Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Episode 1: A Chance Meeting | We're Alive: Frontier | Season 1

Episode Date: May 25, 2026

In the year 2026, seventeen years after The Outbreak, a band of survivors meet at the edge of the Mississippi line to embark on a journey into the infected Midwest. Based on the hit We’re Alive podcast, Ivan Van Norman leads a game of survival for a group of players on a mission through the infected undead-ridden midwest. Want to go deeper into the world of We’re Alive? Check out the complete We’re Alive saga here: www.werealive.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hello, welcome to We're Alive Frontier. My name is Ivan Van Norman, and I'll be the game master for our little journey into the West. We're excited today to share with you a story from the audio drama We're Alive, created and developed by Casey Wayland. However, our story is not scripted. It is yet to be discovered by our players as we explore this Wild West that is the new frontier. Now, brace yourselves. This is a horror RPG.

There'll be graphic images. as well as situations that players will have to make difficult decisions that the audience may find themselves uncomfortable with. But everyone has given me their consent and has discussed with me all of the matters and we're all ready to have fun. So, brace yourselves. This train is about to take off. It took 10 years to push them back, but we did.

What was once a prosperous river trade, the Mississippi, is now the front line. The eastern states supply the river states. And what's left to the UA live out their meager day, self-policing. What is the West hiding? Nobody really knows for sure. But we're alive. And this is the new frontier.

Hi guys. Welcome to my table. Do you like it? Yes. It's fun. My concrete slab of horror. It's very modern. In a retro way. Post-modern.

Post-modern, post-apocalyptic modern. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me in a little game of survival horror that we get to play out and have fun with together. I'm so excited to be able to play with all of you. It's been a while, and we've been working on this for a while, and I'm just really happy that we get to be here now, roll some dice, and play a game.

That being said, I do want to remind you all that This is not a game of glorified, uplifting character achievement in which you get experience points, and you become the hero of the town, and more money, more loot, more adventure. This is probably as good as it's going to get. And it's probably going to go downhill from here. And that is the joy of survival horror and the joy of dark RPGs, which is what we're exploring today. And to make the stakes even worse, character death, as I mentioned to all of you, is going to be a real possibility in our game.

So just to reiterate on that for our audience, any of our players who unfortunately pass during our session, there will not be any rolling up a new character, unfortunately I'm just going to have to ask you to leave the table with all of your gear and your skills with you. And unfortunately, your team will have to suffer the consequences of those repercussions.

At the same time, I have total faith in all of you. It's going to be amazing and don't worry so much. What could possibly go wrong? I feel better know. Okay. Yay. Hooray, survival horror. Yeah, yeah.

So Outbreak and Dead is the game system we're gonna be using today, and we'll be starting the game with 150 survival points. That's 30 each. Yay. Yay! While I'm going to get 20, risk, which I will use to create hazards and potentially opponents for you all to face. As risk increases, I will obviously have more currency in which to use.

So as players, it is a lot of you to use. in your favor in order to try to use or allow me to use this as much as you possibly can. It's sometimes better to face smaller dangers as things go by instead of having a bunch cashed up that then something worse could occur. So keep that in mind that sometimes facing little encounters or little bits of danger is easier than dealing with all of it at the same time. The day is June 18, 2020. The sun is bright today. It's not only bright, but it's hot.

And it may be one of the most humid on records, what little records are still available in this world. The air and the new coat of white paint on buildings makes the concrete structures around the eastern side of St. Louis feel at least 10 degrees hotter than it should be. The looming shadows of the three-story guard towers which sit along the east bank of the Mississippi, watching the west side of the river,

cast valuable shade as low. as laborers take breaks from driving pack animals or hauling rickshaws of goods from the torn up streets. Much of the old pavement from the new age has been pulled up years ago and replaced with cobblestones or brick in some areas. And the asphalt that has been melted down is now using to patch leaped roofs as well as glued together slats of woods for barreling. Now a young man walks down the street, his new leather boots leaving a dust trail behind him. his tactical vest loaded up with gear and his shining blue-black uniform already patched with sweat.

His eyes are taking in the unfamiliar territory of the bustling trade that is East St. Louis. Am I missing anything? That sound about right how you look? Sounds good to me. Ah, excellent. Well, carefully quaffed hair. Coffed hair, pomade showing,

and a glistening bright white smile. Not a speck of dust or dust. anywhere on me. Asher Emerson Stern the Third. You walk down, it takes about half an hour of walking to actually get to where you need to go. In eastern St. Louis, there's lots of converted residential buildings which have been now take the place of various storefronts, community housing centers, and some brothels. Some have been demolished altogether in order to create absolutely new buildings. One of which you're walking into. to now. It is a wide one-story concrete building that must take up an entire residential block. It's a state building. A man with an AK-47 guards a check-in desk while another man sits on the corner appearing to eat his lunch. The man at the counter has a badge with the name Cameron on it.

Yes, can I help you? Yes, I'm looking for a Colonel Yackley. Colonel Yackley. You're here to see Colonel Yackley? That's right. All right. Hey Rick! You watch as a young boy of about 10 years old, runs over and comes over. Would you go and get Colonel Yackley for me?

All right, boss. And he runs back, just booking it the entire way. He attempts off and just a few minutes later, you watch as this little boy comes back with a tall, stately man with blonde hair. Ah, Asher, hey, Good to see you, man. How's it been?

It's good. Here, let's go in my office, and we can talk a little bit. Fantastic. All right, Cameron basically takes you over into the office, and he kind of shows you around a little bit of the state room. Yeah, man, I have to say, are you enjoying your time in St. Louis? You just got here, right? It's a bit of a far cry from what I'm used to.

Oh, well, that'll happen when you're on a river state, all right? We don't have it as nice as some of the Eastern yes. But hey, man, we're maintained in the front, and that's what matters. That you are. It is a, it's actually been pretty good. I'll tell you, it's been very quiet lately.

Anyway, before we get into it further, let's just make sure we're in my office. Okay? He pulls himself back a little bit as some other state officials are walking through, but then he picks back up again after they walk by as he opens the door into his office. So, we got in the recommissioned APCs from your father's factory last week. Do you want to see him? I could give you a tour of the motor pool if you'd like. I'd love to, yeah.

Okay, cool. Let's cover this first, and then I'll move you around a little bit. He goes and grabs a bottle of clear, solid liquid that's in a giant liter bottle. It actually has a little bit of an amber tone to it. Why not? It's the middle of the day. All right. He grabs a bottle and pours you out two sniffers and lays it down. Grabbs his drink to the first law of reacquisition.

Make it safe. Make it yours. Down. The rail driver is ready. All right? We managed to get it over the line. line. Sorry to cut it straight to the business. No, please. I know that's what you're

interested in hearing. We shipped it out last night under the guise of a quick cleanse mission. So, and Asher, I have to ask you again, man. It's like, are you sure you want to go all the way out to Kansas City with just five people? I am certain. Yes.

You know, it's okay on some of the about half mile on the western side because we've bombed the crap out of that place. But, you know, anything far than that. A lot of it's been scrapped and even farther out, it's still a lot of rampant infected out there. I am confident that we are prepared. All right. Well, I put everything you asked for in there. Right. So what else do you need in order to cross the river? Well, first of all,

that was quite a list I gave you. I want to make sure that the rail driver is fully stocked. Yeah, and he pulls out a manifest from a very discreet drawer that's under a couple of his more well-used ones and he hands you the folder as you open it up and see a full manifest of everything that you've requested. Wonderful. And the driver is waiting where we discussed. Yeah, I have two armed guards right now that are on the other side of the river who are watching it now waiting for U-5 to arrive. All right. That's the full team, right? That is the full team. Okay, all right. Well, the last thing is obviously we require passage across the Mississippi. Okay. Well, actually...

You know, I'm pulling a lot of favors for you right now. Even getting that thing across the river was not easy to sell. Yes, and we gave you a great deal on those APCs. So I feel like we can make this happen. Okay, look, I can get you permits for across the river. It takes a special clearance that comes from my office, but I can work something out. I'm going to need everyone's government IDs, though.

Not everyone on this mission is necessarily the most, well integrated of individual. How might we be able to fudge that, the ID requirement? Are you telling me you have unregistered citizens in the city who are going to be on your team? I'm telling you it's possible, and maybe you can do us a little favor.

That might be outside of my control a little bit, Asher. You know? That's a little tougher. If I don't have a government and ID, I can't issue a permit. Look, talk to your team, see if you can work something out. You'll be here?

I'm, this is where I work. Okay. Well, I have to say I'm excited for what you might be able to find out there. As am I? We did a flyover, per your request, but... Thank you. The helicopter only goes about 125 miles out. That's fine.

Yeah, so there is a couple of outposts that we've determined along the way, but we don't know how many people are in there. Oh, of course. The map. You want the map, right? I do want the map. All right. So he pulls out and rolls a large, kind of topographical a map that's clearly had writing done all over it.

We sent this ahead of time, but this is the most updated version. And he rolls it out to you and hands it. Okay. I believe that does us for now. Asher, I appreciate your time, effort, and energy making this happen. And I'll honestly say we're going to put these APCs to good use. I hope you do. Your family has done immense amount of efforts to make sure that not one of them crosses the river.

So whatever I can do to help, I will. He shows you out through the front door in which the, you can see the small boy is enjoying a cigarette break outside as he walks through and the guards have shifted out. Yeah, you know, it's either that or they're out doing worse things. So we've come far, Asher, but it's not the old world and it's not gonna be for a while. That is true.

He closes the front door behind him as he waves you off as you continue to walk back down the street. You take your half an hour walk back into the main part of the converted Market Street, that is now East St. Louis, and you come across your next location, which is a large storefront. And maybe it had large bay windows once, but most of the glass has been boarded up, making the actual visible windows much, much smaller. And that being said, the design and the detail of the boarded up front is very well integrated. In fact, it has some small paintings on it, as well as relief carvings of a city sky.

that is reminiscent of old New York City. And you see someone sitting outside of the front porch. What do they look like, Ray? Olive-complected, a little bit worn, wearing a bomber jacket and a scarf around her neck, some dirt on the shirt, some dirt on her shoes, and a padlock in her hand. Now is she carrying her large, scoped 50-cow rifle with her?

Always. Always. Good afternoon. I was told to meet Jenny here, if she's in. And if Jenny was in, who might she be talking to? To Asher Emerson Stern III. And she knows me. Yeah. That's quite a name. Thank you.

Let me see if I can find someone named Jenny. Wonderful. She heads inside. All right. Your team is inside. Everyone's there. It's a large room. It smells of incense and old wood. The boards beneath you creak as you enter the dark room illuminated by kerosene lanterns,

as well as the limited light barreling in from outside. There's two other men sitting at a table in addition to a woman who is dealing out cards. Well, looks like you're pretty boys here. Finally, we get one. No offense. Not taken. You sure about this?

Yeah. All right, you're the boss. I followed her inside. You followed her inside? Mm-hmm. Oh, really? Asher, Emerson, Stearns, the Third. Yes, hi, Jenny, we spoke.

Yes. And I take it this is the team. This is the team. Taddam. He's even younger than you thought he would be. Hello, my name is Asher Emerson Stern III. As I believe Jenny has briefed you in part, I've commissioned this mission on behalf

of my company, Stern Industries, to take a rail driver out toward Kansas City to create a new supply line. For now, that is all we need to know about it. We will discuss more as we move out toward the rail driver across the Mississippi. But for now, I'd love to get an idea of who we all are so we can acquaint ourselves and get off on a good start.

I love a mission where you keep some secrets. just to keep it interesting later. Well, then you'll love this. Oh, good, okay. I love a man they can read sarcasm. This is Raythe. Go ahead. Infiltration, assassination.

Your name is Raith. I am called that. Fair enough. Cermetic, Band-Aid. Oh, no, I'm actually like a sharpshooter. Just named Band-Aid. It's an irony thing. You're the jokester. No. Okay, great. Fantastic.

I'm the funny one. All right. That's true. We're going to have a lot of fun. Yeah. Band-Aid Ray. So we do code names here. Yep.

Fantastic. What are you? Stingray. Stingray. But the name's Ray. Ray. Okay, that fits. And everybody knows Jenny.

Yes. Lucky Jenny about town. Yes. I'll be driving the rail driver. I didn't know you got your license. Yes. Yes. Jenny has talked up this team a lot.

So I don't have to tell you that we're going to be going through some very dangerous territory and the best is expected. The best of us? Your best. Okay. All right. I've got the codename for him.

Ashhole. Oh. That's great. That's wonderful. Whoa. Okay. I like you the most. I thought I was gonna come.

Well done. Thanks. Fantastic. Yes. So as part of this, That's gonna be a bold one to hold on to for a while, isn't that, Asher? So, I love you.

I don't. It's always fun. So that is, you've all been briefed by Jenny previously that this is absolutely a mission across the river. But the one thing that wasn't brought up beforehand is that a lot of you were under the assumption that the rail driver was going to be on the east side of the river.

So this is new information at being on the west. Yes. Why wouldn't it be on the east side, which is safe? There was a level of discretion required in executing this. We are the first to open up this line in a very long time. We'd like to keep news of this happening on the DL for now. That's an old world term.

Yeah, also on the DL from whom exactly. There are a lot of different organizations, people, we've worked for a lot of them. Who are we keeping the secret from? Everyone but us. I have one government contact I trust who's helping us to do this. Everyone else who might have a stake

in getting this line developed needs to be kept in the dark. We will be the first there, we will be the first to develop it, we will make it safe. That's the plan. On that note, we do need permits to cross the Mississippi. For that I've been told, we all need government identification. That's not a problem for me. How is it for you? Does it have to be our government identification? If there's no picture on it, as long as you can make a case that it is your ID,

I don't care. I think, yeah, I think something can be arranged. And how about, I have no ID. I'm very surprised. I have him. Jenny, what about that guy on the other side of town that you worked with on that last mission? Oh, yes. What is it? Malcolm? Yeah. Malcolm. Yeah, that's marmy little fucker.

Yeah, Malcolm's been doing some black hat dealings on this side of the river. He could probably forge something for you if need be. Yeah. It's not going to come cheap. All right. He owes me. Okay.

As long as we're pulling favors, I could use another ID, you know, you never have too many. Yes. I mean, I've always wanted to be someone else, so why not? All right. So three. ID's? Yes, I don't really care about legality or cost.

Let's just make it happen. That's good to know. Now I like him a little better. Three? All right, I thought it would just be Ray Fenn, Band-Aid at this point, or is there a third one? Yeah? You need an ID.

Everybody wants one. I don't have anything, I have no paperwork. We'll need three. How much money are you willing to? Let's just see what he wants from us. Okay, all right. So actually, Malcolm's one of those guys that happens to have maps and nobody else has.

And in fact, he happens to live under one of the old bridges that used to span over the Mississippi, but of course was blown during the war. Since it's pretty much recommissioned, decommissioned rubble, he managed to find the little area that you visited him on a few occasions, and he's got a little bit of, well, let's just say he's kind of the lord of the northern St. Louis shanty town a bit. Eastern St. Louis is a trade hub, so everybody's here, from the most wealthy down to the barely making by-laborers, day laborers. indentured servants. So Malcolm's area is not an easy, it's easy to get to, but it certainly

isn't easy to not stick out. So, um, Raith, Jenny, you've probably been there before, but I wouldn't have imagined Band-Aid or Stingray has. Certainly not Asher. So the five of you travel north into the outside of the city limits. So the original guard post that holds a huge portion of the residential commercial side of East St. Louis. You walk through. Going out into the still safe zone, but most of it's covered only by the guard posts and most of its pretty free-roaming land, which is, to be fair, most of what the eastern states look like nowadays. A lot of rubble, a lot of ruins, within occasional pockets of civilization unless you're in one of the major outpost towns. So going north in the Malcolm's area, you pass by,

burnt out barrels that have fires in them. You can see a lot of the ragged, lean twos of old pieces of aluminum or torn out roofs. And Malcolm's area is essentially just a large steel door with an old department of water and power seal above it. That, Jenny, you give it a knock. So, tough looking guy comes out with a full beard, shaved head and a biker jacket.

Hey, Jenny. Malcolm. Come on. Thank you. Get in here, darling. You're not here to collect, are you? I don't have the money right now. It's all right.

I don't, you know, I'll have it probably next week. Right. Instead of the money, I need three government IDs. This episode is brought to you by L'Oréal Group. Beauty is a powerful force that moves us. That's why L'Oreal Group has. built a business that is inclusive at its heart with 100% of its brands, championing diversity. With 25,000 professional opportunities for people under 30 worldwide and 54% of leading positions

held by women, diversity is a strength that helps L'Oreal Group create the best beauty products for all people. Visit Loreal.com to learn more. Government ideas? How difficult is that going to be? This isn't a stakeout, right? You're not a- No, no, no, no. No, no, no. Despite how I look.

All right, all right. We would have to tell you, because you asked. Right. That is the law. Yeah. I mean, you can't fake that. Now what, Malcolm, you know. Okay, yeah. No, I get it, Jenny.

I know you wouldn't send me up like that. No, never. Here, just come on inside real quick. So as you get in, you notice Malcolm's area is very, very, not what Colonel Yakley's place is. There's piles of old electronics everywhere. You can actually see Malcolm's got a trade going on that mostly deals in old world electronics.

So you have stacks of hard drives. You can actually see a couple of old LCDs that have hard color lines through them, that he's hooked up and you can hear the whirling of an old gas generator out from behind the shed. Well, all right, citizen IDs, those are easy. It's just basically just photocopies. But government IDs, yeah, they got relief watermarks on that still.

It's a little tougher to put together. But I could probably do it. So, here, let's just get everybody lined up for a photo. Who are you going to be for? All right. Step on that mark there. He points you to like a little T mark where he can go and adjust a little camera. And you watch as he pulls up an old webcam picture-taking software.

And you can kind of see as Wraith steps up to it, it's just, smile. Come on. Yeah, there we go. That's a mug a mother could love. All right. And as he, over the course of time takes all three of your photos, he prints them out on an old desk jet.

And you watch as he starts putting together the lamination and the relief work as he talks to you. And goes, yeah, you know, I can get hanged for this, right? That's not gonna happen. All right. You can probably use these for a little bit, but if anyone cross-checks them against any kind of database, you're probably best bet is just to get out of there

as quick as you can. And we're square after this. Absolutely. All right. He basically hands you three plastic membership cards, essentially, that have old black and white photos on it and the name. But it does have the seal of the UA printed in the bottom corner,

and it is, for all intensive purposes, the best the government can offer at this point when it comes to IDs. So he hands it off. off to you and well you're gonna stick around or high tail it out I think we're gonna take off Malcolm thank you yeah thanks Jenny am I gonna you're not am I gonna see you anytime soon for cards you know what I'm not sure when I'm gonna be back all right all right well stay safe out there yeah okay so he shuts the door

behind him and as we're outside yeah I'm gonna look at you guys and give me the IDs real quick and we're gonna just rub them in the dirt. And we're gonna really rough them up and then maybe go over to some of the burning fires and kind of singed it a little bit. Like these need to be like they've been held for a while. Yeah, yeah, fair enough.

And even I can like hold it up to the fire and you can do like, whoa. Don't melt my sweet, sweet laminations. That's smart. And my ID has just this shit-eating grin on it. Perfect. When he was like Peter or something. Now it smells like dirt and burnt plastic.

So, done and done. Those sweet ozone fumes? Smell that. Right, yeah, it has been a bit. So Asher, you take them back over to Yackley, who looks at them, kind of gives a shrug, and then goes over and writes down the numbers, the faked numbers, as well as the faked names,

and puts them down into a record. Basically, takes a piece of paper with it, folds it, stamps it, and hands it to you. All right. Well, stay safe out there. We'll do our very best. We've cleared most of what's the West and the Mississippi, so just flag it, all right? And even better, if you can radio into me, because we have that, the radio is inside of the rail driver,

just radio into me and just code me which whether the flags, or if you can pop smoke on it even better. All right? As long as it's before the 125 mile helicopter radius, we'll come pick it up for you. Okay? Sounds great. I'll be sure to do that. And I think it goes without saying, but this is so off the record. It had better be.

We're okay. Right. God, fuck, I can't believe I'm doing this. All right, but we're here, and we've got it, and it's done. Good luck. Godspeed, and take out a few for me. I will. So you five.

meet back up outside of the government station. And at this point, well, at this point, we can start our first mission. Yeah. We have permits, we are good to cross, provided nothing else comes up, and we will meet up with a rail driver and proceed from there.

So this is officially a lay low mission, which you're all basically trying to cross the line. It's your first one, we're all very familiar with this. You can roll either stealth or diplomacy checks, whichever favors you the most, and then you can just Tell me your degrees of success and degrees of failure. Then we'll start this thing.

Fantastic. First roll of the game. And for cameras purposes, instead of having tokens or just you holding up the fingers, these will represent any degrees of success, and these will represent any degrees of failure that you might have. Doofa duper.

Doofa, indeed. So you've all made your die rolls, and let's resolve our degrees of success and degrees of failure. For every 10 under, you get a degree of success. for every 10 over, you get a degree of failure. So, Wraith, how many degrees of success or failure did you get? I'm using stealth, not diplomacy.

That's fine. And I got five. You have five. Woof. All right, well, would you mind passing five degrees of success? But he just sneaks all of us across. Yeah. Jenny, how about you?

I rolled a 94. Which is how many degrees of failure? Five. Ah, ah. Look at that. We're about to run out of these. Hey, it's better to do it. No.

Yeah, get it out. And also, can't we balance each other for success? That's where we're gonna get at, yeah. So would you hand those to Jenny? All right. Band-aid. So it's against my diplomacy score of 44, and I rolled a 47, so 0-0. 0. Okay, so you're a wash.

Great. Ray. It's against my stealth rule of 38, and I rolled a 10, so I've got two degrees of success. Great. Here's your two. And Asher Emerson, Ster. The third. That's me. Every time.

Every time. All that is you? I rolled against my diplomacy command, and I got zero failure. Zero failure. So you're also to zero. Okay, great. So you guys can basically spend your degrees of success and degrees of failure as you want, but we have to resolve all the degrees of failure and degrees of success before this mission ends.

Rayth, do you want to tell me what happens? All right, so as we pull up to this checkpoint, Rayth takes a look at it, and he just doesn't like the look of the look of the There are too many people standing around and all that. And he sees her looking kind of nervous. So I reach on her and go, you know whether we can do this the old-fashioned way. Come. Come with me.

There's a side street over here. I see a way to get across. And what you're talking about is an old underhang. That's part of this. Because this one bridge that comes across the Mississippi has the rail line on it. So this guard post is two stories. And you're right, Ray.

there is armed guards all up on the top of it with search lights and everything that a guard post should have. And just enough room for a train to come by with a chain link fence where someone is essentially asking as a desk officer over there. See, easier than talking. You could just duck underneath and walk under the bridge if you wanted to.

Pretty much, yeah. I would like to argue we do have the permits for a reason. If we're caught trespassing across, that is an automatic no-go for us. We look suspicious, we're stopped, we're accosted, it's over. And you say this to a bunch of empty space as both are. And Jenny have disappeared underneath the bridge. Just a dust cloud.

He does that. And you three are left open to the ID, and you see as the man in the guard post up front holds his hand up. Stop. Permits, please. No problem. He walks up, grabs them. I have the permits, yeah. You have your ID, I have the permits. He takes all three of them.

puts out little eye paste, looks at them, comes through. Yep, looks all to be in order. Thank you. And as you two start walking through open, all right, see you later. As he opens the door and shuts it, don't die out there. So Ray, you've got two degrees of success to resolve,

so let's finish that out real quick. As you are walking out from the gate, you actually hear one of the guardmen go, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Hey, you, he points over to you. Come back here real quick. No one can cross the river without at least some kind of beacon or marker so that we don't shoot you.

So here, and he kind of grabs your backpack and comes into the back and pulls a flashlight and mounts it onto the back of your backpack. That is now has a static blinking green light on the back of and goes, it's a real flashlight tune. You can turn it off once you've cleared the kill zone. But none of you are close to that. The snipers will take you out.

That would have been good to know a little while ago. I'm glad you stopped us. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Well, you're all removing so fast. Hey, hey, hey, good looking out. Thank you. I got you. I will take your two degrees of success. And for that, if you'd like to cash it out immediately for a flashlight, you can have a flashlight.

I would like a flashlight. Okay, go grab a flashlight from the crate then, please. Nice. From our magical mystery crate. What? It's a mimic. Oh, no! This is great.

It's also, it doubles as a periscope. Yeah. So that'll be the beacon in order to make sure that you guys can cross the kill zone without anything. It also doubles as a practical flashlight as well too. So here's your card for your flashlight. Marcy. All right, great. And that goes in our stash.

And that goes in your stash, which is everything. So all of your personal gears up there right now, and as you are rewarded more or you buy more, or it is to get taken away from you, we will do accordingly at the, with the back. All right, cool. Fantastic. Word. So actually, Jenny and Wraith,

as you guys are coming up from the underside of this converted bridge that is also the only way across the river for at least, call it several dozens, if not maybe a hundred miles or so. I imagine both of you coming up along the side or maybe together along one end, pulling yourself up on the old rail that may is covered with long braided wire that allowed any kind of loose pieces that made fall off box cars or whatever to not just plop into the river.

But what do you look like, Rath? So yeah, you see Rath ahead of you climbing up nimbly over the broken bits of concrete and exposed rebar and braided wire, and he's wearing a bunch of drapey sort of tattered stuff and looks like he has these sort of crisscrossed belts and things that look like climbing gear. But then you also notice he's wearing like, looks like it's strapped across his back. He has like what looks like a medieval sword. And then he also has like a combat knife and a compound bow. Right.

And yeah, and he's also got a hood, which he wears up. And he's looking kind of mysterious. So mysterious. So mysterious. I'm sorry for your loss. So yeah. He climbs up quickly,

and he kind of looks down at you, like, if you need any help, and you can see that he's kind of gauging to see how good you are at this stuff. Jenny, what does he see? All right. He sees a woman, obviously. In a grungy jumpsuit, the top half is tied around her waist. She's got a knitted sweater.

It's dirty. And she's got wild hair, braids, and kind of dreadlock style going on. And she's got a choker and some... some skull jewelry. Yeah, and then she has a necklace that you can't see what is at the bottom of this necklace. Got it, so a concealed necklace. Carrying beyond just all of her accoutrements,

but she's also got a long assault rifle. Right, I've got an AK-47. AK-47. And I have a machete. And a machete. And a pistol. Which clangs against her legs a little bit as she pulls herself up from the bottom of this

a bridge that is also a rail line. As Colonel Yackley insinuated a little bit, West St. Louis is a completely bombed out, rubble-filled hellhole. Any buildings that have been previously part of the infrastructure have been bombed, smashed, and reduced to just small chunks of concrete and or stone.

And everything has been picked clean, so much so that even broken glass was taken over, melted down in order to reuse. The only building that still is intact in any particular way is where the UA held a magnificent battle while the engineers blew the last bridges connecting the unsecured lines across the river. That's the old aquarium.

So this aquarium is the most majestic standing fixture that's still on the west side of the river. As you start to get closer and closer to, the train station. The St. Louis train station, you all know where it is. It's on your map. As you approach the train yard, you can actually see the GNS Railway Company, box cars that are lined up amidst the rail station. It's extremely, well, they've been picked clean, but since a lot of these box cars are either old or rusted through, most of the are non-moving or else they would have been brought over east of the river.

So they've either fallen off their tracks or their wheels are so rusted that even Solvent can't break them loose enough to be able to push them across the river. As you get closer, you can start to hear the voices of some men. This spring, denim gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool. With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming.

Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. And they seem to be, well, at least at this point you can't hear what they're saying, but they sound gruff and they sound like way more than two at this point. In fact, you can start to hear two men arguing, hurry up, get that son of a bitch loaded. Yeah, we don't have a lot of time. For all we know more, those UA bastards might come back.

So just get it on the handcart. God damn it, Jim, don't drop that. We're getting looted. Yeah, son of bitch. You can hear this arguing going on as one manner is yelling at another, and so we're like, I'm trying, Jimmy, but Jesus, this shit's heavy. What's in here?

And you start to hear his propping's opening. And you can hear like the pulling of crate. starting being turned up a little bit. Yeah. I'm just walking up with my gun. Cool, same. Well, can we do a spot listen to determine how many people exactly are here?

You can hear at least half a dozen men yelling. Okay, at this stage. Half a dozen men yelling, ostensibly all armed. So, Asher, the best way to do this at the moment is to write out your intent. At this point, you've got the drop on these guys. Right. All right.

So you can tell me how you want to plan this engagement out. You're probably not gonna have a lot of time. That's fair. But at this stage, you can basically tell me how you would like this engagement to go down. Correct me if I'm wrong. Right now, we have all of us and a box car. The rail line between us and these guys over here

who are looting our rail driver. Which is presumably on another rail a little farther down. OK, the real driver is like, or their car is further down. The next car down, yes. OK, got you. So we can approach either from the left to the right, but this is the only thing standing between it. Right now, yes.

Is that accessible from the back side? Yes, you could theoretically open the grate up, but it's shut at the moment. Meaning opening it would completely reveal our presence, essentially. It would make noise. It would make, it presumably would make noise. Can it be climbed? Is there a ladder? There is a ladder on the side.

And there are other box cars on either side? Yeah, but they're not pressed up against it in any particular way. I feel like a direct approach is going to be best anyway, because look, even if we got Rath up on the top to, like, get the drop on them, then none of us could shoot into the crowd, into the crowd because we're gonna hit him. So let's do that. What's going on?

I'm suggesting what you actually suggested first, which is simply having a front-on approach here, going around, locked and loaded, ready to go. All right, so let's write your intent out. So number one, Asher is going to be coming around the right, Band-Aid. So since I'm not great in a fight, I'm proposing that I could sneak into one of the other box cars

and make a bunch of noise as a distraction. Okay, do we have a box car on this side? You have a box car until you're a box car To the left to the right, it's about 25 feet or so down. Oh, it's not next to. It's not next to. I can make enough noise. He's loud.

I'm whiny. Great. So, Band-Aid? Band-Aid is going to be, so what's going to happen to order to make this engagement, it's actually fine. You're just going to be, the intent is what I'm most interested in. So Asher write, your intent, which is to come around the right. In words.

In words, one. Intent, one. Asher, on the right. Stingray is climbing up on the top. Who? Band-Aids hiding in a box car. You're a box car children. You guys, I'm scared.

It's a giant iron closet. Oh, delightful. Yeah. So there's space underneath the box car, right? So what if we weigh on the ground and take out their legs? I don't know. Like, what if we just, yeah. Like, why don't we do whatever we can do.

Jenny's going prone underneath the box car. And, Raythe. I want to slap up against the back of the box car that's in front of us so that if anybody goes over towards the distraction, I can shoot them with my bow. Great. Bam! So just so you guys know the context of this situation,

I rolled to see how much they would hear you coming and how quickly, and I got a solid 100. So yeah, I got a solid 100. So we're got the drop on them. Great. All right, so we have our intent locked, right? Yep. Yep.

As you walk around the corner of the box car, you can actually see this whole train station laid out in front of you. There are several box cars that are patched on various parts of the rails that's across essentially broken and deserted ground. Any kind of foliage that was part of this that may have overgrown has been dried out

and either burnt away from fire being dropped earlier or just completely undergrown. So most of its patches of rubble with a couple of tufts of grass popping up a camera. And you can actually see the large boom arm of what was probably once a service vehicle that's now just decrepit and swaying in the occasional breeze. And you can hear and now see the six men, one of them standing on a crate, yelling at the men trying to unload boxes from your rail driver.

And you can see they've already started to make a pretty sizable stack on one of the hand carts that's just sitting next to the unloaded rail. At the same time, one man is holding a guy in a chokehold with the gun pointing to his head, and he's the first one that sees you. Guys, we have company. What do you want? I believe this is my rail driver. Oh.

Hey guys. Looks like someone's coming back for his wallet. Well, I'm sorry to say, I think it's our rail driver now. Right, buddy? And you can see as this man who is white. with fear is currently looking at you with terrified eyes. And he's got the uniform of one of the Missouri officers, or one of the Missouri military men in place,

and you can see that he's had everything stripped off of him, his extra ammo, his belt, even his pants are on his ankles at the moment, just humiliated. And he's looking at you, and he's going, God man, just don't do anything stupid, okay? Fuck, dude. Just, just get me out of here, okay? Shut up, shut up, as he puts the going closer lens.

Now you're gonna back away real slowly as we unload this car and we go along our merry way. Okay, I'd like to begin shooting. All right, so with the intense laid out here, let's get our combat diorama up and start this first encounter. So Asher, you've come around, and right now this is what you see.

You see these six Raiders with one gentleman, the guy with the red oozy there, who is currently a hold our poor pantsless soldier at the moment sitting there. I can only imagine what transpired here. Feared going on. Now, since we're starting combat here, you declared your intent, you wanna shoot.

I want to begin shooting, yes. You wanna begin shooting. So you can place your mini where you'd like, which by the way, courtesy, thank you of Hero Forge. All there's Raider minis and all of the character minis were lovingly provided by Hero Forge. So thank you, Hero Forge. These are awesome.

In fact, all the character ones are the bronze ones and they painted so well and they have weight. I'm heavy, too like, their dance are strong. Awesome. So, yes, Asher. All right. Tell me your intent again and place your mini. I'm going to begin shooting and I'll even show you who here. Great.

So I've come around the right side. Right. And I'm positioning myself between these guys and the fellow in the back. And I want to start on this guy. Okay. And currently my intent is only to shoot the one guy. Sure, okay.

That's great. So then what I'm gonna have you do is take two speed dice in addition to your check. And how speed dice work is they are essentially your initiative. So as with everything in this game, the lower is better. So the more dice I give you, the more likely you will go later in the round. Sure. So you're shooting your gun, but you gotta drop on these guys,

but it's still two speed. And now I do have the marksman ability, meaning I get to remove one speed die to a minimum of one when using my pistol. Against multiple targets. No, that's just, there's just, Just flat. Oh, just flat?

Oh, great. Well, then you get to roll one speed dice then. Hello. Hi. Hello. Stingray, what's your intent? I'm gonna call down to the asshole who's holding our little hostage. Yeah.

And say, I don't think so. All right. I don't think so. I'm intimidated. Yeah. That's pretty menacing. Oh, I don't think so. Is that intimidating?

Great. And it was your doitor? This dude? Yeah. All right. I am right. He's holding. He's holding hot.

You do not take a man's pants while I'm around. So take two speed dice. No, I too have marksman. Is that effective with a rifle? If you've chosen rifle, yeah. Well, obviously, I don't see a gun I have. Great. Okay, so that reduces you to one.

All right, Band-Aid. Band-aid huffs it to this car. Yeah. Bye. I'm just going to be, I'm inside. Let's use our imaginations. Is there an opening here? Yeah.

Honestly, it is like a loading container, and like a large ship container type that they would put onto the rail cars. So the door happens to be conveniently cracked open just a bit. So if you're gonna be peeking out of that, that's full cover for you. Yeah, man. I'm peeking.

Jeannie. All right, okay, so I know it doesn't look like it, but there is space underneath for me to lay down. I pull out my AK-47. Oh, there would be wheels. would have the wheels would be up a little bit. It's a decommissioned rail car. All right.

And who are you just targeting spray and prey? Yeah. Okay, great. So the hostage. Just don't hit him. I'll try not, yeah. I'm gonna look, yeah, I look for the pants around the ankles and I'm on the far right there, you're fine.

And I don't aim for the pants. Yeah, absolutely. And I made a mental note of what his shoes look like. They're very nice. Very clean. Very clean shoes. And Rayth, what about you? Well, I'm slapped up on the other end of the car

and I've just drawn my arrow on my compound bow. Awesome. So I'm over. Do you want to go for that dude in the far left? Well, I'm waiting for people like get distracted. Oh, okay. And moving over. Right, and then moving over.

And I'm going to fire from cover. From cover. Slapped up with a bow. Great. Okay, so Jenny, you are taking two speed dice. Right, and I have marksman. I changed, I was originally for my pistol, but I changed it to the... Okay. All right, so take one last dice.

And I have marksman for box cards? Since you hoofed it over, I'm just gonna give you two speed dice since you're not doing anything more complicated than that. Wait, sorry, what did you? Two speed dice for you. Okay. Yeah, because you're hoofing it over. All right, all right. And Ray, you're on, you're essentially just,

are you waiting for something to? I'm basically waiting to see if anybody runs towards the distraction. Well, now at this point, like, I, they all see me. We botched the distraction. No, you haven't seen my distraction. And the intent, the intent is, essentially, it's all simultaneous, you know? So if you're on the other side, this is just,

this is all just kind of happening at the same time. So until you lock your intent and you're done, you can change it. I still wanna just try to cover to see if anybody's. What I'm gonna ask you is if you want to do a triggered action, so if you wanna wait, I will 100% allow you to make a composure or a will, check, whatever's stronger.

And if you have any degrees of success that you wanna make for this, then I'll allow you to basically, change your intent to wherever you want next round. Yeah, I think I'm just gonna kind of count down in my head. And if it seems like there's nobody coming for the car and his distraction isn't working, then I'll probably step out and try to shoot whoever I can see.

It is very lightly because they've all seen me now. So before we make checks, you haven't seen this distraction yet. You don't know. I'm about to be shot by everybody at once. By the way, everyone who is, for Raith, for you who is hoping to have a triggered action, I'm actually gonna make you just make the will check right now to see if you can hold it. Okay.

All right. So I've actually just failed with zero. And so let's all resolve our checks. I need damage as well. I also need damage, two damage. Oh, yeah, that's for everybody. Send him down one damage. Tell them one for me of these.

You got the AK. It's one. Two. Right? And do you want me to roll percentiles for anything? For you? For you? No, because you're just hoofing it.

Cool. Oh, OK. I thought I was in place. You are in play. Actually, that's a great point. You didn't actually move it over. So stand by real quick, guys. Band-Aid, we already said everyone was in position when we went to.

So if you wanted to either shoot or do something or do your distraction from here, that can be your intent for this round. Yeah, so I'm not going to shoot. I'm going to charge the side of the box card. Yeah. Then you don't need to check for that. I'm already rolled. Yeah, let's all roll.

Let's all roll. Get your degrees of success and failures. Fuck me. Stand by. Wow. All right guys, so it looks like Raider 1 and Raider 2 are up first. So Raider 1, which is the gentleman holding the baseball at the shield, he is going to turn around and you look at him and he's got his, I think that one's got a mask on, right? That one's got a mask, I believe. So he's got a mask and you watch him turn as he pulls this old riot shield, this like SWAT issued riot shield, as he pulls up a large baseball bat that is just laden with nails and crawls.

barbed wire and you can actually see that he put a spike at the tail end of the bad as well too. I regret my brahado. And he holds- The theme of ashes. And he basically like he turns right next to you and looks at you and just takes a wild swing right for the side of your face. It's allow you to react with a dodge if you'd like. Yeah, I'd like that. Okay.

Into the pit we go. You got this. Shit. Okay. All right. What do we got? That's one failure. One degree of failure.

Yeah. Okay. So you can resolve this how you'd like, but at this case, you're either gonna put yourself in a compromising position or I'm gonna add more damage. Yeah, I'll take compromising. Okay. I bring my arms up to try and block the back coming at me.

And you feel it just impact right against the side of your arms as you feel the stinging of the nails, as well as the bite of the baseball bat. But you actually were braced enough that it didn't knock you prone and a lot of your padding is actually taking inside of it. So right now I've got two damage dice against you for a total of eight. Better bust out the antiseptic dude.

Yeah. Which doesn't go over your damage threshold. It does not. So you do not sustain an injury. But I'm close. But you're basically hurting at the same time. The Raider who looked at you immediately looking straight up, seeing you pulling the gun out and seeing Ray up at the very top.

Which Raiders is doing that right now? The Raider who's holding the hostage. Oh, the Oozie Man over there. Ooozy man is looking at a post. The boozy man looks up to both. Stingray, looks over to Asher, who is in the midst of doing this full block, pulls the trigger. Poo! You watch his like brain matters splathers all across the side as blood falls down and he slumps down dead to the ground. I have no hope for saving him. He levels his pistol up towards where Stingray is up at the top.

So with that said, Stingray. I have one degree of failure. So that's for you. We can resolve it through this round, how you wish. But how would you like to resolve your failure? Well, I was going to aim for Uzi fucker before he shot the dude. I like that name. It suggests something else.

Sorry. I was going to aim for him before. So can I just resolve that by egregiously missing? You could do it absolutely by egregiously missing. Didn't have to say egregiously. So you'll take a depletion, which means you spent a shell for your bolt action. So take a white dice.

for a depletion point. So Stingray, the reaction of seeing this man's fear-stricken face, looking at you, hoping that you will save him, as his exit wound clears out of everything, leaving all sentience out of his face as he slumps down to the ground with this man. It shocks me into missing.

It shocks you straight into missing, and you watch as a little kick of dust comes up right next to the side of him as your high caliber rifle cracks into the midst of the air. Band-aid, you're up next. All right, as soon as I get in there, what is around me in the side? in this box car.

Is it completely empty? It's completely empty. Cool, good. Yeah. So I'm gonna go back against like the far wall and just take a running start and just shoulder it and-h-h-haw! Yes.

Asher and all of you, you watch as several of the men start to turn their heads to the side hearing something, hoping that it's a scream, maybe it's not infected. Next is Jenny. Come on, come on. Woo! Okay. And yeah, it's just one degree of six.

Yes. Okay. So you can spend that for more damage or you can continue to do additional actions or reactions in the game as well too. Or I could just buy it off of you for survival points if you're happy with your damage rolls. More damage?

Well, um, more people. More additional targets. Yeah, additional targets. Additional targets. Can you do that with only one? Well, at this point she was spraying and praying. Sure. So I'll allow it for the moment.

I mean, the one person she didn't want to kill the soda. Yeah. Two. Two. Okay. So Jenny is you leveled you feel the kick of your AK as you basically watch it sink through a couple of the ankles of a couple of the men.

And one of them just like dances as he lifts his legs up, not really knowing what's happening. But one of them is screaming, prone as he, As he falls down holding his machete, just grasping a hold of his legs, you could watch his blood is starting to pool from the side of his face. Was that the right? The side of his leg. Oh, okay. I've still got him in front of me.

Great, Asher's up. Yeah, I'm shooting the guy who's just like right here. Right. Shouldn't miss that, yeah. So one's exploding, adding two more. Oh god, right here. Here we go. You've leveled this guy.

Yes, easily. He's done. Describe to me his gruesome death. Okay, so. He gets me with the bat. Right. And I get up under that, I get it under my arm like this,

pull it forward, get behind the shield like this, and get him right underneath. with the gun. As he literally flops back, you watches the dust kick up on the side of him. So you officially made the second casualty of the encounter by dropping him completely to the floor.

So he is not getting back up. What's happening right now? Let's see. And so I could target another dude. Honestly, I think Uzi guy is more of a threat right now. And I'm gonna trust that Rath is gonna take out the obvious target on the left there, I hope. We'll see.

If he moved, I can't see you if he don't move. You gradually turn into the Swedish chef. Rubber d'urber. Okay. Sorry, these two are these two gonna become damage? Yes. All right, so then roll. One out of intent and three for damage.

All right, roll. That's four, seven, nine. So you, after doing this chin shot, and it was badass. You level your gun and take it to the Uzi, who, you blast him in the shoulder and he screams as he moves his gun over to the side of his arm where he is now feeling it pretty intensely. And he starts doubling over in pain, but he switches his hands back over to apply pressure to the wound as he's shakingly trying to move his Uzi back out into the world. So, but he is, he is, he is screaming in agony at this moment. Then that would be there. And now we have our gentleman on the, who is

He is not getting up, so his turn is forfeit. And then he's gonna try to shoot. So. The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, an army scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness

chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old school adventure. old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.

Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the Shadow Dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the Glass Cannon with the podcast version. dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. All right, he's going to, so the gentleman, or I keep calling him gentlemen, but they're raiders. He's not a gentleman.

There's no gentleman in the post of horaceans. So the ruffian who just took a giant bullet wound into the side level, and basically, as he tries to just do a widespread, and everybody gets their head down as it just kind of you hear it, tink, tink, tink, tink, against various parts of the box. car and you watch as basically everyone puts their head down but he gets nothing as he kind

of shoots wildly into the night into the morning and then the other one the one who is so obviously to the left also pulls out his gun and looking towards looking over his shoulder for a moment hoping that there isn't any infected around he he basically he pops a few shots off with his gun but they miss just off to the you can hear as the bullets are by you, as to the left of you, everything's kind of moving across. So that's the first round. We can now go back to doing intent again.

Boy, that was a big risk. The guy who is currently on top of the box, who is currently yelling orders, he has jumped off of his box. The dude that from behind looks like dead hole? Yeah, you see his head peeking up there. That's what he looks like, but from back here. This gentleman, this gentleman. This guy, this, this, this Danny.

Like a nondescript superhero in a red suit. Right. He hops down as he starts running along the rail line towards Asher, but he's heading towards the hand cart. As he basically hops on top of the rail cart, looking to his guys and goes, hold them off. As he hops onto the hand cart and starts lifting it and pumping it down. All right, now let's go and do intent again. Asher. Okay, so I'm going to do this. Now this guy with a bat is running past me towards. the hand cart?

Well, he's running towards you, all along the rail line. Yes. Awesome. So what I'd like to do is move back just behind the lip here. So I'm not a target for these guys here, and then take a shot at the guy coming at me right here. So you're targeting the guy in the handcart. That dude. All right, the leader.

Mr. Batman. Great. So that is yours. And how about you? Miss Ray. I'm going to let you handle the duder with the bat. Okay. And a handcart guy, and I am going to aim down at Mr. Ouse.

All right, mandate. I'm just gonna keep going. I'm gonna ruckus. Make a lot of inward singing noises. Like the infected. Make infected noises. All right, great. All right.

So, no, check for that. You are doing your thing, Jenny. I'm gonna use my AK-47 again. I'm just gonna. Still legs? Yeah, shoot at some ankles. So same roll as last time, Ben. Okay.

And Ray. Now, it doesn't seem like any of these guys are coming. are coming for this distraction. Well, if anything, you can hear them, because he's making such a ruckus, they're actually going away from the box car. Okay. You can see out of the corner of your eye that guy to the left,

he's clearly like inching away from it. And you have like a straight shot. As he's heading towards where, presumably as far as your line of sight is concerned, down the rail car. So as a benefit from all the extra speed that I got from the previous round, can I basically like, Go around the corner with my bow drawn and take a very precisely aimed shot at the one that's closest to me. Absolutely.

The shotgun kind of thing. Yeah. Well, let's check everyone's speed. Asher, what's your speed? I didn't roll yet. Oh, let's all roll it up, everybody. Rolling up speed. Great, so I've got all of my speed laid out for our Raiders. Stingray, you're up first. I want to aim directly at the Uzi-Dudor.

So on top of whatever damage dice you rolled, you can spend those for more damage if you want. Word, I would like to take more damage. Okay, I only have three. Then roll more damage. Yeah, you want to polish them off. I really do. Watch it's all like ones.

Don't curse it. Oh, God. No, you've lowered expectations, guys. Come on. I didn't see it. Oh, my God. Oh, wow. I also had the other damage.

Let's be clear, she rolled a one, a one, a one? I don't know, it was two, two ones. Oh my God. All right. So this is also damage from him doing stuff as well too. So as you level the, your- Stop it.

As you level your scoped hunting rifle onto him and pop a shot straight through, you actually watches it, hits him right in the chest and you watch as he kind of, he has what's clearly like a bulletproof vest on, but it's just thrown over the top of his vest at the moment. And you watch as he just kind of like, sucks the gut, but he bends down and you watch he kind of like curls up into a little bit of a fetal position.

As far as you can tell, he's not getting back up, but he's still wailing from the pain. He's made of tougher stuff. He's alive. He's alive, yes. He's alive. All right, so, Rayth, you're next. With the four.

All right, so I got two degrees of success. Oh, Band-Aids next with a three. It's okay. It's very important to what I'm doing. Yes. You're a vital screamer. I'm gonna take out my knife and use the handle to bang on.

That's innovation. Well, at this point, you can all, but I don't want to. You can, you can, you can, you can all hear the rattling and banging this point, but it is absolutely noise, it clearly has everybody up on edge,

but right now you can tell the least, well you can't tell anything, but you four are definitely seeing that it's just putting everybody on edge a little bit, is they're all, whatever morale you've done on this is broken, you can see them all starting to get to the point of where they're more ready to run. run at this stage.

You're thinking them out. She's doing the job. Shoot them on the back. Okay, now, Rath with a four. All right. So I got, I turn around the corner. I think I really just want to shoot this guy right in the collarbone, basically. So another two damage.

Can pass me down, or I can just use these two. So I've got 11. And then we've got another seven to that, so 18. Speak of me, his grisly demise. Okay. So I let me. loose the arrow and I say, seek. Of course you do.

I imagine you come in slow-mo with all your acutche-a-mots like flowing. So the arrow just almost like spirals into the space right at the base of his neck. Before he can let out a scream, you just like, yeah, you just see blood just pools in a puddle filling his collarbone. And it just comes out of his mouth as you watch

as it's dripping down and he kind of grabs his neck because you can hear him wheezing for breath. As he slumped over, eyes wide open, completely darked. So, yes, 100% you have taken him down in a gruesome fashion. Can I knock over his figure? Absolutely. Yes, you may. How cute you were about that.

For such a badass, it's got an undignified death scream, too. Okay. The one Raider who is still standing at this point is going to be running and moving. Cool. I got two degrees of success. Go for it. Yes. Just something.

Oh, yeah. All right, so that is definitely enough to the one who is prone, who you ankleed previously, another burst fire will basically end him very quickly as you, t-da-t-t-t-t-tit. As it comes down, you just clear him for whatever he's worth, as he is no longer moving. And this guy is running straight for the hand cart, as well, too, as he takes a couple of straight

shots at Stingray, who's still up there and exposed at the top of the rail car, at the top of the box car. Is this Uzi Boy? No, not Uzi Boy. Uzi Boy is also probably and just gut-wrenchingly having a bad time. But he pulls his sidearm and takes a couple of shots as he's basically running up because he's got one as well. And they pop on the hand cart. He is just hurting on the floor. Okay, Asher, with speed six, you're the last one up.

That's me. Okay, I can't do enough damage unless they explode. to kill them both. There's no way. To kill him, but you can slow him down. But then they can shoot at me. Oh, fuck that. I'm gonna burn one of these to like move away. Do it.

So I'm gonna do, let's do three extra damage on Bat Dude. All right. Just to clean him up. Geez. Oh! Yes! So he takes a bullet into the side and you can see that everyone's wearing a little bit of armor, but you just basically watches it.

He basically takes the hit as he's pumping the car and just continue to move, but he's got his hand on his back of them as you're watching his blood starts to spout from the white undershirt that he's wearing. Fantastic. They're on the handcar. They're on the handcar.

Oh, they're out of, they're trying to get out of here. Yes. Oh, I see. Do we need the hand card to get to the- They took some of our stuff's on it. On the hand card. Yeah, they take our stuff. You know what, yeah, screw it.

I'm gonna spend one success to move. All right. So I'm not an obvious target. Jump on the car. Dude, you can jump on the car. You're hiding in the box. Stop talking. He's doing valuable box car work.

Oh my God. I'm already on two damage dice right now. I'm good. I know. Great. You basically spend your last degree of success in order to run around the box car getting yourself in full cover out of the way. Okay, solid.

So at this point, we're back at the top. So let's make this perfectly clear. We need to kill these two. Because we need our shit. So, Rayth, I'm gonna start on your end of the table, with your intent this time. Yeah, I want to take a shot at whichever one looks the most injured. I'm guessing it's probably.

Bat dude? God. Who's on the farthest side of the hand card at the moment? He is. Yeah, he's further. Actually, you know what? If he's got one hand on the pump thing, and he has a bat and the other, he doesn't have a ranged weapon.

So I think I'm actually going to go for the other guy instead. Okay. Jenny. I'm going to jump up and just move over so I can aim at. So you want to move and then shoot? Yeah. As well too. Okay. Are you coming up to the far side from where I am?

Yeah. All right, well then that's gonna be. You're peeking around the corner of that. Yeah, just so I can get a shot up the guy. Band-Aid. I don't know what's happening. Yeah, no, you should have been bang on? Yeah, no, I'm gonna stop and then use the moment

to like quietly peek out the door to see, assess the situation. All right. He's that voice. I am gonna aim at the other guy without the bat. He is not injured. Correct. Correct. And he's also being targeted by Ray.

I too will take him. Great. All right, so then you'll take him. Just take him. Because again, you're not moving. You get reduced down the one for Marksman. So all good. Which style were you focusing down?

Well, I'm just moving right. You can move and shoot. No, you can move and shoot. That's why you got two speed die. I mean, whoever's closest to me. They're both. They're two on the hand cart. You'll see them.

Right now, we have two people focusing down the guy with the gun. Okay. That guy is already injured, and I'm gonna focus him down too. They're close enough together if you just wanted to target all the individuals on the rail car. Yes, yes, I would like to do that.

Yeah, I just want to do that. That's right, you gotta. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. Then, okay, so I need to be some dice probably. Jenny's up there, raised there, so actually. Hello, yes, I'd like, I'd like to peek, like just cartoon style, like under Jenny, like, hey.

Yeah. Hold for a head, just peek at the same time. I'd like to peek and. Me, you're doing the same thing. Yeah, we are, really. On the other slide. I'd like to peek and shoot at the bat person. Okay, so another one of the guys in the hand cart.

All right? So you're not moving, you're just looking and you're taking more speed dice. Man, you guys, they're so out in the open, they're just taking it. That's bad planning on their part. Yeah, it's true. And don't steal from us.

And be afraid of box cards. There's a lot of lessons to learn here. So Asher, you've got, because of your marksman, you're just dealing with the one speed dice as well too. You know what's up. All right, everyone. I do know what's up.

Roll your checks. For the resolve, the resolution. Curses! Curses! Bandaid, as you peer out through the box car. Very carefully. You actually, as you look around, you can see Rath holding his bow as he's about ready to do a draw and pull,

and you can see the body of several Raiders. One of them is just doubled over in pain as he seems to be bleeding out on the floor there. One just has an arrow through his neck as he's laying across the railway, and then you can constantly hear from Jenny's... That's a good sound, man.

That's good sound, it's awesome. It's good sound. Of Jenny's AK-47 has it rattled out a few times. Cool, we're winning. You're winning. Go team. Go team. I'll slowly, like, inch my way out of the box.

Absolutely. Asher and Stingray, you're up next with a three. Okay. I rolled five success. Okay. Give me. Great, we have this. Mm-hmm. This is great. It is. You were targeting Gun Man in the Back or Bat Dude?

Gun Man in the Back. Gun Man in the Back. The Raider on the back with the machine gun was basically spraying as he was hopping onto the hand cart with everybody. That's the guy that I was aiming at. At the very least, I want to just deal with the people on the cart as best I can. Because even if she fails miserably, but I can still chip away at these guys. That's not miserable. Not miserable, not miserable.

That is the gentle failure. Pretty miserable. That is the double-edged sword of resolving degrees of success and degrees of failure. I'm feeling that sword. Yes. Feeling that sting. Okay, so I rolled one damage so far,

which is just fantastic. I haven't pulled out my sword yet. Right. And I'm gonna roll some more. So that's the Batman, human. That guy. Oh, wow. I'm never gonna learn.

I'm never gonna learn. It can never be one thing. No. No. No. Oh. Okay. Okay, okay.

So that's five, seven, eight. He gets total of eight damage on that person. So as you fire basically your pistol into it, you're basically peppering these guys as they're attempting to move the cart. They have no cover, they're completely exposed, and you can see that they are taking hits and it is hurting.

And the same way that his comrade on the hand card is moving, you can see that you can start to watch his blood is starting to trickle down his leg as you've potentially hit. him either in the leg or the hip. Oh my god, die already. Oh, god, just keep it moving. Just get the cart out of here.

As you can see, every single pump of that hand cart is just agony for them. Good. I'm going to target the guy in the back. Okay. Seven against the guy in the back. All right. Explain to me his grizzly demise.

Yes. That's going to be my new favorite phrase. Okay, so he's pumping, he's pumping. Has he been hit yet? Yes. Oh, he's already damaged, right. He's bleeding and he's hurting. So he's pumping, he's pumping with every pump,

every exertion, fresh blood oozes from his existing wounds. Yeah. And I peek out, Jenny's like right there, her hairs in my face, I'm like, it's fine. And then I, it's elegantly rated. I raise my gun, put a couple shots into the guy in the front. He's still pumping, he's still going at it. I'm like, oh God, okay, fine.

Go to the guy in the back, and I aim, Steady my breath, squeeze one final shot off and get him perfectly center mass through a chink right there, through the opening in his body armor. So it cuts sideways through his torso. And you basically just take it through his heart and he drops without even a gasp as he falls down onto the hand cart.

You watch as the cart slowly start to move as his body more of his weights off the cart than on slumps over the side of the cart as it begins to move and creak forward. Just roll your depletion, see how you're doing on the capacity. Man. Oh. All right, so click, click, click.

As you've basically fired out this last shot, you feel your slide pull back as you are fresh out. Someone else get him. So as your slide pulls back, you watch it pull out. And this guy who is currently still moving forward, he begins to continue to pump it, he's only got about 15, 20 feet of he's moving. But he's only about,

about 15 or 20 feet away from the actual area where this encounter has started at the moment before, he's just gasping, as he can barely start to move the rail cart anymore. So to clean this up, these basically two men on the hand cart are either bleeding out or just they're non-combat. They're either hurting or they're doubled over or they're bleeding out or dying at this stage of things.

So Ray, to resolve your two degrees of failure, I hope you don't mind. I'm just gonna buy these off of you for risk at this stage. I do mind, but I'm just gonna have to give that over to you. Yeah, sorry, it's mine. So, as you basically finish your long line of expletives and pop off that last shot, you look to the side of your eye, and you can actually see on the top of these set of box cars

doubled up a lone figure standing on top of it as he looks around, and you can see with the kind of morning light pushing it from the back of him, illuminating him, in this morning light, you just hear a long... ...world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story

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