Good Job, You Monster - Auction, Part 2

May 12

Locked inside their own ship by an Omnitek admin override, the crew has one option left: cut their way out. The ship-to-ship combat that follows happens on the ground, fifty meters apart, with no room to maneuver and nowhere to run.

Meet the Crew:

Jeff as Star Master (Game Master)
Brian as Captain Thorn
Stephanie as the warrior Haley
Doja as the wildcard pilot Robert
Scott as the transhuman hacker Felix

[00:00:01] Star Master Jeff: Welcome to the Dark Star Adventure Cast, where the only thing standing between you and the Black is your ship and the strength of your crew. Void help us all.
[00:00:11] Haleyy: I'll shoot some fucking portal. Grr, grr, grr.
[00:00:14] Robert: What about giving you a vigorous back rub?
[00:00:18] Thorne: Oh, yeah, kill them to your heart's content. I'm not gonna stop you. Haley, what are you waiting for?
[00:00:23] Felix: Blast them off the bridge.
[00:00:33] Star Master Jeff: We're all friends here. To the Dark Star Adventure cast. Welcome back to the Dark Star Adventure cast. Everyone that loves this adventure cast. No welcome backs for people that don't love the adventure cast, you bitches. No hate listener welcomes. We don't want rage listeners. We just want people that love the adventure cast. If this is your first time listening, weird choice. Yeah, don't start on part two of the auction saga. So last time we left off in a little bit of a cliffhanger. And normally when I'm editing the podcast, I'd be like, well, I should record a little something just to catch people up. But I thought it would be kind of fun tonight to put Stephanie on the spot and ask her to do all the catch up for us. Because she's usually the one that does it for us before we actually hit the record button. Oh, God.
[00:01:22] Haleyy: Okay.
[00:01:23] Star Master Jeff: Oh, I hope you're prepared. So just just let us know what happened last episode.
[00:01:26] Haleyy: Yeah, totally. Okay, so last episode, we had... so last episode um yeah i me hayley two y's potentially just one y we're not sure um woke up and found out that we had left the alien place full of alien spiders and we were heading to the auction which we came to civil and for in the first place but we had a new guest with us victor straight he sucks he shows up everywhere We don't like him. But guess what? We are Scapegoat Solutions LLC representing Lycar Research. And we're here for auctions.
[00:02:05] Thorne: Also, don't forget his hair is bad.
[00:02:06] Haleyy: Oh, yeah. Viktor Strake has the worst hair. He sucks.
[00:02:10] Thorne: I like his hair.
[00:02:11] Haleyy: Okay, so what else happened is we get to hang out. We get to wait for the auction to start. Guess what? The auction started and we found out that Thorne and Felix, I think at some point, had put two-factor authentication on the scapegoat, by the way. Amazing. Thank you. So we thought this would give us some added security and it probably didn't work out the way that we thought it would. But either way, the auction begins. And we all get to show up, look around, see what's up. And there's a lot of different representatives from around the galaxy there. Nexus Trading with Rincade, NovaCrypt Solutions with Thadric Vale, Veridine Laboratories, our old employer, and a few other smaller companies. Blah, blah, blah. This auction occurs.
[00:03:03] Star Master Jeff: Anyone want to fill in any blanks?
[00:03:05] Haleyy: There's so many blanks, but I think I got us to where we have to be.
[00:03:07] Thorne: There was a part where we actually auctioned the site and we got a decent amount for it.
[00:03:13] Haleyy: Oh yeah, 600,000. No, 1.1 million credits, right?
[00:03:17] Thorne: I don't remember. But I remember that it was a number that I wanted. I remember it was a number that I wanted.
[00:03:23] Haleyy: It says the site does sell with multiple exclamation points. We've hopefully earned a lot of money.
[00:03:29] Felix: And from my perspective, I've been trying to hack back into the scapegoat because Viktor put some kind of bug in it to take control, remote control over it. And it has so far eluded my abilities. And I'm very frustrated by that.
[00:03:43] Star Master Jeff: Any other blanks you guys want to fill in?
[00:03:46] Robert: Well, that I'm just sitting there and just watching Thorne do nothing during the whole auction.
[00:03:54] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, exactly.
[00:03:55] Thorne: I didn't need to do anything.
[00:03:57] Star Master Jeff: So let me fill in a couple of blanks. So at the very end of the last session. Oh, I didn't get to that part yet. Oh, snap. OK, go ahead.
[00:04:04] Haleyy: So we all go back onto the scapegoat because we've made all of our money. Blah, blah, blah. We find out, though, that Viktor has locked us into the scapegoat and he has Voss. But what we see when we're stuck on the scapegoat is that over on the landing pad, the fork that we've been talking about goes off and then all of the people have become unhallowed slaves.
[00:04:28] Star Master Jeff: Yep. Yeah, that's right. So that puts us on the scapegoat. The four of you are trapped. Vos is missing. Froggy is some sort of brainwashed, whatever being unhallowed does to you. Outside of the cockpit windows, you can see the Void Cultist ship still powered on, air gushing out from beneath its thrusters, and the large cosmic fork You're a cosmic fork. Bristling with cosmic purples and blue energy and a little, like, static electricity ball of a portal in between the fork tines. Out of the windows of your cockpit, you can see into the windows of the cockpit of the Void Cultist ship, and you can see there's some movement in there. Also on the landing pad are several other ships. There's the extremely large opulent ship that touched down, as well as the super small, like, strike fighter that touched down, and a few others as well. All the, like, personal conveyances of those that attended the auction. There's also a storage ship, which is where the bot was loading everything up for Vera when you guys first touched down. So there's quite a bit of stuff out there, but there's just no people. And here you are on the bridge of the scapegoat, Felix typing furiously, trying to do something, anything, to open the door and let you out. And with that said, what would you like to do? Berate Felix.
[00:05:54] Felix: With me there, typing furiously, trying to figure out how I can get control of the goat back, do I feel like I'm getting any closer? Like, this is a path I should continue following. Am I making progress?
[00:06:05] Star Master Jeff: Well, let's have you do a hacking role. Intelligence. Someday I'm going to hit you with a hacking charisma. I mean, I should have done that back with Buddy when I had to talk to him. It's like a charisma hack. Uh, damn it, that would have been so good.
[00:06:19] Haleyy: Oh my god, that'll be when you and Dr. Voss are getting closer.
[00:06:22] Felix: You have to curse my hat.
[00:06:27] Star Master Jeff: That's dirty.
[00:06:28] Felix: That's dirty. Anyway, I got a 13.
[00:06:33] UNKNOWN [likely Robert or Thorne]: 13?
[00:06:34] Star Master Jeff: Great roll. So, you are really digging into the scapegoat's code, which you are already an expert at, and you know that there was some sort of backdoor cipher that Strake was able to use to gain access to systems that should be completely locked down. You weasel your way into those same systems, and they have not only become... Like, before, they were completely inaccessible to you. Now they are accessible because of his unlock cipher, but everything inside of there is extremely messy and incomprehensible. You think you could maybe untangle it and figure out what's going on, at least enough to open the doors, but it might take a few hours. All right.
[00:07:17] Felix: Listen, I don't know how long it's going to take me to get the goat spaceborne again, but if you give me maybe a couple hours, I should be able to get the doors open so we can get out there and maybe make some progress. Hours? I can't think of another way off the ship, Thorn. I mean, we can't blast our way out of these windows. They're designed to handle the vacuum of space and spacecraft lasers. Yeah, but I just...
[00:07:39] Thorne: Hours. I don't know how far things are going to progress in that amount of time.
[00:07:42] Felix: Well, let me work on this and the rest of you see if you can figure out another solution.
[00:07:45] Robert: Is there any way we can, I don't know, is there anything we can help with in terms of finding a panel that you might not have thought of? I don't know, I'm not very technical.
[00:08:02] Felix: You can help by leaving me alone and bringing me stimulants.
[00:08:06] Robert: Um, what about, uh, giving you a vigorous back rub?
[00:08:09] Felix: No, that will not help. And I turn back to the console when I put headphones on, and I just get to work. What are you listening to? Uh, nothing. They're just noise-canceling headphones.
[00:08:19] Star Master Jeff: White noise. White noise, yeah. I'm listening to the sound of industrial machines at work.
[00:08:24] Robert: I have to ask Froggy how he slips on and off this ship like the squirrely little frickin' toad that he is, but he might have an answer.
[00:08:35] Star Master Jeff: Just as you think that, with a deep sadness in your gut that feels like you swallowed a rock, you realize Froggy was out on the landing pad, and he's become unhallowed. He's not on the ship. And despite your best efforts, and how much you hate Froggy for ruining your Lokipon cards, you feel a single tear poisoning your eye lobe. I do not. No. I am so happy.
[00:09:00] Haleyy: Haley is just like walking around apparently. She's just following people aimlessly waiting for something to do because she's not given Felix the stimulants. Actually, she probably would in this case because she's a little bit out of it having seen the crazy alien fork thingy.
[00:09:16] Star Master Jeff: So are you going to the lounge to get coffee for Felix? Yeah, are you going to help me brew this Turkish coffee over here?
[00:09:22] Haleyy: Yes, I am. Yep.
[00:09:24] Star Master Jeff: So as the two of you make your way into the lounge to go make some coffee, a movement under the table startles you, and a dark shape darts out of the hatch to the south, going down ship, down towards, like, the cargo bay.
[00:09:39] Haleyy: Percy?
[00:09:41] Star Master Jeff: Was that a cat?
[00:09:41] Haleyy: Yeah. Was it Percy? Was it Percival?
[00:09:44] Star Master Jeff: I pull out my bionic eyes. For the viewers at home, those are binoculars, and you see, yes, just before it rounds a corner, it's an orange streak. It is indeed a cat.
[00:09:55] Robert: I… I… I… sprint, fast as I possibly can, to the nearest comm station, and let the entire ship know… I spotted the cat, guys!
[00:10:08] Thorne: Oh, great. The cat was real this whole time.
[00:10:10] Haleyy: And I choose to run after the cat because for Haley, like, going after the cat right now is a good way of distracting herself from what happens next with the crazy alien fork thing that she knows she's going to have to go after. But first, the cat.
[00:10:27] Star Master Jeff: Okay, so you stomp off away from the group and try to track down this cat. You find yourself down in the cargo bay. You know that Froggy sleeps down here. You've never really gone and, like, investigated, like, his bedding situation. But as you go down the stairs into the cargo bay, a really stuffy, unwashed, foul smell overwhelms you, and you find Froggy's nest. under the stairs where there's like a hole in the wall and a panel where you could put cargo where you actually want to like store it so it doesn't move around so much and in there is just a ton of bedding and you see lots of plates and behind a lamp that is currently on because apparently froggy is just wasting energy all the time is a orange cat and it hisses at you
[00:11:16] Haleyy: Oh, Percy is real. Do I feel like this small side quest I'm going on will lead me somewhere?
[00:11:24] Star Master Jeff: It will lead you to maybe petting a cat or getting scratched by a cat.
[00:11:27] Haleyy: Okay, I'm just gonna say, I, and then do I see anything of interest to, I don't know.
[00:11:34] Star Master Jeff: In Froggy's nest? actually i don't think this is the time for me to go through froggy shit unless well you glance in there and you do see three things okay what do i see right in plain view one it's my Lokipon deck you see a bunch of ripped apart Lokipon cards that are like sodden and like you you like there's like a crumpled up one it's probably one he just didn't like the looks of He's like, oh, I don't like that guy, and he just throws it away.
[00:11:59] Thorne: He drew on some of them.
[00:12:00] Star Master Jeff: Yeah. You see a knife that has, like, a brass knuckles grip on it, and you realize that's Robert's knife, but you haven't seen it since you exited Scrapjacks a few months ago. It has the remnants of, like, apple and stuff on it. And you also see an empty orange juice container.
[00:12:23] Haleyy: What a douchebag. I am going to...
[00:12:26] Felix: Murder this. You're really trying to make Robert just hate froggies so much.
[00:12:31] Robert: I'm telling you, I swear I am going to keelhaul this little thing. I am going to tie a rope around his waist and I am going to air vac him and then drag him through the vacuum of space.
[00:12:43] Haleyy: You know, I'll just inform Robert of these things.
[00:12:46] Star Master Jeff: You do what Robert does. You just, whenever Robert has an announcement, he just rushes to the ship's comms.
[00:12:51] Haleyy: Yeah, I'll just inform the group of like, guys, the cat is real. Also, Robert, I found your knife.
[00:12:58] Robert: I did say the cat was real.
[00:13:00] Haleyy: I can confirm the cat is real.
[00:13:03] Star Master Jeff: So what now? Are you just kind of collecting Robert's things and bringing them up to the bridge for him?
[00:13:09] Haleyy: Yeah.
[00:13:11] Star Master Jeff: Okay, so you walk onto the bridge, and Felix's back is to you. He's at the communication station, which has that, like, dent in it where Vos usually sits. And he's tapping away. He's sweating profusely, swearing at himself. And out of his headphones, you just hear a bunch of, like, industrial machine noise. It just sounds like bulldozers bulldozing shit. And his back is to you. He's all hunched up, and you can see the ridges of his spine as you approach him. Oh, and Thorne's in there, and Thorne, what are you up to?
[00:13:40] Thorne: Yeah, so when you walk back in, I can see you've got a bunch of crap with you, and Thorne just says, unless you have really good news, I would not bother Felix right now.
[00:13:50] Star Master Jeff: Oh, and Robert, you're back with Felix's coffee. I don't know if you're just drinking it yourself or what, but you have it in hand.
[00:13:57] Robert: And at this point, I'm just gonna hand you a coffee and then start hip thrusting behind you until the magic happens.
[00:14:05] Thorne: All right, Robert, here's what we're gonna do. If we don't wanna wait for Felix, let's grab a torch and let's just start cutting through the cargo bay door wall. I don't have any other option for you right now. And honestly, I do not want to cut a hole into this ship, but I also do not want to sit here for some number of hours while Felix hopefully figures this out on his own.
[00:14:24] Robert: Yeah, I mean, I get that. I get that. I really don't want to destroy this here ship. So my two options, I think we either dance party till Felix fixes this shit, or we play Lokipon until Felix fixes this shit. Cause doors are a Felix problem. Why are doors a Felix problem?
[00:14:51] Felix: Oh, now your headphones ain't on. Wait, wait, wait, wait. There might be another way that's faster. We have the torches. Thorne, we could cut through. We could cut through in the cargo bay, in the hold where we got blown up that one time, and we patched it. It's weaker. It's weaker than the rest.
[00:15:10] Thorne: That's true. If we just cut through that patch, I mean, we'll have to patch it again, but that didn't take that long last time.
[00:15:15] Felix: If we start cutting and we get some good handholds and Haley starts pulling... All right, Haley, Robert, let's go give this a try. I feel like keep doing what you're doing. All right, let me know how it goes.
[00:15:25] Star Master Jeff: yep plan a plan b agree felix you slipped your headphones back on sinking back into the dulcet tones of construction noises pneumatic drills my favorite it's where i grew up on an industrial world so it reminds me of home did you what world did you grow up on uh new lucerne oh that's right new lucerne there were drill sounds and police sirens everywhere And that was just in Felix's house. So the three of you make your way down to cargo bay one to cut through the wall. How do you go about this? I want to get to soldering, people. Let's get this shit off. As you say that, you pick up a laser cutter on your way past Felix's workbench. And the hole that was blown into the side of the ship way back in episode one is something like 10 yards square. It's a huge hole. And it's been welded with all of these plates. Each plate is like two to three to four yards square. And this is what took Felix so long way back in that episode to actually patch all of it up.
[00:16:32] Haleyy: Felix did that? Felix patched this all on his own?
[00:16:36] Star Master Jeff: In combat. Yeah, yeah. And the whole cargo bay was depressurized. He came in here in a suit and did the whole thing himself with a welder.
[00:16:43] Haleyy: Oh, he was in a suit.
[00:16:45] Thorne: Okay.
[00:16:45] Star Master Jeff: We can tell.
[00:16:46] Thorne: It was a rough job, but at least he got it done. And it does give us a way off.
[00:16:49] Haleyy: It's a fantastic job.
[00:16:51] Robert: Haley, do you think you could punch through this with like one good punch? Because I bet you can.
[00:16:59] Haleyy: Well, it is solid metal. However, I punch real good and I'm used to taking stupid dares. So yeah, I'll punch it.
[00:17:09] Star Master Jeff: So just to be clear, Thorne, you see them making this bet and there's no way in hell she is punching through an inch of solid steel. You expect me to stop her? I'm not going to stop her.
[00:17:20] Haleyy: Hey, I'm guaranteed to hit.
[00:17:24] Star Master Jeff: Haley, give me your punch as a skill roll, not as a combat roll. Punch strength. okay i am rolling an eight you cock your fist back and you straight punch it as hard as you can and you do dent it considerably but alas your fist is not the type of weapon that can go through an inch of steel ouch ow you know for a second there i actually thought that was gonna work you know what i did too guys thanks for believing in me I remember at the beginning when I said this is not going to work. Yeah, I 100% thought that was going to work.
[00:17:58] Haleyy: Yeah, I thought it was going to work.
[00:17:59] Robert: So badly what I'm not going to. I think we should hit it with the TIG welder. But I also want to give her the owl. How many licks does it take to get us out of this damn ship?
[00:18:12] Haleyy: Hey guys, do you want me to punch the wall again?
[00:18:15] Robert: I definitely think you should keep punching the wall because you are going to be the person to get this open.
[00:18:21] Felix: She took a hit point of damage. If she keeps punching it and takes a hit point of damage, she's going to die from punching the wall.
[00:18:27] Star Master Jeff: Felix! Okay, Haley, you keep punching the wall, damaging your fist a little bit every so often, and in a different area of the wall, Robert lights up his laser cutter and starts making progress.
[00:18:41] Haleyy: It's a race.
[00:18:42] Star Master Jeff: It's... Not a race. Robert is doing... Robert is cutting through the wall and you're punching the wall. Anyway, she's denting it over and over again while Robert's doing something productive. And Thorne, what are you doing in Cargo Bay 1? Or are you going to drift back to Cargo Bay 2 to buff out the Aurora?
[00:19:00] Thorne: No, actually, I think I'm going to pull Haley aside here while she's... Haley, give it a rest for a second. Let me talk to you about something.
[00:19:10] Haleyy: Oh, yeah, sure. What's up? What's up, boy?
[00:19:12] Thorne: Listen, we're gonna go back to that Exosite, and we saw some pretty weird shit down there last time.
[00:19:18] Haleyy: We did?
[00:19:18] Thorne: Uh, you doing all right?
[00:19:19] Haleyy: No.
[00:19:21] Thorne: Okay, well, I appreciate the honesty. I'm punching a wall, Thorne. I'm stuck on a ship. Yeah, listen, if stuff gets too heavy, you know, like, I'm counting on you like I always am, but just try to keep your head together most of all.
[00:19:40] Haleyy: yeah thorn don't don't worry whatever's going on up here it will stay compartmentalized i know what our objective is what we're trying to do i i'll show up for that it sounds close to healthy yeah thorn you see her eye twitch just saying i'll get the job done
[00:20:02] Star Master Jeff: If only we had a doctor.
[00:20:04] Haleyy: Let's be clear. Haley is not okay, but Haley can get the job done. No matter what Haley she is, she can get the job done.
[00:20:12] Star Master Jeff: So it sounds like Haley goes back to punching the wall to work through her feelings and burgeoning emotional trauma. But meanwhile, up in the cockpit, Felix has been hacking furiously, and thanks to his 13 hacking roll that he rolled earlier, he's actually made significant progress. Unfortunately, no breakthroughs that are actually going to get him off of this ship. Instead, what you find out is that the ownership module, which is a proprietary module that's in many, many different machines across the sector, is digitally signed by Veridine, and with the admin key, that's how Strake took over the entire ship. You can't take full control of the ship back unless you go to Spigot, the port city on the other side of Sibylen, and buy a new ownership module and replace the one in this ship. It's costly, it's probably going to be black market, and it's not very easily obtained. Well, that sucks. In the meantime, though, you're able to get your security systems back online, at least. So you have cameras and you have weapons, but you can't fly and you can't open the doors.
[00:21:15] Felix: All right, so I radioed to the team. I hope y'all are having better luck down there than I am because I got bad news. I'm not going to be able to open this ship.
[00:21:23] Thorne: What happened to give me an hour?
[00:21:25] Felix: That was until I realized, Thorne, that we need a whole new ownership module, because this one is still keyed to these bastards, and I'm gonna have to tear the whole goddamn thing out and replace it. Yeah, that don't sound good.
[00:21:39] Thorne: Down here, we're in the middle of a race to see who can get through the hole first. I think Robert's winning.
[00:21:44] Haleyy: Haleyy's not!
[00:21:46] Felix: Haley, can you get back up here? I've got the weapon systems online, and I'm hoping we can take out whatever that weird device is on the front of this alien ship.
[00:21:57] Haleyy: The weird device on the alien ship?
[00:21:59] Felix: Yeah, I want you to blow it off.
[00:22:00] Haleyy: Yeah, yeah, I can deal with that. Sounds good.
[00:22:03] Felix: Let's go.
[00:22:06] Thorne: If there's a chance to destroy it, then we probably should.
[00:22:09] Haleyy: It does need to be done.
[00:22:10] Thorne: I'm hoping that maybe it frees some of these enthralled people, maybe. But if there's anything we can learn from it first, that might be nice. We're already almost through in here.
[00:22:22] Felix: I mean, my worry, Thor, is that when we go outside, it's going to do that same thing to us.
[00:22:26] Thorne: Okay, point taken.
[00:22:27] Haleyy: But I'll be fine, guys. I'm untethered.
[00:22:32] Thorne: We don't even know what that means, though.
[00:22:33] Felix: I'm about to become untethered if she doesn't get up here and shoot this thing.
[00:22:38] Star Master Jeff: So, Haley, you stomp your way up to the bridge.
[00:22:41] Haleyy: I'll shoot some fucking portal. Grr, grr, grr.
[00:22:45] Star Master Jeff: Being untethered has made you cranky. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Um, okay, so you get up to the bridge, and you plop down into the weapon station, Klingon style, and you look over at Felix, who... Felix, your headphones are still on. You're listening to what you call industrial rock, which is really just industrial machines crushing rocks.
[00:23:06] Robert: And every single time you describe it, I am picturing him listening to Sandstorm on full volume.
[00:23:15] Star Master Jeff: I don't know if Sandstorm is in our copyrighted library, but I'll take a look, and if it is, I'll play it or an approximate of it right now. Okay, Hayley, so you are on the bridge. Something like or actually Sandstorm is coursing through the entire bridge, and you type in your access code. You're in. You feel like a hacker, just like Felix. And off to the side is this... ship with this big old antenna on top of it and through the windows of the void cultist ship you can see that there is movement there are definitely people on there what do you do well i but i can also shoot at the fork though right the fork is there yep on the prow of the ship like a proud mermaid you got the fork bristling with cosmic energy yeah i want to shoot that blow it up blow it up but what if because i'm untethered what if they what if they listen to me
[00:24:10] Haleyy: What if I can commit, like, what if I have the power?
[00:24:14] Felix: I spin around in my chair. I go, Haley, Haley, look at me.
[00:24:18] Haleyy: Yeah, Felix, guess what? I have a new plan.
[00:24:22] Felix: Haley, we have to destroy that because if we go out there, the rest of us could be turned by that thing, okay? We need to destroy that.
[00:24:30] Haleyy: If you go out there, if you go out there, you'll be destroyed by that thing.
[00:24:37] Felix: Yeah, and we all have to go out there, Haley. We're a crew, we're a team, remember?
[00:24:41] Haleyy: Are we?
[00:24:42] Felix: That's what I thought.
[00:24:43] Haleyy: Are we, Felix? Yes, of course we are. Sorry, I didn't know where I was going with that one.
[00:24:48] Star Master Jeff: This is some real Hayley with one Y energy.
[00:24:50] Felix: Yeah, I'm like looking at her, like feeling like I don't know who she is right now, but I'm like, Hayley, take the shot, blow it up.
[00:24:57] Haleyy: But Vera and Froggy.
[00:25:01] Felix: And they'll be okay. Either this will free them or we'll find another way.
[00:25:06] Haleyy: Okay, promise we don't normally see eye to eye.
[00:25:09] Felix: It's like an antenna. You're destroying the antenna so the signal can't go out anymore.
[00:25:13] Haleyy: Okay, I'll do it. All right, Felix, I take the shot at the antenna.
[00:25:18] Star Master Jeff: So you release the highly charged, full velocity metal fragments from the rail gun in a great burst of fire. They strike the fork on the tip of the ship, instantly destroying it. It doesn't explode or anything quite so dramatic. It just gets ripped apart by hundreds upon hundreds of metal fragments. You see the shadow, perhaps shadows, within the cockpit of the other ship react as they start to run around and move and blur together. The ship's guns swivel to face your own. And I guess we're going into two ships on a landing pad shooting at each other combat.
[00:25:59] Robert: Great.
[00:26:02] Star Master Jeff: So with Haley at the gunning seat and with Felix at the communication station and Thorne standing cross-armed as Robert hacks away at the wall with a laser welder, the Void Cultist ship and the scapegoat get into a fire fight. So both ships roll initiative. Okay, it looks like the cultist ship got a six, and the scapegoat got a two. Oh no. So, which makes sense, you just fired, you're reloading, you're realizing that they're now targeting you, and they turn towards you, and they open fire.
[00:26:42] Haleyy: It feels really scary to use these so close to the other ships.
[00:26:46] Star Master Jeff: I know, you guys are really close together. So the Void Cultist ship opens fire with its Reaper battery. Missing with a four. Oh, thank God. It would have been seven damage. Oh, that would have been a lot. Okay, Scapegoat, go ahead and make your roll. There's no evasion. There's no pilot to make that evasion. It's simply two ships duking it out.
[00:27:09] Haleyy: Felix, this was your idea.
[00:27:11] Felix: As the Cultist weapons miss us, I spin in my chair and say, Haley, what are you waiting for?
[00:27:15] Haleyy: blast them off the bridge yeah and i am going to fire all guns right this is where you revitalize your reputation from episode one you missed like every shot i know and now i'm worried am i doing the wrong thing oh god hayley never read that manual and yet here you are again felix told you to blast them off the bridge so what are you going to do i blast them off the bridge
[00:27:43] Star Master Jeff: Good choice. Meanwhile, down in the cargo bay, Thorne and Robert, you hear the resounding shots of the sand thrower destroying something off the Void Cultist ship. And then, unsurprisingly, the Void Cultist ship firing back at you. And then you hear your weapons charge for a rebuttal.
[00:28:06] Thorne: Robert, I think I'm going to go check on those two. Keep this going. And I'm going to start running up to the bridge.
[00:28:12] Star Master Jeff: Meanwhile, back on the bridge. Haley, are you taking a shot?
[00:28:17] Haleyy: Yeah, she's going to take a targeted shot at the bridge of the ship. There's a 12 hit.
[00:28:25] Star Master Jeff: A 12 is gonna miss their main ship, but it does hit their cockpit windows. So you hit. You're only 50 meters away. You easily target their cockpit windows as all of the metal fragments and pellets slam, boom, into the windows of the cockpit and explode them out in every single direction. The person inside flies back, hits against the wall, and gets turned into a giant splatter of meat. And then, through the digital display of the weapon system, you see one other Void Cultist stand up, look around really scared, and then run off of the bridge.
[00:29:02] Felix: Hell yeah, Haley. That could not have gone better. Nice.
[00:29:06] Haleyy: Couldn't have gone better, but one got away.
[00:29:08] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, we'll get him. We'll get him. Don't worry, Haley. We'll go get him. The hatch of the Void Cultist ship is already open. And a moment later, you see that one lone figure run out of the hatch and start sprinting towards the Exosite.
[00:29:21] Haleyy: People fucking suck. These are the same people who were torturing all those guys on Scrapjack. Like, no. So I shoot him with the sand thrower.
[00:29:32] Felix: Oh, give him the sand. Hitting a person with a ship weapon? That seems a bit overkill.
[00:29:38] Haleyy: What, you want me to go outside and kill him? Fine.
[00:29:41] Robert: No, no, I just don't know if you could, but you know what? I feel like the sand chucker is the way to go.
[00:29:53] Haleyy: Jesus Christ. She rolled a 22. A 22.
[00:29:58] Star Master Jeff: Well, minus four because you're trying to hit a specific system. On the ship. A person. Which is this one individual man. And the system was his face and nuts. God damn.
[00:30:11] Haleyy: Yeah, I did. Boom.
[00:30:12] Star Master Jeff: Boom! Five points of damage, which is ship to ship damage. So that's 50 points of damage. A fleshy blob of a human running across the open. Oh my God. He's there one moment and then there's just nothing there. there's a crater as your sand chucker just slams a bunch of sand into him and that's it he's erased his life is done good job haley you monster you just earth bended him into oblivion and at that moment robert you break through And you peel apart the hull and look out onto the sandy visage of Sibylen. And, oh, who is that? But 10 meters away. Oh, a void cultist. Could this be a new friend of yours? Oh, he's dead. He's gone.
[00:31:08] Thorne: Could this be a new friend? I saw that coming.
[00:31:11] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, whenever it's a new friend, they're gonna die.
[00:31:15] Robert: Ah, Fran Owen. Hey, you guys have escaped the ship. Oh, right.
[00:31:21] Haleyy: Wow.
[00:31:22] Robert: And now I use my body to block off Percival from escaping through the hole. The cat's like dancing around you like trying to get out the hole.
[00:31:33] Star Master Jeff: No, no, no kidding. No.
[00:31:37] Robert: Y'all, we have an opening. If we want to get to this Exo site, I would love to see where Vos is if Strake actually took her. And two, we got a whole bunch of ships over here that I feel like we might be able to steal some good shit off of. What do we want to get up to?
[00:32:00] Thorne: I don't know how likely it is we can get an ownership module of our own, but there also might be other useful supplies.
[00:32:07] Robert: He didn't, he didn't reprogram it. I think the ownership module's still good, is it? Uh, uh, Felix?
[00:32:13] Felix: The one on our ship is... is trash. I don't know if I can repurpose... But if we stole someone else's... Repurposing one could be challenging, and it would take some time to integrate with the GOAT systems, so it's not going to be a quick job. Waste time with you. Yeah, yeah. Listen, we've got to get Froggy and Vera, okay? We owe them that much. I owe Froggy nothing. listen robert you might not but but the rest of us do you know we treated him pretty poorly and well listen i kind of missed the little guy's ugly little face so i think we should go get him plus i'm not gonna look after this damn cat meow i kick it i kind of gently kick it with my foot it was down by robert now it's already up by felix oh yeah they're they're squirrely little shits or he's got two cats oh god oh god they're multiplying anyway i
[00:33:03] Star Master Jeff: I grab Haley and say we should head down and get out there with the rest of the crew.
[00:33:08] Haleyy: Let's go.
[00:33:09] Star Master Jeff: Okay. A note on ownership modules. They're kind of like records. You press them, and then that's it. You can't, like, press them again. Okay, I wasn't sure if we could reset it to factory. Yeah, it's very analog. You make the ownership module, and now it's permanently like that. So you can't really steal them or change them or reprogram them. That would defeat the purpose. You have to buy a new blank one and then scribe upon it. We're SOL? Mm-hmm. With your current ownership module, but you can always buy a new one and replace it. There's a thriving black market for ownership modules, especially this far out in space. From Dick Hall at this current way station.
[00:33:48] Robert: Perfect. Okay.
[00:33:50] Star Master Jeff: Yeah. Well, you could take the Aurora to the other side of the planet. It's a little bit of a drive, but... Okay, so you have successfully made your way off of the scapegoat onto the desert sands of Sibylen, and you are currently on the landing pad that has all these other ships on it, including the small, like, fighter-like one, and the very large football field-sized one, and on and on from all the different auction goers. And about a quarter mile away is the entrance to the Exosite, and just to your right is the office of Laicar Incorporated.
[00:34:23] Felix: Yes, that's the first thing I do. As soon as I get down, down the ramp, I'm over into that office because I want to double check that Strake wasn't pulling our leg.
[00:34:32] Robert: Yep. Felix, doors are kind of your thing. You want to you want to take care of this over here? Yeah, I got this, Robert.
[00:34:39] Star Master Jeff: It's just it's just open. you turn the knob so felix hits the sand and sprints away from everyone and then goes into the office and inside you do not find dr voss damn it you shouldn't have hoped but i did in fact you find a little note oh no a little folded piece of paper where Voss was Pick it up, and I read it. It says, to the crew of the quote-unquote scapegoat. Quote-unquote. I'll be back for you soon, Viktor Strake.
[00:35:10] Felix: Crush it in my hand dramatically, and I throw it on the ground, and I turn around, and I go back out to the crew. He's gone. He has her. Let's finish this job and get the hell out of here.
[00:35:21] Thorne: All right. We shouldn't waste any more time. We gotta scout this place out first. Let's see if there's anybody outside. They probably have some kind of guard posted. Watch out for the enthralled. I don't want to kill anyone we don't have to. The more friends we can leave Sibylen with, the better. And I don't mean literally, but you get my point.
[00:35:38] Robert: Yeah, but where, okay. Who specifically do we need to keep alive till we get our money?
[00:35:44] Thorne: Don't kill anyone that isn't an active void cultist without discussing it with the group. How's that?
[00:35:52] Haleyy: I can do that. I'm just going to be so busy killing cultists. I don't know if there'll be anybody else.
[00:35:58] Thorne: Oh yeah, kill them to your heart's content. I'm not going to stop you.
[00:36:00] Haleyy: There's so many of them.
[00:36:02] Thorne: Let's get over to the edge of that ridge and take a look at the site from here.
[00:36:06] Star Master Jeff: So you make your way across the Sands of Sibylen to the ridge that overlooks the Exocite. Yeah.
[00:36:13] Thorne: Let's get some of those bionic eyes.
[00:36:15] Star Master Jeff: But wait, belay that order, Robert. No bionic eyes right now because unfortunately we are out of time for tonight. Well, that's our adventure for tonight, the second part of the auction saga. Our cast this time around was the same cast as always. We have Doja as Robert, Stephanie as Haley, Brian as Thorn, Scott as Felix, and of course me as everyone and everything else, including that poor cultist that was shot with a sand chucker as he tried to escape. We have a couple cool things going on in the Dark Star Adventure Cast space. Head on over to DarkStarAdventures.com and check out our merch store where you can grab a pint at Rogers or rep Scrapjacks, your favorite cosmic truck stop. And we also have a Patreon where you can get all of these episodes, including the Star Master logs, two weeks early and completely ad-free. And on top of that, there is a new segment now called Stars Without Number Rules Explained, hosted by Thorne himself, Brian. So not Thorne himself, it's Brian, where he goes over some of the rules that were used in each of the recent episodes and explains how they impacted the game and how they could be used in your own games. So check it out. It's a fun segment. And once again, thanks so much for listening. We really appreciate each and every one of you, but we especially appreciate Brad and Holly over on patreon.com. They have been with us for a very long time and they are helping keep this whole ship afloat. If you want to be cool like Brad and Holly, head on over to patreon.com slash darkstaradventurecast and get your own name mentioned at the end of every single episode just like this. And next time on the Dark Star Adventurecast, the crew has broken out of their own ship, and now they're walking straight towards the exocite that they just sold for a billion credits. And now the Void Culls is on it, I suppose. And all of their money is now at risk. Froggy and Vera are down there somewhere, blank-eyed and following orders, and Haley's powers are secretly building in the background. Well, that's it. That's our time. Thanks so much, everyone. Have an awesome week, and we'll catch you on the next one. Hey, you stuck around for 10 seconds. That means you get the secret news. So one last thing before you go. This summer, Dark Star Adventure Cast is doing a three-way crossover with two other sci-fi actual play podcasts in the Stars Without Numbers space, Astronomica and Seventh Star to the right. I'm playing a character in each of their games, and they're sending a player into the DSA for a quick one-shot, most likely something like Lasers and Feelings. That's three crossover episodes all dropping in the same week. Astronomica follows the crew of the Admiral Grace, a ship run by an AI that is definitely not rogue, through swashbuckling misadventures and the kind of crew dynamics where someone occasionally gets accidentally spaced. And Seventh Star follows the Phoenix Fam, a crew that stole a starship and has been joyriding around the galaxy ever since, trying to earn enough money to send their psychic space daughter to college. If you're not already listening to Astronomica and Seventh Star to the right, go check them out and show their pod some love. And prepare to see them on our pod this summer. Well, thanks for sticking around for our own version of the Marvel post-credits scene. I think it's probably a bit more exciting than the reveal of Thanos. Maybe not. But anyway, thanks again, and I'll catch you on the next one.