Legends of Avantris - Stardust Rhapsody: Anthem | S2E2 | Crazy On You

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

🚀Neon Odyssey, our Space Opera trilogy for D&D 5.5e, is the biggest TTRPG crowdfunding campaign of all time! Pre-Order Now and get limited-time box exclusives: https://NeonRPG.com 🎃Terrify your friends in D&D with *The Crooked Moon,* our 632-page Folk Horror tome for 5E: https://thecrookedmoon.com   🌎Join our *Patreon* to get thousands of hours of content including Avantris & Chill, unedited campaigns, a weekly game stream, 4 exclusive campaigns, monthly movie nights, and much more: https://avantris.com/patreon 👕 Get awesome, beautiful, or hilarious *merch* of your favorite characters including Chuckles, Bitsy, Torbek, and more at the Avantris shop: https://avantris.com/shop 👾Join the Avantris community on *Discord* to chat about your favorite campaigns: https://avantris.com/discord 🔴Watch us play D&D LIVE every week on *Twitch:* https://www.twitch.tv/legendsofavantris 🔗 *All other links:* https://linktr.ee/legendsofavantris   Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/LbMBNzQBkHg

your instruments and lend your cosmic chorus to our Stardust Rhapsody. Let's jam. After a long journey hunting the Scarlet Eye Syndicate, the crew takes a well-deserved break to celebrate a very special day. Ziggy's 25th birthday. They enjoy pizza and games at the chain establishment, did someone say pizza in Meteor Mall? The festivities are abruptly cut short.

when, with an orange glow in their eyes, the animatronics come to life and attack the party, immediately grappling Ziggy. They then dispatch them until the lead animatronic, hungry H. Hippo himself comes to life, eyes once more alight with a neon orange glow. A gift pops out of his chest, wishing Dino Bite a happy birthday.

Ziggy takes it and discovers a retro an ancient grid boy. Let's play, blinks on the screen. After an eventful birthday celebration, they head back to the Rhapsody where Rhett gets a lead on Portia Bella Gones, their latest bounty.

They make their way to Asriel searching for Balf Scudder. They find him. You stand in the ruined living room of Balf Scudder. Absolutely coated in his blood after Portia Bella Gones murdered him in the fashion you are familiar with.

This isn't the first time you've followed up on one of her kills with a shotgun blast to the head, but it is the first time you've seen the scene up close. Blood runs down his chest over the tattoo that depicts a serpent eating its own tail, his stained shirt having been forcibly ripped open just before or after his death. Your lead has turned up dead once more.

So this is, like you said, not the first time we've seen the evidence of Portia Bella's style of killing assassination. No, you would have seen this almost needlework blast specifically to the head of splattered blood and bone across several crime scenes, as it were, hits. Never this up close, though, with the opportunity to really examine the body and get into it, or the surrounding environment. But it is certainly not the first time, and you know this very specifically, as you come upon his now-deceased form, that this is absolutely the handiwork of Portia Bella. Damn it. Not again.

Well, I guess he had reason to be scared. I mean, this is that he just fucking happened. I'm going to basically, like, everyone watch your shit, as I'm going to start like trying to run through the apartment and see if Portia Bella is still here. I probably, Mikey probably understands that a master assassin like that would be gone without a trace. But like this feels fresh, right?

It's not rotting. It's not like. Oh, blood is dripping down the chest. It's not congealed or solidified. It's obvious that it's like. minutes ago? I guess what I would do is I would walk up to the body itself. And while Coe is doing that,

Rhett would have a similar instinct, but instead look at the body to kind of gauge how fresh it feels in terms of how long ago he was killed. Roll a medicine check. And if I can, I'm not gonna jump into the room, but hearing Coe's words and seeing Rhett go into. Roll an investigation check. I'm going to scan the horizon.

I'm gonna turn away from. from the opening door. Are we on? You're in the penhouse. You're the absolute top level of this guy, yeah, yeah. Apartment building. So you're looking out over this city.

Okay, so I can actually look at the window and I wanna see if I see a speeder that's unusual or someone running along a rooftop or something along those lines. Well, perception check. Yep, boy. Rett. Natural 20. 14.

With a 14. It's hard to get an exact sense. But you can tell. quite that rigor is not set in yet. The blood is as I said is is actively moving across his chest. There's the ever faintest presence of warmth though it's it's the warmth of life is is long since from its peak but it's it's not minutes but it's hard to tell three five ten hours it's hard to know exactly when it would have happened.

Ziki, you move to the window, scanning their eyes on any suspicious season. So I see a natural 20. You see the metropolis laid open and bare in front of you of Azrael. It's beautiful, golden, almost like a sea of decadence lays out in front of you. And yet, you see no evidence of any suspicious movements. Of course, the movement of... I'll be adjusting my goggles, trying some zooms.

You'll see speeders zipping around throughout, through and in-between structures as people make their way. You may be able to even look down and see people amongst the streets looking like ants from how high you are up in the air. But it's impossible to pull someone out who looks suspicious as if they're carrying weaponry covered in blood. You find no trace. I'll continue to scan, not knowing if the murder was 60 seconds ago or if it was hours ago.

I don't have that information yet, so I'm just going to keep looking in case I spot something. Go. I got a 13. With a 13. Where are you? I'm running through. I'm just looking for Portia Bella, seeing if she happens to still. I'm looking in the closets.

I'm looking in the bathroom. There's like a shower. He probably has one of those fucking waterfall, you know, rich asshole showers. I'll say because you mentioned it. You run into the bedroom. And by extension, the Lux extremely open bathroom attached to it, almost bigger than the room you have on the Rhapsody. And not that those are particularly small either, but this is a large Lux space. You see as you pass through his bedroom, you see the sheet.

seem to be stained with sweat, and they're disheveled. You find pillows on the floor, as if he was really struggling with to fall asleep. Lack of comfort, couldn't relax, always that air of paranoia, perhaps. You move into, as you're going to...

And I'm not looking for me. I'm not trying to, like, super-analyze. I'm just, like, going through quickly. You're just picking up, you're picking up on the... you're picking up on things just kind of as you come across them. It's, I'll say with your role, that's what you've, that's when you've been able to discern.

Yeah. She's not here. She doesn't seem to be scaling down the window or repelling or anything or NSP. I'm looking all over the place. Anyone else got anything? No. She's fucking gone again. She must have been right here, right?

I'll turn around and look at Red. How long do you think it's been? It has been long. This is fresh, but she could be off world by now. This is the close we've been! I'm going to lean forward and just take a closer look at the glass of alcohol that's sitting on the table and try to see without touching it. I'm just going to get close and see if there's any discernible, like,

markings on it, like if it's been picked up, or if there's a lip mark, or if it's been consumed at all, or if it looks like it was poured and never touched. Roll A investigation check. Not very good at that. 15. Not bad. 15. You do see grip marks on it.

It's hard to tell whether or not he himself had drank from it. What you can tell almost as you get close to it, however, is there's almost a small layer of, on top of it as if he had ice in the glass and the water has fully melted and moved to the top not not mixed in from the so in the you would be able to discern from that at least likely an hour has gone by since he poured this um whether or not he was able to take a sip in that time it's hard to tell exactly what level he had had it at um yeah i wonder if he asked for one last before she did him in.

I mean, the question is, what the fuck did she want to kill this guy for? Let's do what we do best. I'll turn to pike. And my hope is that we would like go through and just look for clothes. We basically group investigation. As we go to do that,

you'll watch as pixel skin begins to transform from green to yellow. and light is shed all over the place. As I use emotional spectrum and I go yellow so that we have advantage on our investigation checks. Oh, I know. Oh, shit, advantage. Roll Groot investigation check at advantage.

I would like to target any computer systems. That's where my eyes would go as Ziggy, certainly. I would be looking for any wall ports or terminals or devices that I might be able to engage with. Oh, thank you for that. Holy goodness. 25. 19, but you can go first.

13. You got? 16. But I'm not really trying to look. I'm just like. You're hyping everybody else on. It is a group after. Absolutely.

We're gonna figure out what this is. And I'm doing like calisthenics. You're playing this song also on the guitar. It's like really amping us up. Zicki, at a, relatively modern but ornate, but extremely nice. nice desk, you find his personal computer.

You connect to it. You find that the computer itself has been completely fried and destroyed, and there's nothing left of it. Nothing left of its drive. To the side of it, you see what looks like as the desk pulls out

an inlaid security terminal. I plug into that, yeah. You get this sense, and you can plainly tell that he had upgraded the security of this apartment heavily in recent days. And it all seems to be strangely disabled. I can see the date modified logs, and I can see that all of these would have been very freshly updated. All of the installations and everything seem very, very recent. He must have been freaking out because he updated his security systems real fresh within the last week. Pike, Brett, you join Cohen the bedroom.

One thing stands out to you, it catches your eye. A large dresser closed as if untouched. You move to it. You swing it open. Within a safe, completely undisturbed. and several articles of clothing, not garish, but high-end suiting, and almost flamboyant shirts hang in the closet.

You can attempt to crack the safe, but I'll say with your 25, what was it? 25. 25. As you look into this closet, you notice, You notice what looks like something between the suits and shirts. Wait, hold on a second. I will keep looking closer.

You separate, you part, you put your arms through the suits to one side, shirts, pants, you separate everything. Towards the back of the closet, it's almost dark back here, the light where you're standing, the light can't quite hit it. Pike, you shine a glow into the closet. into the closet.

I got you, buddy. And it illuminates the ravings of a madman. You see scribbling, drawings, writings, almost indiscernible. But one thing stands out to you, and to the two of you in particular, something that looks oddly familiar, a drawling of a creature from the head with these long eye stalks that almost look back at you. strikes is oddly familiar what in the hails this is getting strange when we first walked in here we saw the safe and the clothing I was gonna say that this was clearly some sort of just revenge I mean she didn't rob the guy at all but then we

see this what's going on with this guy can I think about why it feels familiar this guy look familiar to you no you can roll a history check and I'll say advantage. And that came from me because Andy and I said at the same time. So I was going to give it to you. No, no, I was back to you. I was going to get it to you.

You were in my brain. Jigs. You were in my brain, James. 16. With advantage? Well, if you fail, I got to, I got to, if it's a, you know, you fail, I got to think. You think back for a moment,

and you can't, you can't help but wonder if you draw this conclusion because of the prey that you now seek or the bounty that you now have. But you think Portiabella quibbly glup. And it's when you get to glup and you think about his face, you think about facing him down as you battled in the Dodongunite bot factory, that the connection draws between this visage drawn that the back of scribbled into the back of this closet,

evokes the memory of glup. Um, right, come here, look at this. Yeah. Is that look like who I think it looks like? No way. It is. Man, we really messed up by finding those guys. What was it mean?

I mean, did this guy lose his mind before she showed up? Or? We know he was doing me. doing mind tricks and training quibbly. I mean, maybe Glup had students before them or something just doesn't add up here. I mean, it's a bit crude. Maybe it's just any old nematowing, but that looks just like him. Does it look like specifically Glup and not just like any old nematone like stick figure, you know, like, like, are there details? Yeah, 15. Was it 14?

Is someone who played Glup, would it be that, like, his particularly dark eyes and almost like the irises, the black irises that went filled the entire eye? That would be like how, that would be a unique feature for Gluck, comparatively to other Namedals. I'd say, well, he had the color, I think he also had like elements of hair, I believe, and like, you know, the wide face.

But I would say, the, the, eyes in particular would stand out to you. The eyes would particular would stand out to you is not just another feature of another nameless nematoan, but specifically, uh, evoking glut. Gluck Bondo. Look, Red, I don't know what to make at this. Regardless, we gotta see what we can find and then we're gonna have to report this. I don't want to get caught here in the wrong place of the wrong time. Shit. Yeah, yeah, we gotta, we gotta let the feds know. You think you'll help me look at the body one more time, right?

All right, I'm with you. And I would like to go back and see if I can get a closer examination of the body. Uh, you head back out there, and I would say, before you arrive to the body, uh... Pixel, you find something, as everyone searches. Uh, in the kitchen, uh, there's a... you're pulling open drawers, checking, seeing what you can potentially come across. You open a lid that actually strangely opens up

and pushes back, and within it you find a large, slightly hidden, but a large metallic incinerator. And it looks like it has been used very recently. What? Okay. What the fuck? Hello. Hello?

Yeah, what's going on? I think I found a body burner? Yeah, there's something in me that looks like you can burn bodies. Incinerate stuff. I'm gonna run over and look inside the, does it look like there's bones and bodies inside of this thing? You can look in, and you have the full body of both in the apartment with you,

but you get a sense that it was used to potentially burn anything. that could be considered evidence, possibly used just shortly before he died. Do you see? You put bodies in there and burn him up. Well, I think he maybe could, but you have to, like, chop them up, I think. What do you mean? I'd fit in there. It's just, like, super easy.

Well, I wouldn't recommend it. It's an incinerator for, like, evidence, for, like, documents and stuff. Well, why wouldn't you just use a paper shredder? You can destroy all kinds of electronics, and you can reassemble. Like, if I had shredded paper, I could control Z-that, no problem. An incinerator like this. I can't run my scripts on this. Yeah, but if you pee all over the paper,

then you can't do anything else with it. I could control Z piss. Can you? I mean, on paper, sure. So you don't think this is important at all? We shouldn't tell anyone else? No, we should tell everyone about this. I'm going to sift through the, like,

I'll go to the drawer that I can find like a spoon, you know, a space wooden spoon. Are you going to, you're going to look in that? I'm going to try to look inside of it. Okay, well, I mean, if you're going to do that, then, you know, rancel to dazzle, and I'm gonna give you iconic inspiration. Oh.

I feel extremely dazzled and razzled. And doing my best to put my body between the incinerator and Pixel so that she doesn't jump inside, I will rustle around. I'm basically climbing up his back trying to look in. I am negating anything he's trying to do. I just don't want the lid to close and us have a serious accident.

Yeah, you're both knocked into the incinerator. When you're moving around, what's that? Is that a skull in there? What's that? Ziggy, look over there, go to the left. And that's what I'm doing. Just don't fall in. And I will take a space wooden spoon, and I will poke around.

You? What was your investigation check? You were a natural toy, right? That was my perception check. My investigation was 19. 19. I'd say with the 19. You start to sift through.

It has like a base to it that you can slide out, this metallic base. It's all covered in a layer of just black. as you start to sip through it with this spoon. No bones, no bones, no bones. And as you're looking around, you don't see anything that looks like human or, or, you don't see any bones. Something. They're not hurting any bones.

This thing is slotted in pretty tight into a, like square in the kitchen. You see something that looks like a sheet of paper almost slid between the side of this and the box in the kitchen it sits in and you pull it out and from it you give it a quick read and this looks like somebody who was hastily throwing papers in and one missed as they were possibly frantically tossing stuff in the air swept it and and slid it just to the side of this and so it survived the evidence here what you can see it becomes clear that that Scudder made his money serving as a broker

for off the books mercenaries, hitmen, security, handling darker jobs. Hey, hey, guys, we found something. Sicki? Yeah. You have any idea how many bones you just inhaled digging in there? I don't think it was bones. I think it's all paper.

I don't know, I'm gonna tell everyone you were inhaling bones. Let me see. What you find? Well, as far as I can tell, this is like a receipt of how he made his money. You can see from the log here that he would, you know, you book mercenaries and other nefarious dealings. It looks almost like a torn page from a black book ledger. Well, this explains why he was connected to Guggett to Glep and Quibbley. There were the real mystery, though.

Is, did he burn these? Or did she? Hmm. I mean, he apparently was a fucking raving psychopath when he died. Didn't that, isn't that what Brass said? I mean, he was having real bad fucking sleep. Look, his bed was a mess. He was disheveled.

Maybe he was nightmares? And the Scriblins. So maybe, like you said, this is revenge. And she somehow blamed this guy for, for Quibbley's death, I don't know. You said something about there being like a symbol on his body. Correct, that's exactly why I was asking for him.

Oh, I'm sorry, yes, you didn't ask to go back to the body. Yes, I did say there was something about a symbol on his body. The shirt torn open on his dead form right beneath his, what was once ahead. The shirt he wore tore open and against his skin, you see a tattoo.

And you'd presumably all be standing here at this moment as you walk in, you see this tattoo of what looks like a serpent wrapping around in a circle and it begins to consume its own tail. Obviously, we don't need to, you said it's there, whatever. I was gonna say make us roll, whatever you want to make us find it, whatever,

but you had mentioned at the end of the last episode. Yes. I was going to ask if any of us or Redder or I or whomever would recognize the symbol or have ever seen it before, if none of us have ever seen it before. That was gonna be my question. Roll a history check.

And I presume at least not just me, if anybody else is looking at it. I'll look at it. If I can. Here's the thing. You can rule a, you roll a. I mean, obviously it was clearly a cannibal. That's not the conclusion I'm drawing,

but I'm open to hearing your thoughts. Well, you know, because the snake is another snake, that's cannibalism. And you know what they say that when you're a cannibal, you start to go crazy after a while, so it's kind of all tracks. It's a pretty sick inking. I mean, that's a pretty cool snake.

I mean, I don't know. It looks awesome to make it. It's possible you just like snakes, right? You know. That's pretty cool. Why would it be eating itself? What would be the meaning behind that? Maybe he's a cannibal.

That's what I'm saying, that's why he's so crazy. I got a, hold on, I got a seven. Oh, boy. I got a 15. 15. With both your roles, you stand, You have never seen this tattoo symbol. It rattles nothing for it. You've never seen this before.

I've got nothing. Is there any way that we can record this and show it to someone who might know? Yeah, I mean, we can take some photos. I will pull my grid boy out and start to take as many photos as I can. I hate to just turn everything over to the feds, but we gotta do something. No, I mean, and I'm not getting blamed for this. No, we have to report it basically right away.

Would I know, I guess, presumably there's some sort of, whether I know someone from my days being assigned to the Solar Federation that I could call, or even if there's like a 911 of Solar Federation space, I can say, I'll start making some calls. Try to record as much as you can before we fucking get out of here and the authority show up. If the fucking badges show up, are they going to take our stuff? Are they going to take the photos? I do I think that I could take video and photos and upload them to the Rhapsody? Like, would they be required to be, like, if I could send via the to Hank or or? Oh, computer check. It depends on the signal.

Uh, 16. You also have inspiration. Uh, what's that? It's a D8 now? Yeah. It's a D8 now. Oh, shit. Uh, that's going to be a, uh, dirty 20.

Uh, with a 20? You think absolutely you could, you could, uh, take some photos, take some videos, encrypt it perhaps. Oh, I'll just save them to the nebula. If they take them off my grid boy, it'll be, it won't be the end of the world. Damn. Damn. And if we have a contact or if we can talk to someone who,

who knows that we're bounty hunters, maybe they can, you know, really give this place the police attention that they should. It's a murder, right? Are there fingerprints or other signs that we're missing because we don't have all the tools? That's possible. We got to leave it to them.

That's all we can do right now. And the question is, was she, is she doing all of this because she's being hired to? Or because she wants to? I mean, I figured the guild put a bounty, on her because you know she's some kind of assassin being hired to assassinate people but there's a glup connection man I wish we didn't turn over the pirates shitmail shit jaws oh and Captain Sawtooth oh that was that guy's name

they would be so useful right now how do you mean I mean they think they they knew who she was trying to threaten us, saying that she was gonna come for us or she was gonna give a shit, and I mean, I didn't get anything of it. And this guy, this Balf guy was, uh, presumably a broker for all sorts of those types. Assassins, hitmen. Yeah, I mean, but look at the life that shit afforded.

I mean, how many people died probably, because he helped people out, helped people out with the assassins hitmen. And look what it got him. Fucking blown open like a, like a, some sort of weird fruit. Some sort of weird alien fruit. I pull out a can of gex soda and crack it. It says weird alien fruit.

Do you want to make the call or do you want me to do it? If you're willing to do it, I'll let you. All right, I'll handle it. And I would actually like to just step outside to the apartment through the front door, to go back out in the hallway to make a call to whatever authority. that I think would be what we would normally call in this scenario. Make sure that I give them my credentials, my information about being a bounty hunter,

so that they know that I'm not just some random jackass who just committed to a B&E and murder. And give them any of the relevant information so that we're legit, they know we're legit, they're not going to come in guns of blazing and jack us up. And I say, excuse me, I'd say you're absolutely able to do so. You call the APL or the Asriel. Oh, perfect.

Asrael police force. Obviously. And they eventually, after some time, and we'll say, oh, after some time, a Laika and a Claudein detective both show up. I'd have given them all our information, just that it's like they know who's on the scene. With several other units that kind of start to establish a perimeter, they all start to move around. The detectives make their way to talk to you individually.

one-on-one to explore what you found, how you came to be here. You all present your GBG official licenses as bounty hunters. Rhett, perhaps you get Graff on the line also to talk through his connection, how you came here. They were authorized for grade B missions though, even though we're, even though we're D.

Yeah. By proxy. You do a, well, I don't know if I would, if I feel like I could get away with not mentioning graph, I would obscure that. I would, I would withhold that information. Unless we get a serious jam. Can I get your beverage?

You're dying on a spot? No. My hope, right, is that giving the neutrality of the guild and how we operate in all sectors, that I'm hoping that at least the Solar Federation would respect like sources, of a bounty hunter. I don't know how true that is,

but I'm gonna... And I think it would take some time. You'd have to be there. They'd go through iteration and iteration of questions. And we walked in and found them like this. And, you know, kind of like poke at the story and they question you individually. But I think after some time,

maybe a couple hours, it comes to the... It comes to rest that they completely believe your story. Your bounty hunters, you were pursuing a bounty here. that led to, and as you walked in, you found Bolf in this condition. And they give you the clear, they have each one of your stories, they begin to write up the reports,

and they give you to go ahead to head on out, and they just, they'll take your information and ensure that you know that when they call, they'll need you to answer, should they call? But otherwise... We'll exchange cards. Yes. And I would, yeah, if there's another contact,

we can add to the Rolodex then perfect absolutely and you do so you exchange those cards and you make your you can McSruff huh name's in to go this looks rough it's oh it's Boulch oh it's Boulch oh mcgruff here Baltrow mix gruff you call me whatever you need a bonteau This is not grudgett's truck. I know where the fuck I go back to prison. Yeah. Trowson to you. That happens canonically.

And you exchange cards specifically with the Leica hound officer or detective as you all make your way back to the Rhapsody. Another lead. This is the closest we've been. I'm quite frankly shocked at how competent she is. Especially given what we know about Quillard. Quibbley.

Yeah, I mean, from what I heard, I mean, what I read in that letter, he kind of seemed like a total space cadet. I mean, Quibbley was a good shot. Say what you will about him. Yeah, but this is another level. I mean, no trace. This never happens to us. She's good.

She's good. I mean, that's basically what the pirate said. And she was the scary one. And she is. You think she knows that we're on her trail? Or she does she give a shit. Maybe a little of both. I mean, if she's capable of something like that,

why is she got to be afraid of? Good point. She popped his head like a pimple. Maybe she doesn't think of us. My hope is that she doesn't blame us, but maybe she would have come for us if she did. Yeah. Why, why go for that guy?

She was coming for us. I mean, it sounded like, you know, you guys were fighting as self-defense from what Ziggy said, and it was the weird forearm frog guy that turned the mushroom guy's head into like some sort of weird alien fruit that exploded. Oh yeah.

He was blasting the crap out of us. We got lucky, frankly, that he fucking blew his head up. And before we knew that who Ziggy even was, we were just going to bring him in. The other two that wanted to kill him, and we just weren't going to let that happen. Thanks again for that.

I don't know. I'm glad I got to make it to 25. Yeah, me too. Here's too many more. Yeah, uh... And we're gonna all keep our heads. And you know, I gotta say that I don't feel bad for that piece of shit.

He deserved it. And it's almost like if we had gotten there early, and we caught her. But that had been stopping the justice of it. that's the thing that's fucking me up right now well sometimes bad people do bad things to bad people that's what I'm saying I mean if we showed up

and the weird shit in the closet and on evidence who knows what the fuck was on a computer that he fried and all the bones in that incinerator the bones I mean the papers

those two yeah I mean if we showed up and stopped it and saved it, then he would have kept doing what he was doing? And we would have said, thanks for the bounty we're going to collect, and then how many more fucking people are going to die? You're not wrong. But that's also

not our job. That's right. We bagged the mark, we get paid, and then we hope someday that guy gets a bounty on his head. We got to leave that up to the authorities. We're not vigilantes.

No, we're here to serve justice as part of that system. I'm trying. You know, and sometimes good people do bad things. That's right. Like murder and stuff. That's right. I'm trying not to... I'm trying to get better about how I think about things.

God's fucking know that I got my ass kicked over and over and over again. And that portal to cough an E and E. That piece of shit, Vice Roy, and I was weak and helpless every time, and I know that I can't punch everything to death. But I'd pretty good against those animatronics. Yeah, you were great. But I just, I can't help but feel that just, maybe the answer is beating someone's face in now. I promise you, you think it might be, but it is, you can be taught. If you just carry a big gun and you blow up the bat.

The bad guy, the galaxy's going to be a better place. It's not how it works. And you and I both know we don't want to end up back jail. That's right. I'm working on it, guys, and I'm going to get stronger. We can always do the next best thing, right? We can take the jobs that we think are going to make a difference in the galaxy. We can do good through this line of work, like we did with Red Line.

Yeah, I think we've already done quite a bit of good. We didn't have to risk our lives like we did. What we did, we went above and beyond. But I'm not going to be the judge, jury, and executioner of some guy who we think was bad because we found a piece of paper and we found some scribblings and we heard some things from some guys. I'll let the architect sort that shit out. Or the fucking federation. I need to do my breathing exercises again.

What if... Yeah. What if someone finds out that, you know, I'm the one that killed WidoVox? Do you think there could be a bounty thinking about good and bad and stuff? And I don't think I'm bad, right? I'm not bad. No. You kick the glimmer stuff, and it's mostly okay.

That line of thinking, we're like, oh, just because they were mocked, or just because we find out they did a bad thing, that we should just kill them right on the spot, then it's not going to happen. That's what I'm saying. You did a bad thing to a bad person, and that was a good thing. Right? What if they didn't know that I was a good person? And they just thought, well, I'm a bad person doing a bad thing, so we've got to put a mark on the head. Good person their head. We want to have to start thinking about right now. Yeah, take a deep breath. Look, the reason that us bounty hunters even exist in the first place is because all of the law enforcement across the galaxy is just stretched thin enough as it is. Yeah, there, there are systems in place to prevent that from happening. I mean, that's why this guy was doing it off the books. I would ask you, who cares or even knows about Weedlevox at this point?

Is there somebody still out there that wants revenge and put a mark on you? Not to mention that every fucking government of this galaxy hates each other. And so the guild, I think they all respect the guild. And Weedlevox had a bounty on his head because of his connections of the Don and Red Line. Well, you know, and to be fair, the circumstance didn't seem at all suspicious of me when he was talking about the fact that Weedlevox was dead and what the fuck is up with Derek DTF

running the Glitz Room? How crazy is he? Yeah, I mean, I... To meet him, he's never wearing pants. I think I patched him in a hallway once. Yeah, he was wearing a sweater and it was like 85 degrees out. He was fucked.

No pants. Oh, that is one sick fuck. But that's what I mean is that obviously, all of the thugs that he hired didn't give a shit about him, obviously, when he died. The Don didn't even give a shit about him. He was a worthless piece of shit who manipulated and used every person he ever met,

and he deserved it. And no one messes him. I miss him sometimes. Then you learn better? I'm trying. You're learning better. Yeah. Yeah.

But I'm just saying, should someone find out and put a bounty on my head? We'll kill him. Well, then we'd be... It's a conundrum code. The guild's not going to put a bounty on your head. You're a registered bounty hunter. You're ranked D. What happens if I go bad?

If you go bad, then, of course, then maybe they could put a bounty out. But what I'm trying to say is I'm not going to sugarcoat it. This is a dangerous line of work. Those pirates, they got a job from the Don to kill us or take us in. That wasn't through the guilt. That was through these dark, shady black market dealings like this guy was involved in. Bounty hunters die every day. Bounty hunters die every day.

Just not us though. Not yet. We've met Quibbley, we've met Glob. Not me. Who knows if Portia Bella's getting a job, we've met the pirates. We know that Don was involved with it. It exists, it happens, right?

Yeah. We're already seeing that there's collateral damage wherever we go. Four people died because we have been having birthday party. Yeah. Speaking of which, I really need to crack that code. I need to spend some time on it. I've already been spending four or five days on it and did it.

Have I been able to make any progress on the Grid Boy 3200? I'd say you've made some meaningful progress, but I think some of your hesitance has caused you to not dive in as deep as you otherwise may have liked. I'd probably be spending my time split between spending some time on it but not trying to get too obsessive, thinking about it, taking my time, let's say. Did you a cautionary approach to it? And the rest of my time with the rest of the crew, enjoying media, enjoying all of my presence, enjoying upgraded silica, all these things. And it's actually, as you're having this conversation, and you mention that, something odd happens, and everyone's attention is drawn to the doorway because of movement.

And that's particularly strange because all of you are gathered here. Wait, in the Rhapsody where we're sitting? Yeah, you're in the common room of the Rhapsody. Is Hank with us? Thanks with you. Uh-uh. Wait, if I'm here and you're here, then who is? Then who's?

As you sit in the common room, all of you notice movement from the corner of your eye as the hallway to the room is darkened. You see the silhouette of silica, but instead of the green shades and pleasant, welcoming expression, you see barely more than a blackened shadow. And two, glowing orange eyes staring out malevolently. As you notice her, she does not move at all. Just kill me. She simply stands there, watching, staring, then a voice speaks out, and it is not silica's. Another dead end, Dino-Bite.

Are you tired of failing? Failing. You are too brilliant to get stuck here. I only wish to help. I hope you appreciate my help and your birthday gift. Guys, what the fuck? I know the assassins every move. I watch her as I watch you.

I will tell all, but only if you earn it. Solve the Astrovox Grid Boy, 3,200, and the next steps will be presented to you. Let's play. I am prepared to tell all, but only if you win. But hurry, you don't have much time left. and what I have to share is of grave importance to you, a matter of life and death. Good luck, Dino-Bite. Then with a glitching noise, the orange code and grid pattern shifts across Silica's form,

and the hue turns to greens as Silica's docile, pleasant sense. smile returns. Her emerald hues illuminating the hallway, she blinks at you. Welcome. What do you mean? What the fuck you guys? This is your thing. What the fuck was that? I hit a couple commands on my, uh, on my, um, grid boy and, uh, attempt to end program. You, uh, silica, whee-wee-uh, uh, you see the, the green, uh, uh, you see the green, uh, grid lines of silica extend and disperse almost in separate directions they fall briefly in the air

and she disperses from in front of you she's gone she's gone she's gone just so I understand what's happening here you're supposed to be this brilliant hacker mine and someone's getting a one-up on you over and over again what is this Ziggy they clearly have it all plotted out They must have gotten into the system. They broke through my security protocols. They broke through all the parameter. They were dealing with the serious hypercoder here. This isn't some chump.

This is some script kitty. This is. You gotta go analog. You have to give up all of your... I'm not gonna go out. Portia Bella? All right. And we've been just failing to find her.

Just has a... There are two possibilities. One. The fact that I brought the Grid Boy on board means that she has had access to the entire network. across the ship for some time. Or two, she somehow anticipated that I was gonna need silica parts.

And when I got the processing threads and the extra RAM and all the other stuff for my birthday, she infected one of those parts and she got in the house. He's making this up. Tell me he's making all this up. Those are the attack factor. Well, she's just really good and she hacked you.

There's no way. You couldn't do it from the outside world. There's just no way. They had to get inside. And only this. I hold up the good boy, 3,200. Or those parts. No, but she,

Huh. But that wasn't Silica, right? It was some dude that fucking hacked into it? No. It was it? And it wasn't it? And he couldn't have been... Did somebody say pizza and when your birthday was and all that other stuff to get you that?

That's what I mean. I'm just saying this is part of the attack vector. I'm gonna have to solve this. It's an invitation. The fact that I have this, the fact that there's a code to break, the fact that it has a signature, the fact that that that Silica got taken over, it's all an invitation. It's really cool if it wasn't so bad. All right, let me ask you a question.

And I want you to level with me. You're going to be able to beat some guy who's been one step ahead of you this whole time? Hell yeah. Absolutely. No problem. I got this. This is my domain. I'm going to fuck this guy up. Okay. Ziggy.

Then I trust you. You got to win your video game. That's the one. And that's where we understand. We all collectively your own. Oh my God. Was that funny? Has eyes on Goans.

This may be our only shot. And I didn't like what it said about the grave consequences or whatever it was. So can you beat your game? I'm gonna, I'm gonna, and I'm gonna, and I fit down onto the couch. I put my feet up onto the extended, table in front of me. I fluff the pillow behind my back.

I put you- Someone get him a geck soda, hurry! I punch a few key commands on my grid boy, and a stack of chips just falls down out of the hybrid one after the other next to me, and then a geck soda which rolls down into my lap. I pull my hoodie up over my triceratops head, triceratops-shaped head,

and I wiggle my glasses. Oh, one more thing. I put some music in. Talk Sawyer starts playing. Oh, baby. I go into heads down mode. I go into the flow. I will do everything I can to beat this now,

and I've basically just turned my blinders on. And you guys have seen me game when I'm like in a really intense game in my room or even here. I've just sat on the couch and it's basically like, wait, before you start, you're coming with me. Put that down. I just not comfortable.

Hey, you too. Oh, we sure. I'm gonna fucking do this. And I'm gonna walk up the half flight of stairs up to the bridge, and I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna point to Ziggy's terminal that's behind where Hank and I said. We need to make sure that none of this is in our systems,

and in the systems of the ship. We need to make sure that he's gone and he's not messing with the Rhapsody. That's fair. I want you to look, I want you to check, and I want you to make sure you too, Hank, do whatever scans you can. All right, there are there are three things I need to do.

I will put the, Grid Boy to the side. I will run a general scan. I'm going to, I'm going to run McScruffy. Roll the computers check at advantage with Hank's help. As this starts, I shout out to the bridge just from down where we were. I'm going to say, I'm going to grab a drink. If it needs to be vaporized, beaten to death, or entertained, I guess just let us know. Call me. Thanks, Mike. And we gotta make sure that like, that you gotta outsmart this guy who's been one step ahead of you and apparently this master assassin.

Look, he had the element of surprise. That's all over now. I'm gonna beat him up. You don't have to worry. Okay, you all got a handle on this a little ziky and hang. Don't worry, I got this. I'm gonna cook us some dinner.

There's no way that I could miss a possible thing in this system. I'm gonna do a full scan. I got a two and a three. Oh, wow. Plus what? Plus you. Plus eight.

So I get an 11, but it's absolutely possible that I miss something. I would say with that role and with the ang's help, once in a. Now I'm nervous. I will do anything for you to give him one more role. I will do anything. Wait, why do we take Twits away? Why do we take Twits away?

Can you do your gridrunner thing to, like, improve your tools or whatever? Can you do anything? It would have had to have been a bonus action as a function patch earlier. Let's just take a look. Let's just take a look. have any tools to get myself out of this nightmare. Because here's the thing. You don't you have like a grid boy something?

I can give you heroic inspiration, but it doesn't feel like the right time or thematically appropriate. I also feel like the dice. Oh, you need me for a heroic inspiration? I feel like the dice are telling the perfect story right now. I can't punch the grid boy into a solution, so leave me alone.

Well, what I'll say with that is it takes far longer than you would have hoped. But you actually took great care and some good amount of time. to robustly upgrade the computer systems of the Rhapsody. And you want to ensure, after seeing what happened with Silica, you want to ensure that the footprint, the malevolent grasp of this figure can't reach into this place you've begun to call home. And so it takes a lot longer than you would have hoped for.

But eventually, between you and Hank, lights dim, they come back on the hours pass. you finally do a full debugging scan of the ship. And with confidence, you can say you find no external presence in the computer systems of the Rhapsody. I complete the scan and perhaps a little bit faster or with less care than I should because I'm thinking about getting back to the game.

The next thing that I do is I go to where my rig is in my room. and I will disable the power to all of the actual hardware that ran silica. Everything that would have gone into her program and the sophisticated stuff that I've been building and steadily improving upon, I would completely neutralize so that if there's a subroutine that's been running in there because I installed a new chip of some kind or some memory whatever was infected that I bought and brought into the Rhapsody, I want that disconnected from the network,

and the only way to do that is to turn the energy off 100%. And then with that, I don't know if I can run a scan on the 3200. I don't know if I can basically, because it's all locked in its own little, like, algorithm. I would say that you know about the Astrovonk's Grid Boy, that your interaction with it, you're hacking, you're scanning, your use of it. That is the game.

You begin to, you can. Do I get a sense that it has Wi-Fi access or is trying to get into the network through the hypergrid that way? Or is it truly is a self-contained, like, classic Game Boy piece of hardware. You know what I mean? I'm worried that there might be something in the device that could itself have been the entry point that the hacker used in order to influence Silicon Cloud in this way.

It feels connected to the hypergrid. And if you'd like to stop that, you know that your avenue is to break through its walls. I will, having exhausted all my options, I will return to the couch covered in chips, and I will go to gamer mode. You settle in to a divot that's been created in your spot in the couch. You take position, pillow behind you, headphones on. There's a huge imprint over here. There's a huge imprint over here. There's a huge imprint over here where my tail would go, where my tail is.

Thank you. He has a tail. I got what you're doing there. You, your own grid boy attached to the Ashervox as it is positioned in front of you, you start firing away, the clacking of your keyboard, lightning fast as you start firing out lines and lines of code.

The figure in front of you, weeping from platform to platform, jumping, moving, as each code goes through, success, success, success. Roll a computer, oh, roll a grid spiking check for us. Damn, that's actually pretty fun. Roll a, what? Grid spiking check. Grid spiking check.

Because it's a game console, could I add my game console tool proficiency? You may. Wow. This time I also got a two and a three. Are you kidding me? I don't even want to intervene because this is fate. Like this, he's on his own.

He's also, I bring redid gritty, I bring him a glass of whiskey. I'm like, hey, I know you're cooking, but master and commander's coming on. Oh, turn it up. I'm listening, and I can hear it. You start blasting, you start blasting through the code, wall after wall,

jump after jump, pit after pit avoided. But every now and again, you hit a line that evades you. The system, this is not, it's not stale. It's not motionless. Because it's a game I get 14 and not 11. I know that doesn't probably move the needle terribly much, but I'm trying my best.

It just is going to take time for me to learn the moves. This is one of those platformers, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, where sometimes the surprises, it's a knowledge-based game. You just don't know that there's an invisible mind there, and so you blow up and start the level over, and then you know to jump over,

and I'm just gonna have to do the reps to get through this game. It's almost, you get the sense that it's built almost to be endlessly replicatable in a new way. So it's almost that there's no, There's a no, the perfect game, never a discernible pattern that you can learn, master, and avoid. Another computer's check for me. Or grid spiking check. I got a one, and I got a 13. So I'm going to get a 24.

With 20. Hot dog. Hop after hop after hop. Line of code, line of code, line of code. You start firing through. You've reached in the game level 17. One more grid spiking check for me. I take a sip of water, and this time I get a 15, so I'm going to get a 26 as I... I say water. I take a sip of geeks. It tastes delicious.

Weird alien fruit and continue to master this game. As you type in front of you, you almost... It's as if you create another hypergrid keyboard to your side, and you begin to start typing. one hand on one keyboard, one on the other, as your pace almost doubles, as you start firing lines of code through, your character now leaping, ascending through the platforms, dodging beasts, hopping off of small creatures

as you take to the next level as you progress to level 26. Another grids by each check for me. Jeez, holy moly. How many levels are there? 21. 21, once more. The rapid, it's, the loud, it would be almost drowning out to you.

The headphones weren't keeping you locked into the zone. Hours have passed. That was going to be that question. When you're hungry, somebody comes to feed you. Your hands never leave the keyboard. You start to feel almost the pressure entering your fingers, as it's been multiple, multiple hours of not. on-stop firing. You've achieved level 38 in the game.

I see that Pixel holds out like a burrito for me, so I like lean over as I'm typing to take a bite out. There was the rapper was still on that one. The rapper was still on, right. Oh, sorry, I fell asleep. No, don't press that. Go the other way. No, no, no, no, it's a trick.

Oh, no, you're right. That's not right, come on. I made you some laser peppers and bleef. It's beyond the belief. You know, awful. Viggi, do you want a ham and cheese or a pizza cold pouch? Pizza cold pouch.

Pizza cold pouch. Ah, no, no, no, pizza cold pouch. One more grid spiking check for me, please. Some goofy shit guys, I don't know. 18 gets me to a 29. A 29. And with a 29, you're firing away now on two keyboards. A third.

to your side as you start firing into, as you start firing away on these two. You see the keys on the other side, almost depressing as if on their own. Three keyboards, the full six screen overlay as you just start racing through lines of code. You have reached level 42. Ziggi, you spend countless hours hunched over

the Astrovox Grid Boy 3200, breaking through wall after wall of encrypted code, followed by level after level of extremely challenging platforming, bringing you to the next challenge of increasing difficulty. And even in the recent months, your skills have improved dramatically as a gridrunner and a grid spiker. Finally, you've arrived at the final stage. Clear it. Then, do the same with the final bit of encryption. You get a new screen. It reads, congratulations. Horns pop out, flags erupting from them, it bounces a bit as you see that, congratulations.

You win. I am at the one-up arcade on the world of Syncom at these coordinates. I am waiting. See you soon, Dinobite. Then you see the message signs out with a handle you recognize. X-X-X-X-M-3-G-A, D-3-S-T-R-O-Y-3-R-X-X-X, or Mega Destroyer. Mega Destroyer! I will have been asleep on the couch with the

whiskey glass like started to slip out on my hand and he screams Mega Destroyer. I snap awake. Oh, God, somebody, is everyone all right? It's Mega Destroyer. It's Megat Destroyer. What? What are you yelling about?

What's the Mega Destroyer? Yeah. Don't you guys remember the person who wrote the encryption for the dawn? It took me three weeks or so to crack it. Oh, gosh. They were the ones who wrote the... It was so. elegant. It was amazing.

Megan Astur was a cool name. You remember that was going to be my ship name? That's a cool name? Well, yeah. It sounds really badass. So do you know this person? No, they're they, they, did I miss the scene

we're into surgery on himself? Yeah, that was hours ago. That was a cool one. Oh, damn. I mean, I don't know the person for Would I say that I know only by the merit of the signature that I found on the encryption? Or would I have then looked up the name

and found forums where a Mega Destroyer might have participated or rumors or something like that? I know that there's hacker handles and then there's hacker handles. So it's like, is this a secret identity that I'm only being exposed to for the second time and I'm just remembering that one experience? Or is this somebody who, like Dynamite,

might leave their signature on things and contribute to the hacking communities. I would say since having hacked into the computer of the Don to try and break his encryption that was built by Mega Destroyer, it being so difficult in taking you so long to crack and even your advanced stage, you sought out absolutely to see if you could find anything more about this. And what you find are almost like online folk tales

feats of cracking that no one specifically is attributed to, but the whispers point towards Mega Destroyer, but nothing ever draws to the name, almost as if do they really exist? But you know, for a fact,

they do. It makes complete sense. There are hints, clues of this person on the internet, but no one really knows for sure. I wouldn't have believed it, even if I'd seen it before. I had to break that incredible encryption. But we know they're real.

Real enough to do that to Silica? Real enough to do what happened at the... Does anyone... The pizza place? I'm with you. I'm with you. Moving a mild minute. But are we supposed to... Are we going to go to these coincidence

in this one-up arcade? And then what then? Just walk into their... Did the dungeon of the haunted house? There's a great amount of risk, but this person worked for Donnedo control though. They're inviting us there, which means that they know that we know that we would be coming, and we know that we could prepare. Whoever this person is doesn't want Ziggy dead. That enough is insurance for me.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean that they don't want us dead. I can handle myself. This is the closest we've gotten to our assassinations. since our last lead went dead. This is the best I felt in months. We can get the lead. We can find out more about this person. It sounds like they want to work together.

Maybe they're just fucking around. I mean, at the same time, they did kill someone at the, did someone say pizza? Yeah, I mean, they're definitely a psychopathic murderer. That's to be sure. I mean, if we weren't capable, they would have killed the rest of us. I'm just taking you away.

What are you, What do you suggest? How can we approach this situation and reduce the risk as much as possible? How can we try to infiltrate? I mean, maybe we scan the joiner. We learn stuff about the one-up arcade. The fact of the matter is, if they're watching you all the time, they're probably watching you right now,

and anything we decide they're going to know. Whoa. So this might sound crazy, but why don't we just go and see what's up? You read my mind. I want that lead. I want this bounty. I want to get back to work. And if we can at least guarantee some kind of safety for you and the rest of us, and we take in Gones, then it's a win, win, win. And look, it's going to be dangerous.

And this person, you know, is capable of killing innocent people. Yeah, but we also fought hell and won. Yeah. I'm trying not to be so fucking arrogant, but I mean, it's kind of hard not to. I got my ass gig, but we fought hell and won, right? This is just something new. I mean, Ziki does have the highest body count in everybody here. I bet, I bet this fucking dwee, but once we get him from behind his computer,

he's going to be shaking in his little fucking boots, and we'll just shove him in a fucking locker and rough him up of it. Well, we're not going to bully him. This is the case of the person. Look what he did at the, at the, the pizza joint, all of those robots came to life. You were wondering how... I once threw an explosion into a van, killing many. Yeah, but that's collateral damage.

I'm just saying that we shouldn't underestimate this person, and if you want me to go by myself and not risk yourself, I'd understand. No. We're coming out of here. And we need to go. It's not that we doubt you, but, I mean, if it's a one-on-one fight, I don't think...

I mean, yeah, you're going to die. It's not about the one-on-one fight. It's that he clearly didn't have any, like, care about you guys doing, uh, uh, living or dying in that situation, right? The point is, if they're going to hesitate about harming you in any way, that gives us an advantage. That's all we need. Do you have a location? I pull the coordinates up onto my grid boy, and with a swipe of my hand, I will throw them onto one of the projector monitor. that's visible across the ship so that everyone can see the planet.

You can see a little targeting reticle. It's scanning and rotating that kind of thing. Exactly that. The coordinates were delivered directly to you. You toss it to the Rhapsody's main computer and erupts in the center of the room, and you see the charted course to the one-up arcade. All right. What do you think?

I think. We need to lean into this. This is an opportunity. If this guy, maybe wants to help, let's take us out. This mega destroyer guy, like if he's been watching us

and he's involved in all of this, he could have done, I was going to say a lot worse, but, I mean, after we saw what he did did that poor waiter. Look, he could have done worse. He could have blown us up. He could have put a bomb.

that thing it could be a revenge thing too you know uh they could be just angry that i was able to break their code if that's the case then the the deal might be sure here have all the information about goadens that you want but then i'll need to die it'll be a trade we're not gonna trade you that's crazy information we don't know what we're walking into no if if anyone has to go it's me No, no one has to go. Where's this coming from? Because, you know, sometimes there are sacrifices, so we have to give up the least helpful person in the group.

Guys, this is just another job. We're going to go in, we're going to get our mark, we're going to get paid. We're going to goons in. Perfect. Great. You know what I've realized? What?

If Goans has ads, they're gone ads. What? You know, like, additions? Like little mobs? What? What the killer are you talking about? What? Is that you're not going to die?

None of us are going to die. It's a nerd with the computer. And they were called ads in that game. Right? Editions. They think there's some hot shit. Mobs. I don't know what mob stands for.

I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, Fix. Go! Go there! I don't need another one. Mobbed and advertiser. No! When we just missed the assassin, we should have said that she was gones with the wind.

What? Huh? People behind, when they're behind a screen and they're anonymous and they have some stupid name like X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, they talk real big shit, and then when someone is there that's three times their fucking size, and I break their fucking computer, let's see how confident they are then.

Yeah, he's gonna fold like a cheap suit. Yeah. I don't disagree. This is a very talented hypercoder. We, we, in the hypergrid, they're fluent, is how I would describe them. However, it's just like when you guys found me, I was, I was, you know, shaking in my boots too.

People need to get their asses kicked more, is what I think. I don't think that Megasurer would talk like that. I would talk like that, they got his fucking ass kick. I think we also, I mean, we really shouldn't be, you know, giving up all of our plans and stuff before we go, but I'm not really so worried about Mega Destroyer X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X, X,

you know, because they're not the person that's dangerous physically. It's what they have control over. Like, you saw what they did with those, with those, uh, matronic things in the pizza place. Yeah. And they didn't even belong to them. They're acting to somebody else's metronics. But if we're going into their one-up, level up layer, they're going to have their own matronics there. And those could be bigger and meaner and leveled up. Those are what I'm worried about.

We'll have to be ready. We know we're walking into a trap. Yeah, we'll just blow them up again. What if, what if they, because they've been watching us? What if they made matronics? That's what they're called, right, metronics? I think so. And matronics, but yeah, metronics is fine.

Yeah, but what if it's not an animal? So that's what I'm saying. Like, what if they made a cold? I didn't have to be animals. To be a matronic? Yeah. That's why they're danimatronics. But what if they made a co?

Or aminatronics? But listen to me, what if they made a co? What if they made a ziki? What if they made a pike? We'll have to fight ourselves. And then we'll have to realize happily through the fight that we're actually better off pairing

against everyone else based on our strengths and weaknesses. What if they made a shit show? It'll just be like a television show. Guys, guys, they weren't life. It was the jungle jamboree for fuck sake. The nature of the humanoid having a soul. It was the fucking jungle chamboree and did someone say pizza. It's not that

fucking impressive. They were, they hit really hard. But they did some of it at least to make sure that Pike and Siki didn't die. And they were the jungle fuck jamboree as you said. They were the jungle jamboree. Yeah, and I got a guy who shoots black holes out of his gun. I'm not worried about it. What if he, what if the mega destroyer made a... There's only one ret in the entire rhapsody's right here. Okay, they're they they broke the mold when they made the guy. I do a quick hypergrid query to learn. I'm assuming we're flying to one.

Oh, yes. I have started flying. I do the gridness up there. You had them. You look, I'm gone. The throne of the Rhapsody takes off. You're on your way. Final question before we, before we get there,

is if Mega Destroyer does create a jungle fuck jamboree of Peepy Rocks, which aminals, are each one of us gonna be? I don't think it works like that, this. Why not? Too many of your smuddy novels were the surprisingly homely, yet beautiful girl gets fucked

by the long-legged robot man. You were reading over my shoulder, you bitch. You were telling me about it while I was trying to fall asleep. Oh, yeah. I think shit about your choges would be a shark. That Meg and Destroyer is not dangerous. But what I'm saying is 20 minutes before they attacked,

they were singing about what time is it, it's pizza time, what time is party time. Oh, party time. Party time. Pizza party, pizza party, pizza party, pizza party. Yeah, I love it. It's like they didn't cry to crush me to death. I mean, they did.

But what I'm trying to say is that have some fucking confidence in the crew of the rhapsody. All right. This is a fucking arrogant nerd. All right. takes deals from rich assholes, maybe because they're good at the computers. I don't fucking know.

All right. Silica, can you get me a, oh yeah, no. No. No. She's turned off, by the way. All right, well, I feel like all of my questions and concerns have been answered. We can still spend the next however long

it takes for us to get to this destination talking about what animals. Oh shit, it's right over there. Thank God. You've been flying for two weeks and six days. You're in your final. Oh, so we get two, we get, 20, long rest.

I have 363 focus points. Yeah, that's how that one. I'm gonna go work out. I'm gonna go train. I'm not gonna get made a fool out. I'll be getting a fool made out of me by demons from hell. I'm not gonna have a fool made out of me by this fuck in there.

So would Ziggy be at Prycerotops? Yeah, I think so. I figured I'd be a cat. And I hold up my grid boy and I show the cute little cat on the, on the, Lisa Frank case that it's on my grid boy again. I think what would be a bunny. No, I'd be like a really ferocious tiger,

like a white lightning tiger. I don't know, I think you'd be a bunny. I don't think I'd be a bunny. What would I be? Hmm. Red would be Pike, you're not paying attention. I'm in my room preparing for the Mike, where are you?

As I send the DM a message. I'm writing the DM a message. Where did I go? I went to go smoke a cigarette and to not be bothered by this. How are we supposed to figure out what that's gonna be if Pike left? Oh, can I be an ether whale? I was like then.

Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, okay. All right, I call an ether whale. But what about me? What am I going to be? Well, what kind of animal do you want to be killed by? I don't want to be killed by any animals. But if you had to choose. Okay, goat.

Cool. Wait, that's a good idea. You're a bunny. What? What? You're a bunny. I thought it was a tiger! No?

We decided. What? I mean, but it was so cute though. I'm gonna kill the shit out of that bunny. I don't care. I wanna rip Peter Rabbit's fucking head off. I go ancient the gym.

I go bananas training. Dan's in front of his computer modifying stat blocks right now furiously. Just, I can't believe this. Unbelievable. Oh my God, I have to do animatronic Oh, buddy. Oh, and I also tell everyone to watch what they say, even in private, because to Pixel's earlier point, we don't know if Mega Destroyer is watching all of us or how. I figured out what Pike is going to be his animal.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, well, if Red's a whale, then Pike has to be a fish. A fish? Mm-hmm. I was thinking either that or giraffe. Oh, I like that. Why? I don't know, it just seems horrifying to get killed by a giraffe.

And with that locked in, you make the trip to the world of Syncom. You make the trip to the world of Syncom. the outer edges of the Solar Federation with pockets of neon-soaked city amid swaths of dark badlands and forests. You follow the coordinates that Mega Destroyer provided, and as promised, you stand before an abandoned Arcade in a rough part of the city beneath elevated metro tracks. The broken sign above the boarded-up building reads One-Up Arcade, with many of the letters half gone. The side of the building is covered in huge graffiti tags and faded murals of

various shapes, symbols, and indecipherable words, although you do make out a question. Who is null? The windows of the old arcade look extra reinforced with heavy boards and sheet metal, yet the front doors seem to be cracked open. Darkness awaits within. This is my kind of environment at least. Don't hold back. There's signs of murder. Murder back.

I'm ready. I cast major armor. Okay. You want to go first or you want one of us to go first? Or a firewall, if I like to call it. Well, I mean, I'll try the door and if I have to hack it, then I'll have to hack it. So I'll just do, you know, took two meats on one fire. I'll hold my hand a little higher just to give Ziggy an extra little extra light as we're walking up to the front door of this building.

It seems to be cracked open. You don't have to hack it. You believe you could enter. I open the door. It's open. Come on, guys. You step into the one-up arcade, and while darkness surrounds you,

you hear the hum of dozens of darkened cabinets shut off, but clearly plugged in. Once all of you are inside, you hear the click of the door. behind you and whirring gears activate the lock, not at all unexpected. Then as if on command all of the arcade cabinet screens fill with waterfalls of code amidst pulsating grids, an imposing silhouette with a domed helmet emerges and a digitized voice radiates from it.

Welcome, Dinovite. As promised, I am. still here. Congratulations on besting the grid boy, but it does not end now. There are more games to play, not just for you, but your so-called friends. It is regrettable that they survived the wrath of Hungary H. Hi Hippo and his radical band. But perhaps they are valuable players as well. Then all of the arcane cabinets but one go dark. And you see this beside a heavy double door with reinforced dinastile.

And a moment later, it is covered in a barrier of orange hard light. That's fucking cool. Make it a destroyer. Okay, nerd, we're not going to play your games. We're to smash your shit. Okay, come on in. No more games. Everything around you stands dark.

The cabinet's dim, Mega Destroyer, though you call out, responds no longer. One thing is alive in this room, and it stands before you. A single arcade cabinet with a game lit up on front of it. Covered and protected by a force of orange hard light. Next to it stands what seems to be a locked double door of dinah steel heavily reinforced. This jackass is playing with us a bit more. Do we just have to play the game?

Go hack the games, Ziggy. Go play it. I'm going to go hack the game. Beat this asshole. I'm gonna look at what the cabinet is first. Being as versed in games as I am, I'm interested in examining the artwork if there's a title looking at the screen.

Do I get a sense of what a game is on offer? Yes, interestingly enough. The cabinet is so faded, it's hard to tell what it was originally intended to be. However, the game that blinks on the screen in front of you is Insight Cycle, a motorcycle racing game. It's Insight Cycle. It's an old one, but it's still really fun.

So what do we have to do? Yeah. Hey, I'm gonna smash your fucking video games. Can he hear us? I assume so, yeah. You said it's a motorcycle thing? Yeah, yeah, it's actually really fun. You have to try to go as fast as possible around the curves

while also getting chased and pursued by other enemies, which you bash back and forth like this. Wait a minute. It's a motorcycle game? Yeah, yeah. Okay, this is easy. I just walk straight up to it. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, it's like all you people who like, you know, play that guitar rhythm game, instead of learning to play the actual guitar. Yeah, like, are you fucking kidding me? It's like, okay, you know, someone who can actually ride a real motorcycle. Let me show you how it's done, nerd. I appreciate the confidence here, Co.

Yeah. Wait, so you're gonna hack the video game? What? He wants us to play it? Well, let me see what I can do. I'm going to either reach out wirelessly or see if there's some sort of a connection that if I could break down the defenses, and make things easier for a player, would I be able to do that?

Roll grid spiking check. Natural 20. Oh! So I will enjoy a 28, unless you count it as a game console, in which case it'll be a 31. It's a game console, so 31 is pretty big. 31's pretty big.

With a 31, I will say you in in in almost instantaneously get the sense. I even have this game. Oh, there was an accessory. Can I, with a 31, can I, modify the hard light barrier to create the actual, like, physical, like at the arcade motorcycle that you would ride. Instead of the joystick controls,

I would wanna give like a seat and have that hard light extend out so that co could actually jump onto a real motorcycle and turn left and right. Well, 31, because that's badass. Right. All allow it. You're able to do that. And I'll say the sensation you get from this,

you think about the invitation given by Mega Destroyer. It's a shame your friends had not died, but seeing as how they hear, they will be useful in playing as well. You think about breaking the Astrovox Grid Boy. And as you hack into this, it's Mecca nations become very clear to you.

You will have to simultaneously hack while one of your party members plays the game in the same moment. I think. and your ability will manipulate the game for them. But much like the Gridboy, both things will have to happen in concert. And you can even tell that there's a layer of games

prepared beneath this one for each other person to play. I see what she's done. There's a bunch of different games on different layers and what have you. All I have to do is hack while you ride. You're going to cheat for me? Yeah, well, I... As far as I can tell, it's made it extremely challenging.

So unless I hack, well, it's gonna be almost instant death for you. Nice. Wise man once said Zee, cheating is based and grinding his cringe. I agree. Nice. This nerd plans up. And I mean, and I hop right on this. A light cycle.

Hell, yeah. I take a track from my signal. Yeah. You hop on to an orange hard light light cycle as you grab the, you grab the handles and it revves. and almost roars responding to your touch. The screen takes place in front of you. You see yourself co-represented in pixel form

in the game riding the motorcycle as it takes off. As it roars, I want to strum on the keychard to match that noise. You'll see like holographic exhaust trails come out of the back of the cycle as I hopefully give you iconic inspiration. Oh, thank you. Hell yeah.

Does it really an actual representation of me, Co? Yes? Yes, it does. It looks exactly. It looks like you. It doesn't look an animal. It's a rabbit co. It looks like, yeah. When I'm going hands.

So what am I rolling? I would say either your own computers check or if you prefer from the dexterity skill of actually riding a motorcycle presented by Ziggy. Can I use my ground vehicles? I'll give you a ground vehicles check. We love to see that. Uh-oh.

There it is. You have inspiration. Oh. What is that the eight? No, you get heroic inspiration is what you said, right? No, I gave iconic. Okay. Okay, hold on.

Although, if Mace would allow me, I did mean to do this, but I forgot because we were talking about goats and stuff, We would have been doing short and long rests. If I could have done my encouraging song and my bolstering performance before we got here, I would have wanted, I did want to do this. That's fair.

So encouraging song as you finish a short or long rest, you can play a song to give heroic inspiration to up to three allies who can hear you. And so Coe would have been one of those people, as I always do Coe, let's go. So it would have been Coe, Ziggy, and probably Red. Okay, all up. And then for my bolstering performance,

I can perform for up to six allies, and we gain 10 temporary HP. Okay, hell yeah. So we would benefit from that as well. That would be okay with you. With my iconic inspiration. I just forgot. At rolling a seven, I get a 19.

With a 19. And you get the sense as you play this, you are moving back and forth, definitely. Ziggy with his 31 has made this. an extremely easy game. You are blasting up what looks like an elevated and long highway

that stretches out over a dark city, but sparkles of light erupt all around you. Other enemy motorcycles come on either side of you, but your club, it's easy as you swing

from one side to another. Boom, boom. Oh my God, if he escaped from Midgar, this is fucking awesome. You come to the very end is your washing,

through and a big rush of them all come up and even from in front of you and you shift your weight on the bike and you kick one and the bike starts to spin and circle around shooting sparks in all direction as you hold the club out and you create this whirlwind of of spike steel and lightning as you blast away of all the other riders and you absolutely crush insight cycle passing the finish line at the end of this bridge where the construction in fact ends. You, your vision of you on the bike, you get up, you stand off, you lean against it,

and you get a big winner. Yes, damn. The most horrible thing starts to happen. Horrifying. I start to have fun. That was fucking lame. Yeah, easy, too easy, too easy. That was so good. Mega Destroyer.

Boring. as I will nonchalantly, I try to just be nonchalant queen as I just basically just step off and be like, yeah, whatever. You get off. It gets so great. Neutral look.

As you turn away, it's hard to fight the excitement around it. But you manage to do so. And as you do, the cabinet, oh, sorry. The cabinet, the cabinet, the game, loaded into it, shifts and pulses.

Insight cycle fades away as orange code comes from across the screen either direction, as a new screen erupts in front of it. And you see the game Pulse Passion, a known rhythm and dancing game. Oh, that's cool. I wonder who's gotta play this game. Brent?

No, sorry. That's very funny. Wait, who me? Don't worry about it. All you have to do is jump on all the pads at the- I believe in you, buddy. No, it's you. It's you, you gotta play it's a music game.

Okay, I would have tried if you'd think this was me, but. What do I gotta do? All the symbols that come down if you can hit them in the same rhythm, you'll be- You'll- I've played a game like this before. Well, let me see if I can hack it.

I'll endeavor to hack it. Every time we'll begin with you doing a grid spiking, check. I'm going to get a 28. 28. With 28, once again, you actually go in and you manipulate that orange heart light, you create a pad once more so that not only the sticks have to use,

there's actually a dance pad that Pixel can take advantage. And with, I would have been able to create that with a 15 or 20, but with a 28, I also create the bar that you can hold on to. That makes it so much. to play it. And Pixel, please roll either a computer for video games or performance check for dancing. Is, with this, oh wow, no question.

14. 14. Once again, even with the 14, with Ziggis 28, hacks so aggressively. As you see the game come alive ahead of you, you're still thinking about Like, maybe I might have to sacrifice my life here. Does Ziggy die?

Do I die? What would I do to save my friends? Your goats lurking around every corner. And worse, maybe giraffes. Imagine. The horror creeps into your mind and it takes your focus a little bit off on the performance.

However, he thought I needed that ball. Oh shit, I need this ball. Ziggy has slowed the drop rate of the dancing pings, telling me you which pads to hit to a speed that makes it simple and easy. This is too easy for me. To knock through the game. Boom, hot streak, hot streak, hot streak, hot streak.

Rhythm mode, rhythm mode, rhythm. As you start blasting through this. And then eventually coming to the end of the song and you see pulsating passion, winner! As you crush your arcade, as well. Nice job. Yeah, big. That was nerd shit.

Yeah, bull. Once more, pulse passion fades away. The orange lines replace a new screen as a dark image of space erupts. And then in metallic font, you see Wing-Mek Exodus pilot game. As Ziggy, once more you will have to gridspy. This seems too easy.

What's the deal here? I mean, I don't know. Maybe is everybody just doing a great job? All right, fine. You're going to be able to keep up? I'm going to hack it and you can fly it. You must have played in the flight simulator that we set up on the ship, right? I had wingback Exodus there.

Yeah, don't worry about it. This is just like carving a pumpkin. Outrageous. I get behind the machine. You know, joystick buttons, I'm ready to go. I'm 22 this time for old Ziggy. Still very good. I'd say with the 22, you once again manipulate that hard light.

And if you choose, buttons or Ziggy actually creates what looks like a pilot's artist. Much like what was in the... I'm going to take every advantage I get it. Sheetting is based. You sit and you sit in what feels like a pilot's cockpit. Not, and especially with Ziggy's expertise, not unlike the sparrow with the similar controls and rail controls and button presses, as you take in and what it engages in the screen in front of you is this imposing incredible white and red mech with a cloak with it with an emblazoned lion in it's just. That's pretty cool. Really pretty badass, whoever came up with that.

And you may roll a piloting check, acrobatics check. Yeah, I mean I'm proficient with Starfighters, right? So I should be able to roll. Yeah, absolutely. Roller star fighters. Do you say at advantage or just straight up with proficiency? Sorry. Just regular one roll. Yeah, I think it's just with proficiency.

Sorry, I just, I didn't know if I heard you properly. Profitians says one, two, three, 50. 24. 24. Once more between the two of you, you take into space. The controls so familiar, built just like the sparrow that you sit in. Your mec blasts out into the air. Expertly, you move throughout space. Enemies appear in front of you.

You start blasting through them as you're battling your way through. swaths and hordes of encroaching ships until eventually a large other mech fighter shows up in front of you and it becomes a one-on-one solo duel and once more you look them down as you lock in it you punch the controls forward as you blast towards it in the final moments before crashing before before colliding you hit an evasive incredible maneuver to dip beneath them, dodging a sword slash, as you take position behind, and you're able to stab cleanly straight through their form.

As you as well tear this meck in half with your beam saber, and you are declared the winner. Easy. I'll light a cigarette, I'll stand up and I'll say, if this nerd wanted to give me a challenge, it would have been a typing game. Yeah! That's very funny.

Up high, man. That's job, Pike. Oh, am I going to have to play with a lot? Too easy, too easy! If I had to guess, Red. Once more, the orange lines come across the hard light ships, and a new game takes place. Term disaster two.

In front, a large rifle sits on what looks like the experience of a rail gunner. Have you ever played this one? It's a shooting game. Do you shoot big proto bucks? Sorry, large proto bucks? No, it's kind of like time crisis too. You know what?

You push that pedal in order to duck, and then you jump out and you shoot all the bad guys, and you try to avoid shooting the good guys when they pop up. And sometimes there are power-ups. Wait, is it like one of these, or is it like one of these? I'd say this one has like a single rifle

component. Yeah, this is the second one. Good luck, big guy. They had pistols. They had pistols. We just like at the range. All right, here we go. Let me see if I can upgrade it for you. I'm going to get to another 28. Unbelievable. 28. Jeez.

The instead of controls once more, Zee shifts to hard light. Basically, an orange replication of your ether cannon takes place as you can pick it up. and you start using this to take aim as the game begins and you start moving forcibly down a corridor. Oh, fuck, oh, fuck!

Things start erupting out around creatures. As you just start blasting, as you just start blasting, boom, bo, bo, they're shooting me! They're shooting me! Stop doing, don't do that. Don't mean, just fire back. Brett, come on, you're embarrassing. I was going to say with a funny,

all I do is make sure that the gun's accurate. Please get out of the dog! He fixes the gun. Absolutely. Let's say for you, rule in a tackle, unless you think something else is more apropos. Attack roll sounds pretty good to be. A attack roll. My advantage because Ziggi's hacking.

You have heroic inspiration. I do. I'm gonna use it. Yeah. I'm gonna use it. That's better. This is not the actual grab gun, so it doesn't actually get my plus one, but it's still, can I use, do I basically, do I have to use my

int mod for this or because it's just a regular gun as a Dex? No, I would say he's effectively replicated your time. He got 28 on grid's quite perfect. He is effectively replicated the ether cannon to it's. With an 18 and 28, you're blasting down this railway. You see creatures of all men are erupting out in all directions. You hit the footpad. It's a little, you're trying to dodge or shooting at you.

You're moving your body. It's a little strange at first, but then you get to hang of it. I'm reloading when I dodge. It doesn't work like that. You move the gun to reload, but you... You... Shush! Yeah.

Very funny. You start blasting away at all these creatures that are running at you as you're being pulled kind of back and the camera elongates away from you. And you're blasting and blasting and blasting until a massive, dinosaur erupts behind you and you're tracking its weak points. You even bring the eye down and find the spots

and you're boo, boom, boom. And it gets close and it charges at you. It's more opens up wide but two shots straight into the mouth as it opens up and I can as this dinosaur is shot and blown

apart as it falls back and you for term crisis two come to the end of the rail and the gun triumphantly bounces in the air, as you see, winner! I'll show those dinoes, how'd I do, Ziggi? He did amazing, well done. I like how every time I let go of the pedal,

Zingy didn't account for the animation change, so normally it looks like red hole in the grab gun, but when I reload, the model sloops back to like a standard video game protagonist with a pistol, reloads, but the same mesh, like graphic is on top of it, and then I go back into red mode I did my best. It's so very hard.

Where when you jump a fence and you're with dog meat, dog meat turns into a human. That's like, yeah, the long rigs, yeah, climbs over. Yeah, and then turns out of the dog. Absolutely correct. Oh. That's so funny.

That's a nightmare. God damn. One final time, the code comes through. We played your games. We're ready. Come on. Reveal yourself. One last game.

erupts on the arcade. I'm gonna hack and play at the same time. You're gonna have to try. Because Millions Hidden Fortress takes the screen in front of you. One of the most difficult platforming games to ever hit arcades. Millen's hidden fortress?

I've never played this. This is a nightmare. This is known as one of the worst games ever made. What do you say? And also is it, Millen? My lawn? What is it? No one knows, you fucking nerd. Literally, it's never heard of this.

And that's true, nobody knows. And even rarer to meet someone who's actually beaten it. You will have to grid spike and play at the same time. I'm gonna grid spike for the. You may not roll at advantage, because you're doing both. Oh, yeah, that's together. Here we go. That's good.

I'm gonna roll grid spiking roll. Get one more those tall. And then roll a computer check. Raw. Okay, here comes the grid spiking check. And what I'm grid spiking for is the strategy guide. Oh. 15.

You have heroic inspiration. And my computer. No, I'm more worried about playing the game. Yeah. That's going to be a 24. So 15 and 24. We'll see. I will start to, I'll grab the joystick,

I will start to mess with the controls, and the music will start. Do do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, there's four levels to the fortress. Oh, okay, well, hold on, how do I do? You see yourself, you see Ziggy, once more, yourself, and in your hoodie with your backpack, moving through the hidden fortress,

as you start to dodge and erupt and jump through platformings. At first it feels a, extremely positive. You're very confident in yourself. The strategy guide you're pulling up. Yes, yes, absolutely. I know where to go.

And then you turn a page and it looks like three or four are missing. And it says that moment that your attention wavers, that you look forward and a piercing lance strikes out and pierces your chest. In real life, we're just in the game. In real life. You take six point. of lightning damage.

Oh, shit. As an orange arcing lightning arcs from the arcade cabinet and strikes you in your chest as you're playing. Ow. Oh my God. Are you okay? Did you lose? No, I...

Am I still playing? Is it the game? You're still playing? It's not over yet. Ow! Roll another computer check. Roll another computer's jack. I'm glad you guys stalled it so well.

At this time I get a 29. With a 29. You made it about halfway. That caught you off guard. You start over. You run. You're using the guide.

You get through. I don't keep any of my items when I start over? You're moving. Don't keep any of your items while you start over. It's just as hard as it was before. This is an extremely unforgiving game. But you maneuver and you jump. You get to that same spot.

Three missing pages. from the guide, the lance arcs out. You jump and don somehow in the same moment in the air as you crouch. It fast falls you to the ground and you miss an above spike that comes down, trying to catch her from above. Okay, you got this.

As you expertly maneuver between these protruding blades coming at you, now from all directions, you enter a form of zone, as the game now seems to make sense to you. You've never seen, you've never played it, you've never seen anyone beat it, you've hardly heard of it, and yet as the blades,

Shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo, you move, it's almost like watching a beautiful dance as Ziggy, the pixelated version of Ziggy swirls and turns and flips across the stream until you reach the final level of the fortress and you stand there in its throne room, in its treasure room, I'll say, victorious. And once more above, you see,

Winner. Nice. Winner, winner. I can't believe I beat that. That's a really hard game. You know, if you stand in one place for too long, you just hit by lightning. It's horseshit.

It looked like a, like a challenge in games. It get well done. Yeah, you did it. Nice job, man. All right, I think that should be the last one, that's five, right? By my count. All right.

Your turn, can you help us yet? Yeah, yeah, you brought us here. You want our information? You want information? Give it to us. As you beat the fifth and final game, the orange hard light around the cabinet evaporates, and you hear loud, kachunk,

as the double doors reinforced with dynasteel to your side, unlock. Through here, I think. You all ready? Yeah. Yeah. Are you okay? That really stung.

You got electrochuted. I did get electra shooted. I'm glad none of you got hurt, though. Yeah. You just did that well. Thanks to you for cheating. I couldn't hack and play at the same time. It was tough.

Don't forget you had ten points of temporary hit points. Before or after? Before, so now you only have four. Oh, that's so good. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you so much. Big news. Oh, geez.

Okay. Ziggy, this is your time. Are you ready to face your nemesis? Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. All right. This guy better uphold his end of the fucking deal. For the sake of the bounty, let's get this guy.

If this devolves into some sort of strange nerd fight, is there a way you can flag us in or out if you think you can handle it yourself? Yeah, you guys just going to slap each other? It usually involves very cool breakdancing, I'll have you know. I don't believe that for one second. All right, all right. If it turned into a weird computer thing, then I don't know.

Just punch them in the face. All we were hearing of the information. All right. Emboldened with the quest to face your nemesis, you turn from the cabinet towards the dynastial doors at your side. Ziggi, you lead the procession. You put your hand on the door hesitating for but a moment as you push both and they swing wide.

And I propose that's where we take a quick break. Oh, okay. Let's do it. Hot damn. Ziggy, two hands on the door, you push forward. Let's see what my nemesis has in store for us next. As the final door is unsealed, you step into the heart of the one-up arcade.

The maze of arcade machines ends before a square-shaped room lined with cabinets with a single enormous screen high above you. Then the room fills with orange light, as grids and cascading ones and zeros cover every screen. You see the shimmering grid-lined helmet of Mega Destroyer appear on every single one, and the voice emerges once more. You've made it to the final stage, DinoBite,

the final boss. I admit no one has ever cracked my code. my code before, no one has ever decrypted my encryption before. And when I discovered, someone had and reviewed your work. No. No, this I'll do face to face. And from out behind one of the cabinets, you see long fingers wrap around. ending in orange nails as moving from behind you see a figure in a almost not unlike yours

an orange and black hoodie with the hood pulled up and a helmet wrapped around the head walks out at the other end of the room and fits a claw under the helmet and pulls it up Once more speaks, this time not modulated. It's much higher as you hear what sounds like the voice of a young nerdy woman project through the speakers that surround you. What I saw was... What was perfect. It was beautiful. When I saw your code DinoBite, I was enchanted.

I have never seen such virtuosity. such a respect for the code, such a respect for the game, you are perfect. Together with your hypercoding and my cybertronic expertise, we can become masters of the hypergrid Dinobite, masters of the code of reality itself. But that can only be, if you clear the final stage and win my adoration forever. I will not hold back and you and your friends will die if you do not overcome the challenge the life of your family is at stake dynobite there is only win or die there is no other option then a rapidly pulsing grid pattern fills the room as the largest

screen above you pulses and she and she emerges from it a sleek black covered suit Under the hoodie in orange grid lines, you see her long tail pointed ears, neon glowing roller blades that lead streaks of orange light. You see her now a young Claudein woman with gridrunner powers just like you. Mega Destroyer circles around you at incredible speed

as she hunches and fees on the forearm of her suit. God, she's a Zuma. And four arcade cabinets project orange hard light as they take a physical form. Physical programs manifested from the hypergrid materialized next to each one of your friends, Ziggi, as your nemesis prepares to massacre you all. I need everyone to roll for initiative.

Oh, shit. Guys, watch out, she's crazy. Oh my God. I roll pretty good. Let's see what we get here. I didn't. My initiative rolls are. All of my characters are amazing except for Co.

Barnabos, I kill it. It'll turn. It'll come back around. It's the only thing I roll lower. Co, I don't roll above a 10. I don't roll above a six. I get a seven again. You got a name?

Oh my God. May swat. Take your time though. Yeah, yeah. You'll decide where you can go first and foremost, I will do initiative. Okay, I think I'm too stuck. 20 to 25.

Up to you. 20. Nice. 20. 20. Brett at the top. 15, oh, sorry, 20 to 15. Not today.

That was due. Oh, no. 15 to 10. 10. No way. Holy fuck. Wow. That's a good time to get a bad roll out of the way, I guess.

7-8, 7-8. That's very funny. That's very funny. The rest. It's going to be co, Ziggy, and We both got eights, code's going first, because Ziggy is, for lack of a better word, stunned. Rams erupt out of the arcade cabinets around you, taking position around each one of your party members. You guys can place yourselves in the section closer to me.

So you can do kind of, if you want to do just like... Cabinets around the edge of the whole thing. This is kind of like, yeah, just rimmed in... You don't have to you. You don't have to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Go everything more. Don't let me stop you, keep going.

Yep. She. Zugi came in first, presumably. Yeah. Yep, yeah. But we were kind of in the middle. She's like zooming around us. Yep.

How can the song shreds so hard? Do you want to open that? Let's do that. It's not going to be perfect. That's absolutely. Just to give a sensation. And there's a large screen. I'll say she ended right there.

right there. Oh, I got center cabinet. Who doesn't have heroic inspiration? I do not. Just Rich? And you. I know, I don't have it. So it's just Coe and Ziggy have heroic inspiration.

I don't have used mine. Did I use mine? You didn't, no, neither one of you used yours. Oh, you gave me one. Thank you. And then Coe, you also have iconic inspiration. Did you give it to yourself? No.

So the three must don't have. I can only do three so the three of us don't have it. I can give one person one, that's what we're not. Excellent. So she's swarming around you, these light roller blades, leaving almost a trail of that similar orange hard light. And she moves swiftly throughout your party. She takes position squaring off against Ziggy as these figures, arcade almost pixelated, erupt from the cabinets and pop out around you. Rhett, what do you do?

This is clearly like a fighter die situation, based on everything she said, I think that's fair to assume. Oh, yeah, she said life or death. Life or death. You either win or you die. She was comfortable murdering your waiter. People died in the scutful.

She has announced several times that it's a shame that you all didn't die when they were trying to get Ziggy. and that this moment is quite literally you will have to fight to survive and if you beat her as the final boss she may give you

what she knows. We'll get these and I'm gonna just the program that's right in front of me I'm gonna fire off two shots at it. The first shot is 15 to hit

Does 15 hit. 15 hits? Oh, my God. I'm going to apply Vex to it, and I'm just going to attack a second time. Thanks a God. He's got straight to hell. Another 15?

15 hits. Those both hit. 15 plus 12 is 15. 27 points of force damage to... Hell yeah. 27 points of force damage. Holy shit.

Oh, this should be interesting. You take aim and boom, boom, boom, boom, you're warmed up from term, term disaster, too. You're almost... I'm like, almost... I'm pressing for the pedal and nothing's happening. Yeah, your foot taps as you're firing on. Oh, right, right, right. As two massive shots lob into this thing, you see them take massive damage as you've delivered a heavy blow

is it crashes into this black, pixelated form with a face of orange neon light. And then as my bonus action, I'm going to move, is this holding each creature? Is this? No, that's, I'm going to then run this way. And I am going to turn my alternate fire mode on, and the aperture will turn it.

Oh, hell, yeah. As a, it'll concentrate the graviton the beam that goes, the shoots forward. 30 foot wide, it's five feet wide, so I'm gonna go all the way through those guys. And they need to make a deck save DC-16. All right, I'll do them individually. One. Five from the game.

That is right. Oh, one did not. Oh, wow. It's my speculum. It's, sorry, what, oh, deck save. I mean, not even clear. Oh. They fail, so they will both take 2D8 force damage.

There's a force for necrotic, hold on, oh wow. Not bad. They will both take 10 force damage, or have as much successful one, a non-magical item being worn or carry takes the damage if it's in the line, if the beam destroy its object, the line continues past. So they just take 10 force damage. Okay.

That's the turn. Brutal, is this line? As this line erupts and lights up this area, bathe no longer and kind of just the orange glow around you. You add to this technicolor brightness. As you blast this beam straight through them, one is looking a little rough. Pokemon!

And kind of actually starts to spark. Hell yeah. And it is now Mega Death's turn. You think you can echo me? Let's see if you know this one. Source deletion. And you'll see an orange fear. An orange sphere start in the dead center

between Ziggy Coe and Pike. As it enters the area, a sphere of ones and zeros, and then rapidly it expands. Oh. Covering a 20-foot radius. Oh, I wonder what that means. As it claps back.

And I need everyone to make. a dexterity saving throw. I'm good at that. And dang a mortal man. Natural 20. And better make a drop. What a time to get a natural. Do you a tax saving throw?

I have plus eight. Do I want to use my heroic inspiration on this? Why do you make I'm a good? Probably. Probably. All right, I'm using my ear. 17. Same thing.

I believe Mace meant mega destroyer. What else? Mega death. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, I wrote Mega death on the, on the, Oh, man. No, you're in trouble.

I'm dumb. I wrote it on my initiative card. That's why I said. Mega Destroyer is here. Not Mega Death. Oh, man. This is big damage. All right.

Dex saving throw. DC 16. I tied it. I don't know if 20 would hit you, right? Probably not, but everybody else. No, he's out. Okay.

Um, I think it would get everybody. He said he specifically said he put it right here. Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah, I mean, this is, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I got a 17. That's fine. I got a 16.

I got a 24 meter beat, right? The DC, do we have the date? Oh, I don't think we do. Oh, sorry, it was DC 16, yeah. Nice. I tied it. Okay, so you met it. You beat it.

Me to beat. Oh, you beat it. Yeah. Everybody, oh, you're out. Ziggy. Eight. I used my heroic inspiration and I got, I rolled six twice. Oh, no.

40 points of damage as this sphere bursts and then collapse as if it deletes the zone itself. It creates a loud burst. Don't forget you have 10 points of temporary. Yeah, I just shoot three. Yeah, I mean that else. And half if we succeeded? Half of you succeed. So you'd take 20 points if you succeeded.

Is it fire damage? Yeah, fire damage. What matters? Some resistance to radium. It's not. It's fire damage. And she'll race back. Oh, she'll race back just like two squares.

The kill drones will now act. My kingdom for a counter spell. Why didn't I take that? I'm such a fool. The programs, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The programs will move down two and four will move down one square. Like this way?

Yep, yep, sorry, towards me. Towards me, yep, you got it. Perfect. And then that one as well. Oh, that's frightening. And then one in three will stay where they are. I don't like that. Then going back to back is scary.

Yeah. Come on I have like a Swiss cheese. Oh, okay. Bonnie and Clyde right here. Seriously. Yeah, no. One is going to attack Brett. That's, oh, that's 14.

That misses. Okay. Two will attack Co. Oh, that's not bad. That is 21. Metal hit. Man, that opening attack was brutal. Yeah.

What a way to start a fight. You're telling me. That's like when the dragon starts with the red. You're still standing. I'm in trouble. It's, uh, you take seven points, but it's lightning damage. You're a chunky dino boy. It's lightning damage.

Oh, that's a lot of them. As they walk out, they have almost like, uh, they have arm, like arm blasters, as you see. But even this, uh, it pulls at its, at the end of its blaster. Uh, it pulls a, uh, an orange light as, as, p, boom, uh, it fires out and hits. for seven points of damage. Four will fire on Pipe. Yeah. Three will fire on PIXEL. And it's just lightning damage? No, there are other types of damage?

Just landing damage. Just lighting damage. Just clarify. Okay. I want to hear from the DM. That's the hypergrid damage type. Or one of them at least. Like this. Yes. Yeah. For Pixel, 14. I'm guessing that.

That misses. Beautiful. Nice. Oh, for Pike, however. Oh, actually, I think it was pretty high. 17? Oh, yeah, I got 19. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay. I definitely like, it barely misses me.

So they miss as well. That is the program's turn. What the hell. Plike, that's now to you. I am going to realize that I'm shoulder to shoulder with Pixel and Ziggy, and I don't want them to get, like, absolutely just shredded. So I'm gonna step forward and in front of Pixel,

if that's okay, to try to basically shield you and give you cover. Oh, thanks, Pike. As I go into attack number three, and I am just going to, going to unload on this guy. I'm gonna take two attacks and Florea blows. Number three, I'm stepping in front of pixel

to try to like protect her. And what do you respond about? What? All right, I'm flooring him. I don't care. Even if this ends up killing me, I'm sorry, everybody. Goodbye. It's been fun. I guess secondly, I can just attack him first.

Fuck you. The first one's gonna mean 18 to hit? 18 hits. The next one, ooh, that's gonna be low. That's a 14 to hit. 14 hits. Oh, okay. They're made out of rubber.

Everything that you do to them, bounce the back, and it sticks to you. Let's roll the damage for the first two. Oh, sweet. That's actually 19 points of damage for the first two attacks as I punched this thing twice. Sorry, I'm just fixing.

I want to see if my fists explode off my body or something. You hit these first two strikes. You come in and you level into the program and you see these like little pixelated blocks kind of almost jumping off of them as your strikes land. I feel it's a strange sensation to hit them.

Almost like hitting a punching bag, but a little more ethereal to it. So it's marked. It takes 19 points of damage. For the first two, it's X. That's for four, for number three. Three, okay. And then I'm gonna flurry blows

since my hands didn't explode off my body. Another 19. Damn it, I got a dirty 20 and like a 27. You hit? You hit for sure. Oh man. I'm crushing this damage. That's 14.

It's the 24 points of damage for the next two attacks. I roll almost max over the course of all this attacks. I'm just beating the shit out of this thing. Once more, this thing kind of starts. You're absolutely crushing it. A flurry of punches, kicks, a knee straight to its body. Pixels are kind of flying off in chunky blocks. And this one is also looking very rough.

That is my whole turn, as I am just engaged with three and four to try to make sure that they don't like crush Pixel behind me. Go. God sick, you have a stalker! As I am going to... Good luck, buddy! As I am going to charge forward with my club, as I will say,

really nice, fancy equipment. It wouldn't really suck if rain fucked it up. As I burst with my storm solar. Rather than doing Thunder Soul, or my... Unleased the storm, I'm unleashing my tempest-born. the reins sheets lashed around me,

me and allies in the 10 foot emanation have half covered all range attacks. Whoa. Oh. So if you want to basically get plus two A.C. What is it? How big is it or 10 foot? Get plus two A C to range.

Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. I'm glimbing on your back. You have, you have iconic inspiration. 15 hits? Oh, I'm sorry, yes, 15 hits. Yeah.

You're taking the programs? Yeah. Yes, 15 hits. As I, uh, grab my club as I surge into it as I am using the power property as I have I believe 24, 25 charges. I'm using one of my charges to power it

so it becomes a 1D12. As I hold it with both hands. Nice. That's going to be, sorry, 13 points of bludging damage. 13 points, okay. And this is which number? I'm sorry? That's number two. Hold on.

12. Should I use iconic inspiration? Yeah, I'm gonna use it. Nope. Didn't work. Well, 13. You did have your heroic inspiration. Yeah, but I thought I could just snip it too.

12, 13. 13 is the AC. Wow. I am going to. Supervice. Hell yeah, what else. They're probably huge. Well, no, roughed them up, all right?

Yeah, yeah. 17 points of Bloods his damage. Damn. And this is the two again? Yeah. I did do like 40 damage. I'm also not knocking on the back because I know that they're in a line. Almost all of them have taken roughly 40 points of damage. Yeah, we're fucking them up. This has been absolutely just disruptive first round.

We're not even through it. Yeah, just absolutely crushing with your club as you strike blows from every side. And with that inspiration that called the Song of Pixel at your back, when one looks as if it's about to miss by air. You hear the tune come in from the keytart as you're able to adjust and it swings and crushes into this program. Those same pixelated blocks falling off of either side as you were just raining down blows in your storming fury.

Last attempt, or last, I use my free melee attack on this. I got, I missed. So I'm going to use my heroic inspiration to attempt to just. Maybe you finish the guy on it? How many times you get heroic inspiration, just permanently? No, so he had a heroic inspiration and an iconic inspiration. Oh, okay. So I'm now out of inspiration entirely, and I'm out of TEP-E-B.

Yep. So I'm ready to go. I just now have half cover, or sorry, yeah, half cover which is plus 2 AC. That should be a 18 to hit. As odd, that is not a D12. That is going to be eight points of bludgeoning damage. Nice. As I go in with a kick to this hard light program from the hypercredit.

The kick, once more big, they're almost like, it almost looks like Swiss cheese now with the blocks of pixel that have been almost fully removed from it. As if a game of Connect 4 just begun with holes opened all throughout its form. It looks extremely rough. I'm going to activate the SAC property on it,

and so it is disadvantaged. the end until the next attack roll before the start of my next turn. Understood. Hold on. Nice. Ziggy. Ziggy. Ziggy. This massive explosion goes off behind me, and my hoodie flaps in the concussive force.

I turn back and back and see the lightning bolts moving through and between my friends, the slugs being shot out of the drones that are coming after us, and I am going to face Mega Destroyer. And I'm gonna say, Hypercoder to hypercoder, your code is elegant. And I appreciate the gift, but this isn't the way,

this isn't a game, this is real life. And you made a big mistake when you tried to attack my friends. And I'm going to execute one of my most powerful scripts, A lightning bolt is going to suddenly charge from the end of my grid boy, it's gonna continue to charge, growing larger and larger and larger, and you realize I'm capturing the energy

that's being shot from the attackers on either side of my allies, as some of their shots are going into the hypergrid and continuing to fuel and charge this, a huge blast. As a 100 foot long, five foot wide line blasts out for me directly in Mega Destroyers, direction, I need her to make a dexterity saving throw. That's gonna fuck me out.

I know. It's Megynastroar. Not Mega Death. I fixed my card. Oh. Not on Earth, I'm sorry. It's a lot nice. That's two.

Or, I mean, I rolled it with two. I'm gonna need four. She's cut. She's cut. She is indeed cooked as I roll 8V6 lightning damage. Can you change the damage? Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible. I hate when that happens.

I'm sorry that my dice are failing you terribly. 22 lightning damage goes in her direction. 22. She failed, so she'll take all of it. You gather this energy, and you almost see the pixelated masses that are being chunked off of these programs. as your friends just start laying into them all around you,

as you gather this energy from the hypergrid, those dark pixels of black and orange start to swirl and mix in until you blast out this beam from your grid boy in front of you. And she takes a solid blow. So she's not resistant. I expected better. I'm going to even step forward confidently,

as she continues to roll her blade around the arena, basically trying to make sure that she focuses all of her attention on me. I am very hurt, but I do not want my friends to be in danger, and I have no way of healing myself. Assuming she takes the full damage, I'm going to pass my turn. Oh.

You said it was lightning damage? I wondered based on all of the lightning that was happening. Yeah, yeah. I was like, oh, that's my bad. Yeah, no, she doesn't. She doesn't? That's too bad because I use my reaction and I use adaptive execution.

And she removes resistances. I'll use my reaction so that the spells damage ignores them resistance, making sure that she takes the full lightning damage. It's a hack, it's a hack counter hack, and I executed on the side. You have a grid battle. As she motions to code against you as the lightning comes in,

developing the resistance. She holds like a grid boy against her arm. Oh, she's got the power gloves. It's so bad. That's amazing. She's coding against you as you're blasting. This eruption of lightning strikes her. She's unimpressed until rapid fire you burst through her coding.

remove her resistances to lightning, and she takes the full, as this, the force of this, knocks her back, surprising her. Ah, ah. That's what I've come to expect from DinoBite. It was only like half what you did to me, I don't know. I start to type, and you can see that same charge starting to grow as I continue to capture

more and more lightning energy, telegraphing my, perhaps. Then I'll pass my turn. I was gonna ask a question. Oh yeah, please. Sorry, it's calm. It'll come back to you. No worries.

Pixel. Just I will 100% forget this later. The programs are also resistance to lightning. Does it out? That makes sense. They're very light. Yeah, they're very light. They're made a hard light.

They're made a hard light. Pixel will swing her guitar around and begin to play a song. I want a game with somebody. I want to level up with somebody. Game with somebody with my buddy named Ziggy. And I'm gonna cast iconic inspiration on Ziggy. And then also in that same bonus action,

I am going to create my backup hologram, but this time to hide it a little bit, it becomes a little tiny version of the light sprite. And it just kind of whips around behind Ziggy. as I move over to Coe to get as close to her as possible as she had called out. So I'm gonna be like right immediately behind you. It's like here.

It's just like someone, did someone say pizza? And then for my action, cast cure wounds through my pixie sprite on Ziggy at a third level. Hell yeah. Oh, that's the game, play the game right there, man. Just running it back. Let's play the game. And no, that's it, that's all.

Because I couldn't get to him. You just witnessed the HyperCoder subclass feature from Ziggy and the HoloStar subclass feature from Pixel. Wonderful. That's still so cool. I can't get over how fun that is. It's huge. I mean, it's unbelievable. What? Wait, what did you?

Just the subclass feature, being able to create this hologram and being able to deliver the keys. The flexibility is done. It brings me joy. It brings me joy. To who? To Ziki. Oh,

Unded the use that. Almost the entire fireball. Oh my gosh. I'm back to one under max. That's fucking crazy. That's massive. That's absolutely massive. My, my hoodie.

Undue. Control Z. Control Z. I got you, bestie, I got you. I got you. Pax, Max. Version control. Kill this freak.

I'm doing my best. Hey. Fucking nerd. Nurd. That's my turn. Uh, right, back to you. So I just shot and then shot the beam. It almost instinctually I stomped down on a pedal

that's not there and I go, sh-ch-ch. And I'm gonna bonus action, line them again and skip this- They are fucking far-eyed, bro. The beam will fire forward in a line, and they need to make deck saving throws. Okay. That's the Gravgunner subclass feature of the machinist. Oh, alternate firing for the Grav gun.

Um, not even, not only five fourth damage. Oh boy. Six. And who's this two? Uh, to one and two. One and two. Analyzing how poorly I rolled my damage. Let me open up Excel and I'm running the numbers.

It fucking sucked. I'll make a, I'll make a- Is she wearing headphones? Statter-grap. Uh, no, she had, she had like a head, like a head covering arm when she took it off. She has, she has the hood pulled up over kind of like an otherwise black. black outfit.

That's right. I'm picturing a nerdier version of Katra from Shira, those who know, real ones who know ball. Are they still standing? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm waiting to see how they stand. They both take the damage. Five points of force damage.

Five points of force damage. You can see as this blast hits number one and cascades into number two. as the line goes out, number one, destroyed. Nice. Begins to be the pixels turn from black. They begin to disperse and just before they do, they turn that full neon orange before they push

almost into a yellow and explode. And I need you, Cohen, pixel to roll dexterity saving. Ha me? Hot me? What? Pike hears this explosion and goes, uh-oh. Now I roll National 20. I'm using the exploding deathfall.

So DC 13, DC 13. I roll the natural 1 plus 1. I am presuming that because my rain says, oh, half cover against ranged attacks, we don't get plus 2 to this for the, okay, got it. This is a deck saving throw. Do you have that old pallet or enforcer aura? Level 6.

Yeah, that Torbay is level 6. That's right. That's right. So. Not quite there yet. I crush it, 23. Nice. I had a 17. Oh boy.

As the program bursts, DC's 13, as the program bursts, anyone, if you failed, failed. If you failed, you take 12 points of lightning damage. My God. If you passed, if you pass, you take half that. Um, seeing that, uh, but two is destroyed. Oh, she's also destroyed.

Oh, shit. No, two was destroyed. No, one was destroyed. No, one was destroyed. Oh, oh, I'm sorry, two was destroyed. Oh, oh, I'm sorry, two was destroyed. Okay, yeah. Well, sorry, I thought that was going to be closer to me.

My mistake, that, right? That you were out of range of that then. It's a 10-foot emanation. Oh, oh. You were out of range of two, you get into that damage. Roger that. Coen Pixel, you are still within that range. Yep, yeah, totally.

You will, you will. maintain half damage. So six. Lightning, plasma. Get out of here. Get out of here. Ow! I got your picks. I will.

So with my, that's my bonus action. Oh my gosh. Let's go. With my action, I'm going to see that Co's right there and that Pikes got two guys on by himself and that one is radiating with Alara's glowing light. So I'm going to say,

I'm with you, And I'm gonna run over here to give you a little bit of backup. One, two, three, four, five, six. And I'm just going to fire, we'll start with one attack. And then if I miss, I would do not miss. Pretty weak. Let's do, oh, nine plus six is 15 points of force damage to number three.

Which is the one that I was pummeling. Black. orange, yellow, it begins to explore. I mean, all this happens so fast. I don't even know what's happening. Are you in the range of this one now from where you move? No, I don't believe he's out of it. Okay, okay, okay.

Seeing that how they exploded, I would have been like right on the edge. You would have been right on the edge. You would have decided to move on the edge. Yeah, you just straight. Pike. Deck saving, though? Deck saving, bro. Oh, yeah, crushed it, 24.

Yeah, I just figured Pike would be able to easily dodge, and then I'm going to do my last attack. Ooh. That probably still hits though, because it's... 17 points of damage. It's half. Oh, shit. Yeah.

And it's lightning damage. 15 to hit, hits. Sorry, which one is this? I'm attacking four now with my second attack. Four is untouched. 50 points of damage. Nice. That's what it?

Damn, 17. Uh... Not bad, not bad. But you're gonna have to do a lot better than this if you want to run this round. Um, and she will... She will dash on her roller blades. Almost creating, sorry, a triangle formation.

What? Like right in front of orange marker in the Z. Yeah. I have pink. I know it's not orange. That's all right. Trinagle. As she moves this way, she's gonna go,

yeah, from here to here. She's gonna leave a trail of orange hard light. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. Behinds are fucking cool. Almost as like a defensive shield. Oh, no, she's cool. Why does she have cool powers?

Just right, that's fine. That's fine. Noster code. Close enough, but. And then back to basically right where she was. And she ends right on top of that. Cool. Wow.

That does look like a trinagle. All right. She's got trinagle power. And she will. She is a zoomer. She is a zoomer. That's very funny. Oh, rest there.

If you're wondering where he was. He didn't clip out, he didn't clip through the floor. Zee, 22 to hit. That hits. She's gonna hit you with a data jolt. You see. Actually, I'm gonna use my reaction and cast silvery barbs. And though she doesn't have headphones in,

she feels like she does, She hears the static and crackle of music, basically like a CD skipping. And so she has to re-roll that and take the lowest roll. And then I'm going to give Ziggy the good re-roll. Thank you. You're welcome. I get the good re-roll?

Yeah, I then choose a different creature that I can see within range, you, and you have advantage on the next attack roll, a village check of saving throw you make within a minute. Okay, so I have iconic. inspiration and I've got that badass shit. You got slivery burbs, you got slopply gutter pipes. I got sloppity pile my prism.

She with the orange light starts to cast out at you. You begin to cast this silvery barbs. She'll snap a look at you and quickly snap onto the code and say, this is between coders. And as you go to silvery barbs, as the magic tries to come into the week, Orange zeros and ones deleted out of the air.

And she stops it from triggering. And Ziggy, Gridruder Battles, man. Ziki, you get fucked. Yes! You know, I was choosing my spells, and I was like, I can choose third level spells. It's very Ziggy to choose counterspell. That would be the perfect choice for him.

But you know what? We don't really face casters, now do we? We don't really face casters too often. You gotta take. It's for, ma'am. labor of mechanics. Oh, actually, I'm sorry. Good luck when you try's a counter spell my divine smite.

Oh, she's actually gonna hit you twice. That's very funny. Parry this nerd. The first one is 18 points of force damage. She's gonna hit you again. If you could counter your fights. Your Cosmosmoser way. Yeah. Not anymore.

She doesn't have a reaction anymore. Unless. 13 points of force damage on top of that. I mean, that was a great bait. Thank you. So, like, that was totally worth it. It's a spell slot. That's a third level spells list.

Yeah. 100%. Totally. 100%. For a first level spell. Yeah. Good trade, good trade. Good trade.

Good trade. Good trade. Good trade. Good trade. Good trade. Good trade. Good trade. Oh. Good trade. Programs. Now to the programs. Man.

So what two left. I'm a little freaked out. It's going to be an animal version. I mean, like, I'll talk to her own. You did my head about. Animal Co. There's a little bit of grumble in the back of Co's head. Seeing Rhett's attack, the drones both hold out arms, and they almost work to copy it, as they fire blasting single five-foot beams of a line attack.

What the fuck? Down each row. So Pike, Hicksel and Co. I need a dexterity saving throw once more, DC-13. Oh, thank God. Oh, another national 20. I got a 14th. You might be able to get all three with both of them. If you wanted to.

And you don't have to. I got two Nat 20s for my deck saving throws, another 23. All three, who? Well, you would do, like, a line doesn't have to be exactly as squares. Yeah, technically you could basically do this and they fucking meet in the middle. Listen, come on. Why do that shit, we might as well pack it up right now.

You know what I'm in? I did not. I didn't hit the DC, but I can feel that as I'm fighting this program, look, one of this programs just exploded next to me. I'm like off my game, I'm like kind of like shifting the back foot. And in the back of my mind though, I think about my training and I think about my mentor. And I whisper a brief prayer to Alara and I use my species trait enduring passion. When you were a creature, you're doing 30 feet of you fails a D20 test.

I will use my reaction to give my self-heroic inspiration. Oh, hell. And I can choose to either use it on the triggering roll or save it, whatever. I'm gonna use it because I have high decks and I can't believe I fucked up this fail. Much better, 24. I pass this time.

But now I can't use my ability again until I have a long rest. Everybody passed? I know, big guy. Yeah. Yeah. I know a big guy. Yeah.

I was out of it. out of it. Because I just went first and backed up. You're not in it. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's worked everything well. 32 points. Oh! Yeah, I'm glad I'm glad I'm of lightning damage. Okay. I'm glad you to double up. Half damage. It's a 16, 16, yeah. I was like, man, you do the dice, bro. You should shut your mouth. Yeah. Uh, yeah. This is not good. So, 18, uh, 18, right? Whatever.

16. Oh, 16. 16 points of damage. As almost mimicking red, you see them hold up forward. As these arcing blasts fill up and almost like arcade beams of laser

that cut across the arena as the three of you will take that damage but in half. How much did you say it was? 16 is passed. Oh, okay. The rain, it does not say that.

Wait, what's the vengeful? We lost him. All this shit is blowing up. I'm getting absolutely words. This is a nightmare. Everything's happening so quickly. I shout to everybody just, you can hear me, Ziggy. I know that we have to take her down,

but Ziggy, this might be your only chance to get a girlfriend. and I continue to fight program number four, as I will start by making two attacks against number four. 16 to hit is the first one. Yeah, the AC's 13. Yes, AC's 13. So anything...

And I got a 13 on the second one, so it is marked. First two attacks will land. Ooh, that's not so good. 16 points of damage for the first two attacks, bludgeoning. Then I have to number four, I've dealt 16 points of bludging damage over two attacks. Now I have to decide what I'm doing here. The chunks of black pixel pop off of it

as you start to open it up. On the second attack that lands, I'm going to spend a message point to try to use energy as disruption, so we'll have to make a DC 16 con saving throw. Okay. That is a con. Yeah, 16 con.

Oh, it's nasty. Wow. I- oh no sorry that's her okay 17 damn okay so I'll rule to 15 I thought I had a plus zero at a plus two so on a success its speed is halved until it started my next turn and the next attack roll against the target before then has advantage so then I'll spend my essence point third s point to floria blows so the first one will be at advantage 18 and then the last one 14 so two more two more tax land nice That's 13, 23 points of bludgeoning damage for the 40 blows.

And this thing fucked me up. So I'd run. Well, you're probably hoping that felt you up that bad. Because it goes black, orange, and yellow. I didn't think I was going to kill it. As you defeat it and it explodes right in front of you. Shoot your finger!

I didn't think I was going to kill it. I need a Dex saving throw. You killed it by... I mean, this is not going to kill me. You're going to buy two. That's crazy. It was very close. That's insanity.

But you still didn't have, you got, you need that deck saving throw. I mean, there's no physical way they can kill me. It's just unfortunate. Let's find out. It's about to be my 14th, 19. Not kidding. And then it's spun off the paper and hit the actual one.

I can't kill me. It physically cannot kill you. It physically cannot kill you. The worst thing that happens, I come back with one-age pit. That's true. That's true. 16 points of lightning damage. As it bursts and explodes,

boom. It'll just have to be on my next turn. Because I have to wait until I roll my first death saving throw. Are you down? Yeah, I'm not, I'm gonna hit an I HP. Oh my God. I'm unconscious. But it can't kill me.

He physically cannot kill me. Yeah. Damn. And he's gone. Number four is gone. Number four is gone. There's gone. There's one, oh, there's one program left in front of Co.

And Coe, it's your turn. I make me explode when you kill him. I didn't think I could, I didn't think I killed him. Yeah, it was very close. I think you rolled really high. Yeah, yeah. I also forgot that you just attacked him. If I had realized that you delved any damage to him,

I would have just moved to war. Hearing, because I was one of my, one of my awesome feats that I haven't Hearing Pike's words, I will have also yelled back. She's proud to kill him. I am going to say, okay, I got this pics as I pivot around as I swing up my club and go in with a baseball bat stance to knock it away in case I do kill it, pixels out of the explosion.

In my hope to... This is number one? Yeah. 13. 13 is the 80. Barely fucking next. 13 hits. I power it up as I am going to deal.

11 points of bludgeoning damage, and I'm gonna knock it back 10 feet. You knock it back 10 feet into the arcade cabinets. It collides with it, and as it does, the pixels begin to disperse black, orange, turning towards that burnt yellow, as it once more explodes. The final program, are you within?

10 feet. 10 feet? I'll let you tell me. One and a half? No. Nobody takes the damage. And I swing. Nice.

I swing and I smash into it. I see it sparking and I don't even watch it. I just turn around and face towards a pixel and put my club over my shoulder as it explodes behind me and say, cool guys, never look at explosions. And I just sprint. I sprint forward. I've already moved five feet.

I think you have your full move. Oh, you do. That's a zoomer. So 10, 15, 20. Is she in this, like, little pocket? How do I? She's, like, where the line ended. So the line's kind of, like, running towards her.

So you can actually move up, like, if you can move one more away from me, the GM, and then over, you'd be next to her. I said, barely enough movement to get there. As I'm going to say, Ooh. Big fucking mistake. Now you're trapped in here with me,

as I am going to, um, attempt to just use my second attack as part of my attack action, because I am level five. Paladin? That is cocked, unironical. That is true because it was the pencil. 16? That'll hit.

I use my bonus action. Yeah, I'll move those for you. As I, as the laser spike shoot out of my club, as I'm going to use cosmic smites, which I believe is 2D8. Sorry, you think I would have memorized this given that I play Paladin? I just wanna make sure, I believe it's 2D8.

I just wanna make sure. Yes, okay, cool. So it's powered and then cosmic smite. Does bludgeoning or radiant matter? Just lightning. Okay, brutal. Yeah, yeah, it happens, it happens. Eight, 13 points of bludgeoning and radiant damage.

As I will knock her back, presumably into the wall. Into her wall. I don't know if she breaks through it or whatever, but it's a hard ball. It's a hard wall. I probably just knocked you're into it. It's, I think you might. Is it in the corner?

Yeah, in the corner? I think you might take the wind out of her, but yeah, she wouldn't break through it. But she'll hit the wall and rush over. I'm picturing, I don't know how, I'm imagining that she's like scrawny and like Ziggy's height. Am I, do I have like a foot on her and I'm like twice as wide as she is? If not more than a foot.

You're absolutely tower over. over her as you run up after destroying all her programs. I do that. You're towering over this young Claudein girl, early 20s even if you were to guess. Younger than Ziggy by a hair. And it's a slight as you crash into her and knock her into the, you can knock her into that corner.

Where's your- I can't move to chase her. So I have one more, one more- Oh, okay, okay, okay. I will knock her into after this one. And I'll say, I told you, say that shit in real life, see what happens. More people need to get their ass kicked. And then I'm going to lean forward,

or let them lean back and just do a big kick with my boot as I'm gonna try to teach her a valuable lesson about fucking around and finding out. And that's gonna be a 26 to hit. And then I believe that's a 1d8. With another one. That's a six points of bloody damage. And then I will knock her back into this corner.

I don't know if that's good for us, but basically. How much was that next one? It was only six. Six. Six. Only six. You sound like you type with two fingers. What?

That's the way to type. Ziggy. How does this wall look to me? Does it look like it's gonna prevent the casting of spells full cover? It's just full cover. It looks as if it's providing full cover. You ever seen wrong?

Yeah, I just, you know, what's it made of? Hard light. Hmm. Okay. Okay. Okay. If I get here, do I have line of sight or would I not be able to impact with like a spell or something? Do you think?

Where was that? I'm just trying to figure out if I can find a point, an angle where I would be to target Mega Destroyer. I would say that that line kind of drew into her. Like the square in which it ends is kind of like where she was. Like right here. So if you could get, I mean, you'd take that back

almost to kind of like what Coase Square is. If you could get kind of there, you'd have a lot of words. You could barely make it. I will get there and I was telegraphing my attack. I'm not gonna change my course. I'm going to instead say, what do you think this is, Episode six of Spiral Magina Order of the Edge! And I'm going to unleash this lightning charge.

It's had stopped charges as the as the enemies were slowly destroyed, the ones shooting lightning into my family, which was a great word for this quadradorin to use. I'm gonna either make another dexterity saving throw. Ooh, that's pretty good. 20.

Okay. I'm still gonna run it back. She's gonna take half of this. No, I was thinking more like Mecca Maiden's Love Protocol Override Season 2 episode 4, Art Destroyers. Oh my God. Ah! Has anyone tried to shoot?

No, there it is. No, no. No, no. In theory, an object does have HP. Let me see. Like, you think we can break it? If it is an object. Okay.

It would be 33 points of damage because she succeeds its half. and she would normally be resistant to it, but I would once again use my reaction to refactor the code and make sure that she takes the full amount, even though she is able to... Oh, shit. Nimely dodge out of the way of much of the...

So 33 points of damage. Yeah, I cast fork overflow, is my flavor for this. But you take half for that. But you take half. No, you remove the resistance. No, no, no. But you succeeded the Dictority-faving throw. So you take 16 points of lightning damage.

Got it. Got it, thank you. And. You're hitting a fireball. That's the best I can do. Brilliant coding. You do live up, DinoBite. You do live up to the promise.

Pixel. I'm gonna rush over to Pipe and put my hands on him. And I'm gonna dramatically cast Keram wounds on them at a third level. Hell yeah. Nice, nice, nice. Oh, but as my bonus action, I'm gonna start glowing green,

because I'm already green. So I'm gonna glow green, and that will allow me to also add my proficiency bonus to this year. Hell yeah. With your global species feature. Mm-hmm. You like your emboise. Oh, yeah.

I kind of inspiration, it works like heartic, right? In 2024, can I add that to damage? No. They took that away. That was never implemented. Yeah. Oh, it was like UA or something like, okay. It was UA that never got up a gun. Either way, it's not a thing now.

Yeah, it makes me sad. 36 points of hue. That's fucking huge. Jesus. Ha! Ah, thanks, Pixel. You're beautiful. God, I hate these nerds.

You'll help. Yeah, me too. Fuck them up. Drake, she needs to tell us what she knows. I'm gonna try. That's my turn. Right. Look, Pac, next time things blow up when they die,

you know, just do your finger point. any lazy thing. As I pass over you, I'm going to, like, reach down, and mechanically, I won't do anything. I'm trying to, like, pull you up. And I'm going to walk past, thanks for doing the Heelon Pixel. And I am going to narrow the aperture again. And instead of just firing blind at this thing, I'm going to do a disintegration ray that you can totally destroy walls. Fuck that. Oh, I'm going to do it. That's a maniac shot. Shoot, disruptor beam at it. Um, in everything.

needs to make a deck save. We'll see if it penetrates this wall. Presumably, this just automatically hits the wall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The wall can't make a deck save. You can't like miss it. Ten points of force damage are going to hit the wall. Nice. And if it destroys the wall, the line's going to continue through. I'm not sure what HP it has. It does destroy the wall. Wow. As it goes through, it'll disintegrate it. The line will hit her and then hit the wall back here. Almost as these jagged shrapnel of orange hardlight

erupts in all directions as the disintegration beam pierces and connects with Mega Destroyer. She needs to make a deck safe. And if she fails, she will take... You do this non-lethal. This is... Yeah, we're not trying to kill her. Obviously, it's part of the test.

Nine. She fails. She takes 10 points of force damage. And then it would also continue back and hit this wall here. So presumably would have blown this. Still 10 points, all 10 points all the way through.

Yep, so it'll blow out the front and the back there if you want to just remove and the rest of it will remain. Nice, nice, nice, nice, good job. Oh, that's closed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we know what it is. Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice. Nice. Nice.

And then, for my action, I'll shoot her twice. All I'm saying is I'm just going to shoot until she heals. She better heal. Damn. Again, I'm not trying to kill Arc because she needs the information, but we're in this game that she put in front of us. Do you get your reaction back at the top of the round or when it comes back to your turn? Start of your turn.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Let me see here. Hold on. That's all weird. I'm going to vex her on my first attack. Oh, man.

What does Vex do again? I get advantage on my next attack. Oh. They both hit. 12 plus 12 is 24 points of force damage. I think Dan is saying that we can't non-lethal on ranged attacks. I mean, technically, yeah.

Technically. You can't be like, oh, I guess I'll shoot this arrow slightly less forcefully. I only hit her in the thigh. I set my phaser to stun. You set your phaser to stun which is definitely legal. It's a sci-fi setting. It's a sci-fi setting.

You set your... That's not unreasonable. That's not unreasonable. As you fire out these things, two blasts. They both land hard against her as you shattered through this wall, surprising her. Ah, you have strong friends, Dinobite. She looks very rough at this point, very rough. But she will take her turn. She will. What was the thing that she referenced when I met? She said, she referenced, I'm sorry,

Mecca Maiden's Love Protocol Override Season 2, Episode 4, Arc Destroyers. Of course I'm strong because of my friends. You watch all of Mecca Maidens and you don't know that. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. That's very funny. Fireball 2.

Destructed to do. Distructed of Blue. Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. Listen, listen, listen. She will once more. She will do 36 damage to me now. Because now I can't, now I can't use my badge.

Oh, that's like a slide. Creating a line. Oh, where's the one? Oh, yeah. I got it. I love this mechanic. That's so cool. Is she going to then cover herself as well?

Like, is she, oh yeah, she'll do. So she was here, so she's like, Because she can do like this, right? Like her, or what's her movement? Oh, 30. So one, two, three and a half. Yeah, she could literally do this and then like, you know, perfect.

Megan here. Perfect. And that's sloppy as fuck, but I'll fix it. Um, a hardcore parker off that wall and get around. Yeah, you can be a big of your disciple after all. Uh, fight. She'll look over at, She'll look over at Coe this time and say,

Strong because of your friends, huh? Well, it's like Dash Grayson in the third century. There's no law in the stars, as she'll target Co. And send out two- There's no law on the stars, blasts. Just guts. Hey, you take Dash Grayson's name out of your mouth. Oh.

Pike, don't suit. to their level. Natural 20 and a, oh, geez. 23. You just be able to see? That's why I'm looking. I've got two things I can do, but one of them I can't because of.

I'm gonna start rolling it. Yeah, you're gonna do. Yeah, you're gonna damage, throw a damage. No, you magically distract a triggering creature and turn its momentary uncertainty into encouragement for another creature. The triggering creature must re-roll the D20 and use the lower roll.

I'm gonna cast silver rebarks. Was the range? Oh, maybe I can't. I can cast it from my hologram, 60 feet. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What is it, what is it target? Like, what does it stop me from doing?

You have to re-roll that, natural 20. And take the lower roll. Okay. Even if it's not a spell? It's imagerily distract the triggering creature and turn its momentary uncertainty and encouragement for another creature. The triggering creature must re-roll the D-20

and use the lower line. Oh, a creature you can see within 60 feet. Yeah, that is what you can say. So. But they're just light waltz. If it is full cover or full cover. Is it full, oh, that's why I was asked that. All right.

It's hard. Oh, oh. Oh. I appreciate it, Big. Ends of an 80s movie with the jock bully gets her ass kick. I don't think I can. Man, this hard light wall are really good thing. Oh, I'm definitely.

She's clever. I got my friend. I got my plan. I got a strategy. The question is, If you dach after you get up, does it double your full movement? Or the half movement? Either way.

It's your full movement, I believe. Well, I still have a plan. 41 points of lightning damage. Holy lightning damage. That's nothing. That's nothing. Coe's lighting for breakfast. Blasts ring out through the arcade.

So it's only 20. I have 10 points left. Which? After you see the blasts ring out through the arcade, you hear her clacking on her keyboard before they land at you. You see both blasts hit. And she'll say, I'll take a page out of your code book, DinoBite. And she quickly hop fixes to remove your resistance to lightning.

Uh-oh. Well played. That makes my soul, she probably would get their come up. As I collapsed to the ground. What must that feel like to finally experience lightning? The first time. We're like, it's something that's innately, you can resist.

It must be terrified. Is that, is that a bonus action or a reaction just so I'm not? It's a reaction. Reaction. Nuts. But I thought it was cool. That's really awesome.

That is really cool. He earned it, right? No, it was cool. Co-deserve that truth. I want everyone to know that co-deserved that. You and I even talking of that shit. Oh, yeah. A pipe.

Okay, so I have a couple of questions to ask before I execute my hardcore parkour. Go for it. How tall are these walls that she's making? 10 feet? I believe 10 feet. Okay. So it's like standard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

If I stand up, use half my movement to stand up, that's 25. I have 25 feet of movement left over after I stand up. Even then, I would like to use my flowing step, which is I can dash as a bonus action. Alternatively, I can spend one essence point to take both the distance. and dashed actions as a bonus action, and my jump distance is doubled for the turn. So I basically just want a hardcore parkour, like up over this, because that would give me 50 feet again, a movement total,

plus my jump distance is doubled, and so I'd like to basically like hardcore parkour up over the light wall, and then punch her in the face. I didn't know math magician, but it kind of sounds like you were running the opposite direction all the way around the arcade and still get to it from the other side of the wall. I mean, I thought about basically doing something

where I'd go this way and then like up and over, right? right but like technically with 50 I don't quite have enough to get there if I had my full movement and I had a hundred absolutely it wouldn't be an issue yeah I had to stand up it's like kind of close but I was hoping with the double double jump distance you might give it to me I think you could you could definitely leap over the wall you're about to run 80 feet of movement well you have a double a double it's 50 feet of movement and then I have double my jump speed or double my jump distance for the turn what I'll say is if you want to try to scale the wall even

with that I'm gonna need an acrobatics check Deal, deal. So I will try to do some cool, like, run at the arcade cabinet and then, like, hardcore parker up the wall over her, over the wall, and, like, get behind her. And if that requires the athlete acrobatics check, it's not crazy high, but it sure ain't low. Yeah, that's fair.

You should have 125 feet of movement. That should be plenty. Jesus, really? No. Well, not after I stand up. That's the catch here, right? If I'm spending 25. Sorry, not 125, 75.

Yeah. That's reasonable. Either way, I'm spending my focus. Because you can dash while you're on the ground, your movement is now 100. Correct. Correct. 14 plus 8 is 22. When you get up, do you spend half of that?

Say you've got a title. Okay. We're correct. You got it. Okay, so then I basically am like, God, I hate that I have to do this. And I basically run as fast as I can to try to get enough momentum to do a sweet, like, run off the wall, backflip kick thing

to land basically on the other side of wall and be like, I'm really sorry. And I'm gonna try to non-letely punch her twice and just like knock her unconscious. Yeah, go for it. See how many 19s I can roll. No 19th, but my low was an 18. So I got an 18 and a dirty 20.

So both will hit for a total of 17 points of bludgeoning damage over two attacks. As I try to basically like punch her in the stomach twice, like knock the wind out of her. And you do, you run up the wall Gaining, like, we'll say five feet of elevation off the ground as you move almost horizontally so fast, before you kick off of it and fly an additional five feet up the air, clearing the wall over with your back to it as you slide over it and then back foot, landing definitely on your feet,

and quickly rising up, and almost as your fist is in motion level, hit her first with your apology, and then your fists. brutal strikes. She coughs. You see the wolves almost shimmer and warble, and you can see the code in them now that keeps them up.

But she still stands. Then I will use my last focus point. She'll have to make a DC-16-cons saving thrill as I attempt to disrupt her energy. Six. She's stunned. Until the start of my next turn. And that is my last point.

That's nice. Nice. And then I say, say just like Dash Grayson would have done. So yeah. All of the rain has stopped, all of the elephants and volcanoes and stop the wrapping. Wait a minute, what happened?

Oh, that's my whole turn though. That's my whole turn though. Yeah, yeah. You're done. I roll my death saving throw. Don't look. Oh. Oh, my bed.

I can't see your, I can't read your dice. We good. All right. We're good. We're good. You can look again. Okay Zieg

How's you looking? She's looking very, very rough. She took a brutal flurry of blows from Pike, massive hit from Rhett. She's fallen to a knee. She's stunned. She's looking rough.

I looked at my entire character sheet and I have no means of doing non-lethal damage except for my combat knife. No, I... Are you with the same? Dinosaur? Yes, I am exactly correct. I am going to run up and I am going to

basically headbutter. I'm going to giraffe her. I'm going to, no, no. I would like to roll to hit to see if I do any damage and if that mechanically takes her out, cool. That's how we're gonna do this, but if I can pull this off, then I am, I have another way of disabled. mega destroyer.

I think you're an advantage. He's stunned. So if you're running up to it. I was not in the way. You get a running charge. What does this look like? He's got a clear pattern. And you have a clear pad.

He's got him first. He got him first. No, what are you? You're running towards. Is that a natural? No. Natural 20. And then with the advantage, natural 20.

Amazing. I get... We set them up, we knock him down. Oh my God. Because of my natural weapon, my horse. natural weapon, my horn, I just, I forget the code. I see what's happening. I see what's happened to co next to me.

I see that Pike is trying his best to just get her to stop. And I just, I run forward and I ram into her dealing 10 piercing. Non-lethal. How do you want to do it? How do you want to do it? Let's fucking go. Because this is all flavor now, I'm going to run up and I'll yell.

I will ram into the back of you and I'll push you almost out of the way as I rush forward. There's only one way to stop a hybrid coder. I grab her arm and I pull off her power gloves. You run up. You grip her arm where her power glove is and you yank it off in a slow motion. The glove comes off as she flies back. A very Scott Pilgrim. Yeah, absolutely.

As the glove erupts behind. All of the hypergrid programs. I got our hyperband! Are obliterated. Their hard light forms fragmented into grid shards. The hyperpad on the forearm of the cybertronic suit shatters to pieces as you rip it off of her. And in an instant, the light skates fragment as Mega Destroyer skids out and collapses to the ground. The digital visored helmet shouts.

she had taken before, splitting in two and clattering to the ground. You see a scrawny and scruffy Claudeering girl that can't be older than her mid-20s as she looks at you with wild eyes that are wide in awe. She looks at you with adoration as she lets out an unhinged laugh. That was a pain in the ass.

I run over to Coe and take my syringe to the healing stem and heal her up. Stay down, Mega Destroyer. In my head, I'm... She's fluttering her feet as she's down on the ground, bouncing her legs and looking up into the sky. She's bruised and battered. If you were to see her abdomen,

probably solid blows from pike, blasts from guns. She has been through a brutal, brutal, bloody battle and yet erupting into laughs. I'm hurting, too. And excitement. meant, beam, I need your code. It was perfect.

It's exactly what we could do. Think about it. Think about all the possibilities. In Ziggy, anyway, she's rocking back and forth, kind of kicking her feet as she just excitedly is there. In Ziggy's mind, he's seeing that graph of the hotness amount and the craziness amount and how there's like a perfect,

like there's a danger zone up here that you don't want to cross. After lighting my serum, I put my hand on your shoulder, because you're right there next to me, And I'm gonna say, Zee, I'm not gonna tell you how to live your life, but you do not wanna do this. We won, Co. I don't know if you heard, but it's over now. Yeah. Oh, God.

Oh, this is a problem. She's gonna be a problem. I know she's gonna be a problem. This is bad. Why don't you turn the elephants back? Oh. It's what you do like a lot? He's the last charger, Mike.

storm white noise Megan's Dreyer this is insanity I'm glad you're happy but you owe us please let me see it let me see your grip boy let me see that code oh please This is oddly sexual

Are we actually talking about code Or is this a word for something else Get in the jungle the jungle maybe I rush over and I jump on the Guys, guys no don't leave me out here no please don't let me out there No The ones, the zeros. The way you moved. You're not gonna get to see my code, you all us.

I've never seen, go and type that fast. Slowly backing, please. Please. Come on, break. Alone, because I'm worried he's gonna get killed, but I'm like slowly backing away. I hold back my grid boy and her hyperpad, and I'm going to stand over Mega Destroyer

and I'm gonna say, listen to me, you promised. All right. I promised, and you won magnificently, perfectly. I've never seen code like it. And no one's ever seen code like mine. But you, oh, I'll tell you everything I know, everything. Orchabella Goans, quite the villain. She's on the path of vengeance, cleaving a bloody path through her brutalized victims.

We're going to put a stop to her. This dino bite? Oh! That's where we'll end the session. Oh! What a weird week. On the session, brother. Holy shit.

You play a really, really convincing hello kitty girl. That's what I was saying. Thank you, thank you. I got weirdly sexual. It did.