you see several possible strategies: Pressing more workers into service would increase your economic output and help you survive a possible conflict with the lieutenant, or you could ignore your labour supply and focus on fulfilling contracts for points and resources… RHETORIC: [Medium: Success] Those aren’t your *only* options. You could also show your workers how much you appreciate them by *investing* some of that wealth in them. After all, they’re the ones *producing* wealth for the suzerain.  KIM KITSURAGI: “That’s up to you, detective. But remember, the objective of the game is to earn victory points for the suzerain…”  KIM KITSURAGI: “Because the way you earn points is by pleasing the suzerain, and the player with the most points wins the game.”  SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: Using your powers of ‘persuasion’ you ‘convince’ more workers to join your cause…   KIM KITSURAGI: “Take a look at the scoring table in the back…” The lieutenant turns to one of those appendices you skipped over earlier…  KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes, precisely.” RHETORIC: [Medium: Success] Nonsense. Remember what the lieutenant said? If points are arbitrary, who cares about *winning*? You should reject their system and just play how you want. KIM KITSURAGI: Now it’s the lieutenant’s turn to respond. He moves aggressively onto the Safre territory. Soon his workers are producing asteady supply of extremely valuable *apricots*… SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: For several turns you struggle to respond to the lieutenant’s burgeoning apricot empire. Eventually you relocate the majority of your workers to Supramundi and Saramiriza, where they begin producing a bumper crop of cocaine tokens… You draw a new contract card. According to the text, there’s an aristocrat willing to trade a large supply of cocaine for a number of coins and access to a rare bonus: amplified music, worth *seven victory points*…  SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: Well, the suzerain was looking for new markets for all the cocaine it was producing, and it settled on Safre…   SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: Yes, you can. It’s right there in the rules… AUTHORITY: Now’s your chance. Show the lieutenant what happens when he patronizes you.  This is my Breath of the Wild. Let’s do this. KIM KITSURAGI: “Hrm….” The lieutenant’s face goes stony as you take your turn. He does not appreciate you getting all his workers addicted to cocaine… SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: With each passing turn you slowly bleed the lieutenant of coins as his own workers become less productive and more dependent on your magenta cocaine tokens.  ARIST: [Medium: Success] Please stop calling it that, you know it’s wrong. KIM KITSURAGI: “More or less,” the lieutenant says, but he’s thinking less about matters of historical wrongdoing than how to get out of the jam you’ve put him in… Realizing victory is slipping away, the lieutenant launches a desperate gambit: *Protectionism*. By erecting tariffs on your cocaine he hopes to starve you out of the market at the risk of incurring the suzerain’s disfavour… SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: The endgame is upon you. Do you escalate the *trade war* with the lieutenant in hopes of crushing him with your economic might. Or do you ignore his aggression and focus on building the mighty *victory column* structure in Revachol herself? Alternatively, you could throw the whole game away by trying to build a *public education system* for the children of your workers…  SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: Building the ultimate structure requires diligent economic planning, which you completely failed to do… Rather than build a glorious monument to Revachol’s economic superiority, you have to settle for a handful of post offices and school for the blind.  KIM KITSURAGI: “That might have helped, yes… Now, let’s tally up the scores, shall we?” SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME: Computing the final scores is almost a game unto itself. You each spend an inordinate amount of time making stacks of coins, consulting tables, and struggling with basic addition and multiplication… After double- and then triple-checking your maths, you have your final score… Fifteen victory points. The suzerain will not be impressed. KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant looks up from his tabulations. “I’ve got 26 points,” he says, a barely contained smile breaking out across his face… “Don’t be so glum, detective. There’s always next time. Figuratively, I mean. There’s no way we have time to play this game again… Now, let’s clean up and get back to work.”   ARIST: [Challenging: Success] gently caress, that didn’t help at all! Go read that Dick Mullen book, maybe that’ll get you back into the copping mood.  DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: The cover features a pastiche of different scenes. In the foreground, a man in a dark overcoat clutches a pistol to his chest. Rising up behind him are two silhouettes wrapped in a passionate embrace. The tagline reads: “Detective Dick Mullen must prove his innocence after an old friend is murdered—by someone who looks just like Dick Mullen!” That seems to sum up the premise nicely. ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Medium: Success] Needless to say it violates nearly every RCM regulation for a detective to investigate a murder in which he is a suspect.   DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: The story opens with a knock at the door. Detective Dick Mullen is greeted by an old friend, Charlie Spillane, who’s come to Mullen to ask a favour on this dark and cold night… Spillane needs Mullen to drive him in from Vesper to a small town along the Insulindian coast. Despite his friend’s apparent agitation, Mullen does as he’s asked, then returns home where he passes out drunk, as he does most nights…  DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Two days later Mullen is arrested by the Vesper police and charged with the murder of Charlie Spillane. At his interrogation, Mullen learns that Charlie Spillane was shot in a bar in the very town Mullen dropped him off in, by a man matching *Mullen’s* description…      DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY:Secrets are the currency of human relations.  DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Deneuve reveals that she was Spillane’s lover, and that he was mixed up with a local amphetamine smuggling operation. As soon as Mullen begins pulling at strings, the whole conspiracy begins to unravel…  DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Outwardly, the old police captain is a real law-and-order crypto-fascist, a barrel-chested man who’s beaten his share of suspects to a pulp. But he’s also dirty, and increasingly paranoid that someone’s going to expose his role in the drug ring…  DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: A typical privileged twat. In all likelihood, he’s just in over his head. He does bear a personal grudge against Spillane, though, a former prosecutor who nearly brought down his father’s administration…  DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Torvald the art collector is a strung-out mess. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine him holding a pistol steady enough to actually hit someone, let alone plug them three times in the chest the way old Spillane got did…  DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: One evening, Deanna Deneuve comes to Mullen’s hostel room in tears. The two of them drink half a bottle of vodka, and soon they’re seeking comfort in each other’s arms…  ESPRIT DE CORPS: The main’s a prosecutor’s nightmare. Solving a murder counts for nothing if all the evidence gets thrown out in court over police misconduct.  DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: As the two lovers share a post-coital cigarette, Deanna Deneuve turns to Mullen and says, “By the way, Dick, there was something else I meant to tell you…” INLAND EMPIRE: [Medium: Success] “I love you”? HAND/EYE COORDINATION: [Medium: Success] “Always aim for the centre of mass”?   KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant gives you a quizzical expression in return. You go back to the story.  DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Mullen trashes his blood-stained clothes and flees the hostel, knowing it’s only a matter of hours before the cops discover Deneuve’s body, if they haven’t been tipped off already… ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Medium: Success] Fleeing a crime scene, destroying evidence… Even if Detective Mullen *didn’t* commit the murder, he should be facing *years* behind bars. AUTHORITY: [Medium: Success] Dick Mullen won’t be sent to the clink for the sake of some *legal niceties*! DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: The heat is on! If Dick Mullen can’t solve both murders before the cops catch up to him, he’s going away for life…     DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: For a moment you cease to read the story on the page and see the book for what it is, a collection of brittle, cheaply printed pages, held together by glue made from the hooves of horses…     DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Just make sure you don’t lose him. You’ll not find another like him… ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Medium: Success] It’s true in more ways than you know.   DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: What? That doesn’t even make sense. There’s never a straight answer with you, is there? You just get hooked on random stupid notions and then repeat them every chance you get.  DICK MULLEN AND THE MISTAKEN IDENTITY: You begin furiously flipping through pages. Even as you know these books follow a series of well-worn tropes, you find yourself completely engrossed. You’re turning pages so fast you don’t even notice the ancient spine coming unglued… REACTION SPEED: [Impossible: Failure] You try to grab the pages as they come loose but your fingers aren’t quick enough… they’re gone.  (That passive Reaction Speed check may actually be literally impossible. You need a score of twenty to pass it) KIM KITSURAGI: “Too bad, detective. If it’s any consolation, the resolution is almost never very satisfying… And on that note, perhaps we should get back to making sense of our own case?”  ARIST: [Formidable: Success] Well… gently caress. That didn’t work. Failing to unravel the tapestry of Dick Mullen has you in a worse mood than ever. Just go solve the case, I guess. Arist fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Sep 24, 2020 |
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Sep 24, 2020 16:17
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Revachol's long history with cocaine explains an awful lot.
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Sep 24, 2020 16:27
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Authority has been weirdly likable these last few updates. Helping get Kim to dance, trying to stop us hurting ourselves on that phone call and now being really into Dick Mullen.
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Sep 24, 2020 16:54
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I was not expecting sudden board game with Kim.  The ability to make your opponent's workers addicted to cocaine to sounds like a hilarious and terrible mechanic.
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Sep 24, 2020 17:57
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Arist posted:SUGGESTION: [Medium: Success] Something changes between you two. She looks at you differenly ... As an aside - for all that the game boasts "all outcomes are equal, failing is fun"... some things you obviously want to succeed at \ follow to their natural conclusion. For instance, red checks can be interesting if they fail, because they lead you to a conclusion of some sort. But banging your head against white checks is just frustrating, because you either succeed eventually or just never resolve the thread. In other words, having Acele psycho-analyze you and telling Kim that points are arbitrary is the correct conclusion, because the alternative is just... no payoff whatsoever.
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Sep 24, 2020 20:09
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Still not over that sequence of Harry destroying himself over a phone call.
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Sep 24, 2020 22:02
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Bwahahaha, loved the "real police" critique of Dick Mullen there (especially "Well THAT testimony won't be admissible any longer"), though automatically losing the ending there is just plain cruel, I would much have appreciated if instead they'd let you finish the book and Harry critiqued how dumb the criminal plot was or something instead. Last couple of updates have definitely demonstrated Kim isn't a complete straight edge either, which is lovely to watch.
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Sep 24, 2020 22:13
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Chapter 48: 23:47-0:23: Descent Into Madness ARIST: [Easy: Success] You’ve seemingly exhausted all possibilities. Go check out the Feld mural again and think about where you might find Ruby.    FELD MURAL: Above the mural—a collapsed roof, broken windows set in walls that are cracking and will soon also fall, and the coastal breeze rustling and sighing in the remains of the edifice. ENCYCLOPEDIA: [Medium: Success] Feld Electrical—you only know them as a small company that makes ink cartridges. Looks like they used to be… big.  FELD MURAL: Indeed. Somehow you knew it was here. An urban ruin gutted by looters that once used to consume money and dispense warmth and light.  KIM KITSURAGI: “In there? She could. Or…” He points behind you. “She could be in that *identical* ruin over there, or in that boat shack. In that church tower, maybe…”   ARIST: [Challenging: Success] All the stories you’ve found and become a part of, all the closure you’ve witnessed, you can feel it all rising up within you, giving you strength.   SHIVERS: Trying to talk to the wind? The city? Whatever you thought would happen did not, and now you’re just standing there, in the dusk hour. With your hands fallen to your side. LOGIC: [Medium: Success] Is *trying to talk to the city* something you’ve done before? Is it in your secret repertoire—a trick for when you’re out of ideas?  KIM KITSURAGI: “How *do* we? I was really hoping she’d be in the village…” The lieutenant sighs, then gets a hold of himself: “Okay. She’s *probably* north of the village and this place is a peninsula.” He looks North. “We already scanned most of the outdoor areas on our wild *cryptid hunt*, so we have an understanding of the geography, at least. And then there’s the church.” He looks at the bell tower. “We’ve already searched that and can rule it out. I know it doesn’t feel like progress, but exclusion is a step too.”     SHIVERS: Walk the coast, the old boardwalk, the reeds… You can always come back here and talk to the wind again. Look where it already got you.    ARIST: [Formidable: Success] You try once more.     KIM KITSURAGI: He shrugs. “So how do we get in there? The doors were on the collapsed side of this building… they’re gone, basically.”      Waste Land of Reality may seem like a huge waste (land of reality) because of all the penalties, but it’s well worth it, because +1 Psyche means all our Psyche skills go up one. Even the ones that got penalized, meaning those are a zero sum. Those are also, coincidentally, two skills that get boosted by Cleaning Out The Rooms, so all in all it’s been very productive for us (except Physical Instrument, which does still get penalized).  Let’s check the ladder.   FELD LADDER: The distances between the remaining rungs are rather *wide*. You’d have to use the mounting brackets. However, they seem corroded and the peeling rust is razor-sharp.  FELD LADDER: Not to mention that the roof is collapsing and the wind gets pretty brutal up there. Dismounting from the ladder is going to be *hard*. Perhaps if you were to *not* climb the ladder? Instead… SAVOIR FAIRE: [Medium: Success] What if you were to do something more *subtle*?  KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant stares at you, stone-faced. “Teleportation is not a thing.”   KIM KITSURAGI: “Oh yes. It could hurt. A lot.”     SAVOIR FAIRE: *ZOOT*! *ZAP*! *POW*! *CRINKLE*! It’s like magic, you feel yourself disappear, your atoms fading out of existence… KIM KITSURAGI: “Okay, well. That’s impressive, but…”  KIM KITSURAGI: “I just *saw* you climb the ladder,” the lieutenant shouts from below. “You just climbed it, like a regular person.” PERCEPTION (HEARING): [Easy: Success] The wind at the top of the building starts howling loudly, blowing away the lieutenant’s voice…. Faintly you hear…      ARIST: [Medium: Success] You fish out your flashlight from your cloak and descend further into the building.             KIM KITSURAGI: “After you *climbed* up to the roof, you mean? There’s a maintenance entrance under the boardwalk. It’s next to a drain pipe, possibly a storm drain—it was easy to miss before.”         INTERFACING: The ‘how’ was a closely guarded secret. Something that was locked in safes and human heads across the river where they were manufactured. As to why? Your fingers don’t know.    KIM KITSURAGI: “These? No. These are old filament memories. I hope you’re not expecting to find that device here—you will be disappointed.”                  KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes, I can see that. Looks like some communists were hiding out here. They left a long time ago.”  KIM KITSURAGI: “Half a century? This was probably part of the network of defence posts the communards builts against the amphibious landing.”  KIM KITSURAGI: “We have found a lot of those lately… I guess what most people think of as *history* tends to linger in run-down neighbourhoods. Martinaise being what it is, no one has gone through the trouble of cleaning out the old bunkers.”     KRAS MAZOV PORTRAIT: Years worth of dust is shaken off. The full head of hair, matched by an ample moustache and sideburns, look a bit silly.             KIM KITSURAGI: He lowers his voice. “Once we detain a credible suspect, who knows what the Union and the Wild Pines will do? We’ll set in motion events we have no control over.” LOGIC: [Medium: Success] You will upset the balance of power in Martinaise. The deadlock between the company and the Union will destabilize. INTERFACING: [Challenging: Success] This part of town is a fine clockwork puzzle. Disturb its peace and it will start breaking down—uncontrollably.  KIM KITSURAGI: “I don’t know, little things?” He pauses. “But you’re right. We’ve gotten everything we can from the Union—we even opened that container…”  KIM KITSURAGI: “I still don’t think that was a good idea, but yes—our affairs with the Wild Pines are in order. Since she isn’t in Martinaise anymore.”  KIM KITSURAGI: “Well… we’re not responsible for what we can’t predict, are we? I don’t think the *entire* city will be razed to the ground.” He smiles in the dark. ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Challenging: Success] Let’s *try* not to worry, he thinks.   SAVOIR FAIRE: [Easy: Success] I wouldn’t be so sure. You haven’t exactly been sneaking.      Well, let’s proceed further into this dark caver—   ARIST: [Trivial: Success] WHAT THE gently caress IT HURTS
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Oct 1, 2020 15:31
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I love that climbing scene. I love it a little more during the daytime, but why that's the case can be an exercise for the reader.
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Oct 1, 2020 17:23
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~*
~*
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Oct 1, 2020 19:07
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When I hit that, I thought it weird that it wasn't Pain Threshold saying it. Then a minute later I just went "Okay, that makes sense then."
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Oct 2, 2020 06:49
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