Nexus of Betrayal: Thorne's Story
Relaxing on the 'goat after the insanity of Scrapjack's, the crew gets Thorne to open up about his past...
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
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Special thanks to Brad and Holly, our first Scapegoat Syndicate members on Patreon!
They're keeping the lights on and the airlocks sealed.
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Dark Star Adventure Cast where the stars are cold. The void is endless and danger lurks in every shadow out here. Trust is a gamble and survival is never guaranteed. On tonight's adventure, cast
Nexus took my entire family and whatever the fuck happened there, and I want revenge.
I had a slap fight with him and you just blew off his head.
It's wonderful to meet you.
So there I was trapped behind the barrels. There were four no six guys fanning out to
surround us and I hold my fist up and tattooed across my knuckles is BRIK brick.
Now let's make a deal. This is the Dark Star Adventure cast.
The scapegoat hums gently as a cruises between the [00:01:00] stars, the jump is smooth, the alarms are quiet, and for once no one's bleeding in the cargo bay, makeshift chairs are pulled into a loose circle as the crew takes a moment to breathe. AFF lit by hanging work lights. The air smells faintly of solder old coffee and whatever that smell is coming out of Froggy's Den in the corner.
Ailey's hooked up her music to the Aurora stereo system and someone's cracked a bottle from the emergency stash. Laughter is echoing off the bulk head walls.
Okay.
Do. So there I am, mid here. Hold on. Robert. Robert, hold this death stick for me. So there I am, mid heist, right pants around my ankles. The alarm is blaring.
Smoke is billowing everywhere. I can barely see anything. And then that drone rounds, the corner locks onto me. I thought I was done for it. I thought I was gone. But instead of [00:02:00] firing the damned thing starts singing like serenading me, man. Turns out my so-called friend decided to replace my hack with a romance subroutine.
Oh my God, only you feel I never ran so fast. Uh,
Felix, you don't deserve the good things that come your way sometimes.
Lucky guy, I guess. Here, I'll take that back now, Robert.
Yeah, now that, that earned you would drink Felix for sure. Hailey, of course, tho. Hmm. Yeah. I'll, I'll fill you up, but, uh, I think it's time you tell us your secret.
You said the goat's name 'cause you got framed. Let's hear it already.
Well, it's not exactly a secret. It is just a painful memory.
Hmm. I'd like to hear it. Pour you a drink. Now's a good time as any captain.
Uh, all right. I'll give you the full story [00:03:00] back on my home world, Zephyr three. My family has a shipping company, Drax Access Goods, family owned and operated for generations. You name it, we deliver it. But it was entirely on Zephyr three, and I always thought that was a little bit of a waste. I thought, why don't we grow this business into something interstellar?
So many customers out there among the stars that we could trade with. My mom, she's in charge of the business. She never agreed with me. No thorny. It's too risky. No, thorny. We don't have the funds. No, no, no. So I met up with this guy, William Sist. He was with Nexus Corp. And I thought, oh, one of the Corp pos.
Yeah, I'm a young dumb ass. Maybe if I work with them, they'll actually help me. Biggest mistake of my life up to that point. Sist guy basically framed me for smuggling, and because of me getting in trouble, my family lost the whole business. He ended up taking it over and then I went to jail. My whole family disowned me.
I haven't even talked to my mom in the better part of 10 years. I don't know if she's mad or what happened, but. [00:04:00] While I was in prison, no one said a word
and, and that's it.
Yeah. Pretty much
Thorn. There's gotta be more to it than that. I mean, I, I went deep on my story, man. I told you everything man. You know how hard it was for me to talk about Pete.
Come on, thorn.
All right. All right. It, it's only fair. It's only fair. I guess there is a little bit more than that. Maybe I didn't, just, just outta habit. Maybe I left some stuff out. So, like I told you, I got out a little early from that sentence. It was supposed to be a 12 year stint in prison. Uh, but I got out after about 10 because Omnitech of all bought my contract and they wanted me to be part of something called Project Red Wing.
Sound familiar? No shit. Yeah. Damn. So thankfully that didn't happen after hearing about what happened to pd, sorry buddy. I had have made a shitty AI anyway. And you dodged a bullet there for sure. Well, what I didn't tell you is after I got out of prison and before that happened, I had a bunch of downtime before I got transported to Camary four.
So I set myself up to try [00:05:00] and find that bastard Sal, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he was gonna pay for taking my family and my company away. I bought myself a brand new data pad, 500 hours on the XO net, and I went down to the local ramen shop and got myself a bowl. I was in it for the long haul, but barely an hour later I found what I thought was a complete dead end.
The articles were everywhere. Salaries was dead, got killed in some kind of mag Live crash. About a year before that something happened with a transport glitched out and it nose dived right into a residential block. Killed SALs, everyone on board and a bunch of local residents.
So he got a quick death.
That's annoying.
Yeah. What you. Thaw. Hmm. You find his grave and piss on it. Well, that was the plan. Uh, but some things changed. The first thing I did is I got myself a drink and another, and another, and not long after that, I was blackout drunk, wandering around the streets of PolyPhen. I remember [00:06:00] sitting in a gutter, a rain, pouring down my data pad on the ground next to me, the one that nobody knew I had, the one that I just bought hours before.
Well, beeped with a message, no sender. It just said, sist is not dead. He's been erased and attached to it with some kind of cipher key and instructions to meet up with somebody called Mara.
Seemed like it was always raining on Paulin, which honestly I didn't mind.
Rain slicks. The metal walkways of hock prefecture on PolyPhen, pooling in the cracks of plati and rusted grates. Neon lights spills from the entrance of club cure. Vilo blues, reds, purples flickering through the alley like a broken memory. The base thumps through the wall at your back, steady as a heartbeat.
A nearby [00:07:00] vent hises steam, and the air smells like burnt thin oil in soy noodles. Thorn pulls out his new data pad and reads the message again, but a hundredth time this hour sist lives he's been erased. Meet in the alley behind Klu Midnight. Bring muscle. And at the end of the message is a cipher key, a nonsense string of letters and numbers that probably go to something important, but thorn's never been so good with tech and hasn't the damnedest idea what this could mean?
The muscles that Thorn has brought his his best and only friend Cano. Ricks a short and lean man with the sides of his head shaved and a tossled mess on top. He wears loose street wear in Earth tones covered in patches, and the odd symbols of his shintech. Faith Thorn feels like he's been waiting all night when finally.
From deep within the alley, two men stepped from the shadows. They approach [00:08:00] cautiously their hands visible at their sides.
It might
be
them. Kay and I start walking over.
We've been waiting certainly long enough. How do you know it's them? Well, there's only one way to find
out and I nod back at them.
Did they at least give you a, a sign something to, to initiate a clandestine meeting?
Yeah. There was a secret
handshake I'm supposed to do. No, they didn't give me anything. The men approach. Their hands are visible at their sides. I pulled mine like half up, like obviously I'm not holding a weapon.
I tried to initiate the secret handshake.
The man that's slightly in front looks at your hand outstretched and kind of stares you down.
What's your name? I'm Thorn. You. Mara. He turns and looks at his friend and looks back at you. Thorn Drax. Yeah. I'm told you have something for me and I'm told that you have something for me. Information. The information's coming, but I need to make sure you have what is owed to us.
I think to myself that they [00:09:00] possibly mean the key or is it something else?
The key seems to be all you have connected to this, this meeting. Do I have it in a physical form that I can hand over or is this gonna be more of a It's just the message on your data pad is all you have. All right. So I just, uh, I pull up the cipher and hold my data pad pointing out at this guy so that he can see the screen with most of the cipher visible.
This is what you're looking for.
He, uh, looks over at his friend. His friend gives a nod. Yeah, that's it. He puts out his hand. The data pad thorn. I just hand it over. I don't have any attachment to this pad. I've had it for like all of a day. He puts it in his coat pocket. You're lucky then. And he walks away.
Wait, where's my intel stops? Listen kid, I came here expecting to beat the shit outta you. You gave me the data pad. I'm gonna let you leave with your nose intact.
I kind of glance over at at Cano like,
are you seeing this shit? I really did not want to be the muscle in this case. Um, kindly gentleman, sir, uh, would you mind handing [00:10:00] back our data?
Pat? I don't believe that is rightfully yours.
He turns cracking his neck and then the knuckles on both hands and he says, I was looking forward to a fight. And your friend here, thorn, I think he's proposing one. From out of the sleeve of his coat pocket comes a baton. His friend pulls one out as well and they approach, role initiative.
Uh, you know, I think these are the wrong fellas. I
told you to ask for the secret handshake.
Well, I think, uh, the time for the exchange of words has come to a close, my friend. The time for the exchange of glows has begun, and this is why you brought me tho. Let's get to it. Couldn't do it without you, my friend,
the man that was slightly lagging behind, beat out the initiative order, so it's gonna go him and then Cano, and then Thorn, and then the leader who has the data pad in pocket.
So the guy who is slightly larger and has set a word, rushes forward and takes a swing at [00:11:00] Cano with his baton. Does he hit with a 15? He indeed does with an AC of 15. Oh, okay. You take three points of damage. Wow. The Stu Baton rockets towards you and hits you with a bout of electricity as it strikes you.
That was your first mistake, sir.
You won't get a chance to make another,
the thing I have read is a pistol.
Mm-hmm. Same. These what would Kaino do,
he would connect with the Kami spirit of the data pad and take the data pad out of his pocket and
slap him in the face with it. Oh my God. Okay, so you're gonna try to, uh, basically grab the data pad.
So you're gonna do, you're gonna do a punch to try to hit him, but with no damage. And then if that succeeds, you will do a um, dexterity. Check or some, some skill that may, I think dexterity is probably, oh, no. An exert check. [00:12:00] That's what,
yeah. I'm gonna snag it.
Nice. Like 12 will hit him.
That, and that's
just a, that's just a normal punch.
Rolling. This guy's punch. Ooh, you beat him by one. Yeah. Nice. So you, you roll your punch, you snake in underneath his jacket, and you grab the data pad from inside his jacket as he scrambles to stop you. And then he raises up his baton to attack. But before this guy can bring his baton down upon you thorny old boy, what you got?
You know, thorn's trying not to attract too much attention, nor is he the type of person who's gonna jump to murder at this point. I still just want my data pad back. It looks like my good friend Kano has secured it. So what I want to do is probably just, hmm, I get next to Kano, uh, like half behind him.
Basically. I can see that this other guy who's right here that he just wrestled the thing from is probably not gonna be happy about that, right? So I'm either going to duck behind Kato, or if they go for [00:13:00] Kano, I'm gonna just try to like punch him in the throat if I'm holding my actions.
So first of all, goon number two attacked Kano and hit for three damage wound.
Number one was Pickpocketed by Kano. A moment later, Chano is facing both of these guys. He's just tanking both of them. Thorn, you're next to him, but slightly behind him. 'cause Kano moved up to be the muscle. So he wants that data pad back. And he doesn't care about taking it back. Right now, he just cares about stomping canno into the ground and then he can take it back.
So he raises his baton to do that. Would you like to make your snap attack?
They're going for
Canino? Yep. Um, there will be one more guy attacking before your next turn. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just gonna punch him.
So this guy raises his weapon to attack Kano, and I, I notice the opening and I try to just quickly like punch him in his exposed areas.
His exposed areas.
Yeah. You, you know what I mean?
I get a 17, which I hope hits
Yeah. That hits him a 17 hits [00:14:00] How much damage?
Um, one,
uh, you only do one, two damage.
Yeah. I mean, that's what an unarmed attack is. Yeah. We're not,
we're not Hailey.
Oh boy. Uh, so
yeah, you, you punch this guy into the throat and he goes and he stumbles back a little bit and then his baton comes crashing down on Kaino.
You did not interrupt his attack. Obviously
I thought about trying to knock him down, but I just, it seems so unlikely,
man. I hope I don't roll very well. Me too. Yes. Oh, I roll the four Great Kaino lives.
I do, indeed. I make it to the next scene. One more scene. And I helped. I I do take, uh, just a whiff, just a, just a tickling of shock damage.
Um, but I'm still standing, just barely, but still standing.
It's like when you look at battery, that's the kinda shock damage you got.
Yeah, I'm, uh, truly feeling the spirit of the machine here. Oh, sweet. Jesus. Never been close back.
So, uh, the [00:15:00] bruiser the slightly larger guy. It's his turn, so Yep, he is. Going to try to snatch the data pad from Kano as Kano rocks back, back and forth on his feet.
He rolls his punch. Uh, 16 gets you so he succeeds on his punch. And now roll your punch as a skill. Canino. He got a 10. Oh, and I got. A seven. So you're about to lose the data pad. However, as an expert, you can re-roll a skill.
I do believe I am going to play Dity and try to, uh, kick him in an indeterminate position.
Yeah. Hins. Oh wait, no.
Oh, so I got excited. I, uh, I, I rolled the, no,
you roll the nine, which is better, but he got a 10, so he snatches the data pad. Now he has it in his hand. Oh man, we got a data pad, hot potato going on. Yep. And that took up his turn. But, but he does have
some very soul shins.
His shins are smart, lemme tell you.
Okay. Kano, you [00:16:00] are dangerously close to being unconscious. What would you like to do?
Well, now that I'm in position, uh, I'm going to try to steal the data pad and then use my full movement to run away.
There are like an attack of opportunity type thing. Yeah, you'd have to do a fighting withdrawal,
which is like a disengage.
Then I'm going to stand here like the badass I am and take it like a man. And just hope he misses Uhhuh pretty
much.
Well, you, you crushed that attack roll.
I
did rule
in 18. So, uh, I, me, me want
to, do you want to use your punch or do an exert deck?
Oh, we're going a big punch of Rooney for 10, sir. That is mine.
Thank you. I'm sorry. I know you were trying to just take a quick photo of us, but unfortunately I will be taking that back. Thank you.
Eno rolled a 10 and this Bruiser rolled an eight, so you snatch it back from him and then you, you're moving away, thus incurring two attacks of opportunity. Is that what you're doing?
No,
I think I'm just going to, uh, stand here like a man and take it. Okay. [00:17:00] Do you want me to like, take it
from you and run? That's,
it's probably not a terrible idea.
Not, not to abandon my good friend. It's either that or I'm pushing one of these guys onto the ground or just, you know, swallowing my pride and, and putting a laser through them.
I am currently on the ground in a fetal position holding the data pad going. Mine, mine, mine
not, I'm not gonna leave my only friend on the planet though.
I mean, you can totally just steal it and then all of a sudden Jano, uh, joins the adventure,
Jane. So I'm going to, um, draw my, um, ready laser pistol. Now that Caino is on the ground holding the pad, and I'm going to brandish it at these two guys, and I'm gonna say.
Unless you want a mouthful, a laser. I think the two of you ought to back off right now.
So go ahead and roll [00:18:00] a, you gotta give your boy a talk. Charisma. It's gonna be a talk charisma. And I'm gonna give you a plus two because you are pointing a gun at them.
Oh, this is what I like. This is what thorny is all about.
I spent 10 years in the blank. Don't dust.
Is that a good thorn? Is that a good thorn voice? No, I ain going back. I am not going back to prison. Isn't that your catchphrase from like the first episode? My catchphrase? What did you do? Ah, why, what didn't I do? Lemme tell you. I am not going back to prison anyway.
I got a 12, uh, in my threatening chatter, which is pretty high. That's very high. That's, yeah. That beats the, the threshold outta the water. Uh, okay. So on the next guy's turn the leader, he raises his baton, but he doesn't look scared. He looks like he understands that the, the tide has shifted and that's just a part of being in the, the underworld.
You, you are just gonna back away and [00:19:00] me and my buddy are gonna take
my data pad and get outta
here. He looks over at his friend and taps him with the baton and the two of them back away. Slowly
as they're backing up, I still got the gun pointed at them, and I do not take my eyes off of them, but I reach down with my other hand and help kano up to his feet.
At that moment, the screech of air brakes flashes through the rain turning. You see a battered grab car with a hulking man behind the wheel at the edge of the alley, just 15 feet away. You notice a woman barely visible behind him in the passenger seat. They're polar opposites. She is tough and wiry with black hair shoved under her hat, and he is a tall, blonde, broad shoulder man.
Covered in tattoos,
thorn drax. This get in the car.
Uh, I, I look back confused. I look at the, at the two guys confused and I help kano the rest of the way up and I just start backing towards the car, hoping that the second time someone in this alley knew my name, that it was the right one.
The guys keep their hands up and then as you reach the car, one of the guys starts reaching [00:20:00] towards his coat pocket.
Uh, can I lay down some covering? Fire.
Can I shoot him from the car?
Yes. So go ahead and roll the hit. Both of you just go ahead and roll at the same time. You're shooting past bricks, so I need you to take a minus two
as you guys are doing that. I'm rolling into the car, rolling it. I got the data pad. I keep tasting metal.
Dude, look at my roll. Look at my, I, sorry. I rolled at 19. I actually got a 20 with a minus two. Fuck me. Oh, but 19 for six. Damage straight. Stephanie shot straight to the head. Ride over brick. 'cause I am here on business.
Boom, boom, thorn, you lay down covering fire, you just shoot wildly. You understand nothing about pistols, especially because you just got outta prison.
This is probably the first time you fired this laser. Pistol that you picked up on the black market just a couple weeks before. Yeah, probably. Meanwhile, this woman in the passenger seat shoots past her friend's face, almost skimming his nose with a bullet as it rockets out the driver's side window and blows the head off of the hired [00:21:00] boon.
The leader one looks at you, then looks down at him. He doesn't move, and then he just gestures towards the car. Yeah,
I'm already happy in it at
this point, but Mara, it's time to go.
I had a slap fight with him and you just blew off his head. It's wonderful to meet you. Wait, you're Mara.
Who the fuck are you?
This is Kano. Don't worry about it. I start driving.
No, I am gonna worry about it. You had two nexus goons after you. What the fuck do you think this is?
I thought it was supposed to be some kind of a meetup. I had no idea what you look like a meetup. H
how he's my cover.
I'd be dead without him right now. I you a
simple message and now we have nexus bodies lying.
Do you know what's going on here?
How do they know I was gonna be here
at that moment behind you, you see a very conspicuous pair of headlights pull out into the street behind your grab car and begin to follow you at a very consistent pace.
Um, Mar looks like we might have some company. Better get everybody buckled in back there.
All right, brick. It's probably Nexus, you know where we're going.
Yeah, [00:22:00] I got this.
Good.
How'd they know where we were gonna meet? It wasn't me.
I received a message to come find Thorn Drax access said you knew something about Salus that you were looking for.
It's true. But I also received a message to meet someone called Mara and that I should bring muscle and I gesture at gay, knows an innocent in all of this.
I'm the muscle.
So what do you know about Sist? Sist
was at that moment. The car zooms forward and taps the back of your bumper almost making you spin out brick. I need you to roll your pilot skill, which we're using for driving. This is to not spin out and keep your grab car on the road. And at this point, it's becoming very clear to you that you either need to engage with this car or you need to escape this car.
What's
that? Am I modifying my pilot role with? That will be a pilot deck. Okay, thank you all. I rolled an eight, blew it out of the water. Nice brick grabs hold of the wheel. I make the corrections [00:23:00] to stop spinning out and I get a bit of distance from the car and I get ready to make a move as I know the intersections coming up and I think I have a way to maybe gain some ground and lose these guys.
Okay. And you know how come they prefix her very well? You grew up, I grew up
here. Baby
block six. Not that far away in block sticks, baby block six. You are rocketing down what is normally, um, not necessarily a sleepy street, but there's a lot of street lights. There's a lot of businesses. The rain slick streets of Acade prefecture are sliding by as cars in front of you are just in the way you're going around them.
The street of the grab breaks. You get some distance between you and them, but they're not giving up that easy
brick. Be careful. Need to make sure these guys are actually who they say they are is for all. I know you guys are more nexus goons, just like the two that are coming after us. I have been on the hunt for this man's Salus for a whole fricking year, and I am not going to let you two mess it up.
I heard you had [00:24:00] information that you also want this guy dead. Let's fricking see it. Everyone says he died in a mag glove crash. There were no survivors. But I know that's not true.
And just how exactly do you know that
there was a survivor and it was me. Nexus took my entire family and whatever the fuck happened there, and I want revenge.
And you are my best chance to get it.
Sounds like we have a lot in common then.
Good, because you are in it now. This is my last chance to get this done. Are you in
brick? You've reached the intersection. It's time for you to do the maneuver that you planned out. What were you planning on doing?
Alright, so I'm going to quickly navigate, it's, there's a couple car stop in front of me.
The light ahead. I'm gonna switch into the oncoming lane, maneuver around a car, try to get a big truck I see coming in between me and the guys behind me. And take a sharp corner, try to move them in a little kerfuffle in the intersection.
Okay? This is well within your skill ability, so go ahead and do your same roll as before with your DC of six.
Uh, that's a seven baby. Okay, cool. Now [00:25:00] you need to get three successful escape. Rolls. So that's your second one. You got a good distance away. Now you have a semi between you and them. The action that Brick is putting you guys through in the backseat is throwing you back and forth. Eno, you bashed the side of your head against the glass and it,
it's smart.
Well, it's, it won HP and now in, uh, potentially pretty much unconscious. I'm at 0.5% ice cream.
You're a one hp. Okay. Oh yeah. Well, so you bash your head. Where'd you get this driver? And you are reeling my dude. You are really,
I am currently seeing stars. I am holding this dead pad like it is a teddy bear. Um, I hope it was important,
Laura.
We're almost there. And in the cleared,
can we trust these guys?
You know what? We don't have a choice.
We are the ones who just got into a, a car with a couple of strangers after fighting two Nexus goons in an alley. If there's anyone you can trust, it's us.
And we just picked you up on faith alone.
Good.
And as soon as I think of a way to prove to you I'm Thorn [00:26:00] Trais and you a way to prove to me that you're this Mara character, until then, let's just agree to work together.
Honestly, I don't think there's ever gonna be a way for us to really prove who we are to each other with all the stuff going on here on PolyPhen.
But I can assure you that Sist, he's alive. This whole thing's been a setup.
Of course, he's a trickster to
the core, the bastard. So brick, you continue to try to put distance between you and the nexus boons that are in the car behind you. Are gliding down the rain slick street of the Hermite world.
PolyPhen deeper and deeper and deeper into Hock Bay prefecture, looking for the landmarks that will let you know that you've arrived. But first you've gotta put more distance between you and those goons. Go ahead and give me one more. Dex Pilot, roll and cross them fingers. Boy,
am I just getting like speed far away from them?
With this one? It's up to you. Can there be a drawbridge?
I'll tell you what, you know that there is [00:27:00] a construction site coming up, okay. And there's a ramp that you've had your eye on for the better part of three or four months, and you're a dirt bike enthusiast. You're like, damn, I gotta figure out how to get my bike there.
Go off that ramp and not get caught. And you see a golden opportunity, my friend.
Alright, I'm gonna, I I maneuver us. I line us up and I think I've got my spot ready. I know where I'm gonna land and what's that? I think I know that spot. Yeah, we gotta
get
there.
Mara. You see him lining up for this jump and you know exactly what this dude's doing.
Brick.
Hold on everybody. It's an 11. Oh my godrick cannot fail a roll brick.
As you rock it off of the jump up a whole story into the second level of a car garage, the crab cars breaks, screech gripping [00:28:00] onto the thick atmo of poly fin, and into the darkness of the not quite fully constructed car park. Brick quickly cycles his way down to the bottom and out the opposite side entrance and into an alleyway.
Park the car. Geez. Where'd this guy learn to drive an airport? Listen, we walk from here.
Everybody out just as well. I'd like to get out of this car with the little bit of lunch I have left. Where are we going? Ugh.
I know a guy.
You know a guy?
Great.
I know a guy.
Meanwhile, you hear kaino groan from the back, barely hanging onto consciousness.
Yeah, I start snapping my fingers in Kato's face. Kay. Kay. Come on man. We're gonna get you some help.
You have to carry 'em though.
See the spirits?
I wouldn't have it any other way.
I do love being carried
and I like help you out of the car.
Thank you tho.
And I take the pad from you and I stash it so that you're not holding onto it in your
super.
No, man. So [00:29:00] before we walk away and head out towards Mara's, guy Brick puts his hand on Thorn's, shoulder looks down at him, puts his fist in his face. Listen, if you're not who you say you are, if you get her in trouble, she gets hurt because of you. Then you're gonna catch a brick to the face and I hold my fist up and tattooed across.
Tattooed across my knuckles is BRIK.
Then we walk off
amazing.
You follow Mara Deep into poly fin's underground through service tunnels and forgotten corridors, the air grow stale and heavy with ozone. You're sifting through ancient mud, dirt, the number of unhoused peoples res. You hear sirens ever more distant. Even the coppers don't want to come into this area.
Eventually, she leads you to a rusted door marked with a faded red cross. She knocks twice. A moment later, the door slides open. Apparently it opened on its own accord though, because there's no one on the other [00:30:00] side. Mara walks in without a care. She doesn't even check the corners, although brick. But you do get the sense that he's been here before.
Inside the clinic is cramped and cluttered with cybernetic parts and flickering monitors. Surgical arms hang overhead like dormant insects. This is Dr. Style's place, an old Ripper doc who's patched up more ghosts than people. Remember. Dr. Sile is near the insect like machinery. He's tall and wiry. He seems to be one with the machines in his environment.
Just another arm on the great apparatus that is over the recumbent bed that is in the middle of the room. He has skinned the color of old brass and a lattice of fine circuitry tattooed across the scalp. His eyes are mismatched. One is cloudy and original, and the other a bright red implant that worse softly when it focuses.
He laughs.
Mara, Mara and uh, and brick, of course. Welcome, welcome back. My old friends. Come in. Of course. Come [00:31:00] in. Come in and and then who do you have here? Who have you brought to old Dr. Style
today? I finally have a lead doc.
Oh. To, uh, that
SAU guy. Cellist. Oh, celery. Celery. Yep.
Sure. Have someone who can help us.
He puts his hands on your shoulders and he leads you in. Mara, come sit, sit, sit. And he leads you to the bed. Might as well check your implants while you're here. It sees Canino and he says, oh, whoa. What happened to you young man?
Yeah, I got, I got canno like on my shoulder. Like, Kano, your arm is like around my shoulder and I'm holding some of your weight.
I'd, uh, I, I took a one or two stunned Toms to the old Nain and, uh, well could certainly use a little bit of a, a, a checkup, if you will. And I see you have quite a few parts here. Do you also speak to the spirits of the machine?
The spirits of the oh oh oh Shintech? Of course. And [00:32:00] you? No, but much respect.
The shintech have come in from time to time. Of course I've been to the temple. Some of my best clients. Yes. Wow. Well, I'm sorry Mara. And he, he kind of removes you from the bed. You come, come here, come here. Uh, you, you're more in trouble than young Mara. Here. I can run your diagnostics after young lady.
Please lie down, my good friend. I will, uh, just kind of pass out over here. I had
a bit of a bumpy ride
over. You lay down and almost immediately fall into unconsciousness, feeling the soft, warm embrace of technology pulsing all around you, you feel finally for the first time in an hour, safe. Take good care of him.
Doc. He's the only person on this planet I feel like I can actually trust for as dirty and dingy as everything is in here. The actual medical equipment is squeaky clean and he pats one of the insectoid arms that's hanging above the bed and he says, believe it or not, even down here in the underbelly of PolyPhen, I've managed to scro up some of the most advanced medical technology, this side of the [00:33:00] system.
He'll be just fine. He'll be back on his feet. Just a an hour or two, he'll be on the mend for. A better part of a month. But he'll be operable, he'll be in a bit of pain, he'll be stiff, but you'll have him back.
I pat him on his unconscious shoulder.
He goes over and he, he programs a couple things and the arms were to like beginning to ease the bruises across his scalp and shoulder and stitch up, uh, single laceration that is across his brow.
Two electrodes come down and connect to his temple and begin to like gently electroshock him. And as a bonus, two robotic hands come up outta the end of the bed and begin to massage his feet. When you look kind of oddly at that, the good doctor style says, Hey, a lot can happen through the feet. A lot of pressure points, a lot of nerve endings.
It's all very scientific, but it's gonna help with his recovery. Oh, he's a pervert. Got it. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I only take pictures of the feet if they allow me to. Everything's on the up and up in this black [00:34:00] market bio mod center. Okay. And, and, and on that note, are we looking, are we looking.
Not today, doc.
Well, if you ever know anyone that wants illicit black market bio mods, if they want to become more machine than man, send 'em on down to the old doctor style. I can't
think of anybody I know who wants that.
Especially you. He points at Thorn. If you ever know anyone,
I'm sure I will never meet anyone who wants a bionic eye or a robot body.
Back on the scapegoat. Thorn has just told that part of the story.
Thorn, you gave the guy feet pics. I didn't
give him feet pics. Thorn, you've known about a bio mod specialist this whole time. You never told me. A fucking hell man.
You have ugly feet. Felix
Sort, discount Felix.
Hailey, I have robot feet. Okay, listen, I know that you're, you're really interested in, in all this body modification stuff, but let me finish the [00:35:00] story before you jump to conclusion.
Fine, fine, fine. Alright. Anyway, like I was trying to say, we're at the Doc's place and Mara's in the middle of explaining what we're even doing there.
After a year of chasing shadows, I found a lead. All the Nexus Corp communications passed through automated data relays and each one holds a rolling seven day cash before permanent deletion. The relay nearest to the mag glove crash site was taken offline for repairs hours after the crash, it never came back online.
Its cash may still hold the command to the AI pilot, the orders, whatever from the Nexus executives. And if Sal's death was stage, the evidence is gonna be there. But that cash can't be accessed by any normal means. We have to go to that relay and we have to take it in person.
So then what do you need me for?
I was told that you had a cipher.
[00:36:00] Wait, this cipher and I pull out this. Data pad flash it. So you're telling me you didn't send me this message,
you didn't send me this message saying to look for you, that you had some information for me that would help me.
I never even knew who you were until I got this message saying that I should look for you.
Docile comes forward. Uh, can I see that? And he puts his hand out for the date pad. I reluctantly start to hand it to him because the last person who said that then tried to murder my good friend. But I do give it to him. To
be fair. The last guy that said that tried to walk away and then you were like, Hey, wait a minute.
Yeah. But then what happened? He tried to murder your friend. Are you on the side
of Nexus
Me? No. You A Nexus Goon me Doc style. He takes it and he says, I, I just, ah, it's weird. It's missing. Uh, sender. Do you see this? I noticed. Okay. Yeah. Uh, basically an anonymous, this shouldn't even be possible on the Nexus network.
Uh, yeah. This is through the nexus subnet of the exo net. Yeah. This
should be
impossible. Uh, do you mind if [00:37:00] I, I check this out.
I just look. At, uh, at Mara?
Yeah. What are you looking at her for? She trusts me and he goes off and he, he plugs it in. You do trust this guy, right?
Other than brick. He's the only person I have left on this planet who could help us.
That message may have been anonymous, but you're still the best chance I got.
Well, you're mine too, Mara. Uh, I, I, they could have followed us. I don't know. I, I don't know if we can stay here long. We still on for tonight? The relay.
We still got it. Alright, we're gonna be on track.
This guy had what we needed.
He
did that cipher. Now that we have a copy, we can figure out what happened. Be able to figure out where Sist is.
Your family's gonna rest at peace. Mara
Docile walks over as you're sharing this moment with the data pad, and he says, yeah, uh, no, no sender. It's, uh, it's almost as if you typed this out yourself and just had it on your data pad like it was never said.
Yeah, I must have got really drunk and just came up with a cipher all by myself. I give thorn very suspicious eyes.
Well, you know, it starts, you know, Z seven [00:38:00] X ends with, uh. CW three. Those are, you know, the pre-end and upend of, uh, relay code. So I, I mean I obviously, I was listening to you, so this seems like it's the relay code.
So relay codes can do a bunch of different things, right? So each of the different relays that are all over the Nexus area of, uh, pre fixture for instance, have these relay codes. They're rolling codes, so they're only good for so long. You can go to a relay, go up to the platform patrol panel, and if you enter this in or if you have like, uh, some sort of connection that you can plug it in and it'll give you access to the terminal.
They're usually only good for about 24 hours. But if what I'm hearing is correct, that relay went offline. So if it's offline and you're trying to access its cash, and this is the code that it's expecting from when it was last online a year ago, when you power that relay back up, you should be able to use this code to access everything in there, everything you could want.
So we're good to start the mission.
I'm sure [00:39:00] if Kano was awake, he would say that. The data pad reached out to me itself.
You have weird friends, thorn.
Oh, hey. Whoa. The Shintech religion, uh, may be a little odd, Mara, but we should still reverence. They're doing good work in the city.
Yes. I'm sure she doesn't have anything against Shintech.
There we go. So, what's
it we get, we get to the relay tower, we solve this mystery for both of us.
And as you're saying that, he goes over and he touches Mara's scalp. Mara, you don't react at all because you're so used to this. He peels back a piece of skin and there's a port there, and he plugs into the port and he begins running the diagnostics on your two different bio mods, one of which is your, uh, your iod.
Mm-hmm. Which allows you to zoom up to 500 meters telescopic vision. And the other is your ghost talker transceiver, which allows you to talk with docile up to, you know, a pretty, pretty good distance. So it has audio visual transmission. So sometimes when [00:40:00] you need help, he acts as your tech support. So he runs diagnostics on that and on his data pad, thorn and brick.
Brick's seen this before, but Thorn especially, you can see on his data pad as he runs the diagnostics that he can see through her eyes. And there's a little bit of feedback as you're talking. You can hear your own voice. Mara, when you are zooming in, uh, have things been a little blurry for you? It doesn't look quite right to me.
It's been a little bit harder these days, doc.
Okay. You gotta come in, you gotta come in and see the old doc style when you have these problems. It's not biology, it's ology. It's something I could fix. Just a quick patch. Be poop, be. Is that better?
Yes. It
Okay.
I I can't really see 500 meters in any direction here, but,
ah, a comedian number one or number two?
Number one. Number two, you number one or number two? Number two. No. Um, so he unplugs from, from your scalp and he folds your skin patch back into place.
Mara, I'm gonna go, uh, get transport prepped when this guy's up and [00:41:00] running. I think we can get going. I just. Towards Kaino.
Got it. We'll check on Kaino.
Kano is good to go in just a few more minutes. So Bri goes upstairs and he finds transport.
I'm, I'm prepping. Just, just everybody knows I'm, I'm prepping motorcycles also. Does
this mean Mar providing feet pictures because she is so desperate to kill these guys that she's like, yeah, I'm giving myself pedicures for the Ripper dog.
Like, I mean, I was try, I thought we were, I was like, oh, this is like Victor from Cyberpunk. But no, it's fingers.
It's fingers. It's a hundred percent fingers. And you just like offered
me up to him.
I know. I'm so sorry. His robot
massages feet for purely medical purposes, however,
totally.
It's a blood flow thing.
He does accept credits, but if you don't have credits, he accepts digits. Block
six insurance companies ever gonna pay out to me to Marve vax.
Ah, [00:42:00]
I think, I think you're. Oh shit. Yeah.
So they paid out your life insurance. Oh. But you had no family that survived, so I guess they kept all of that. Mm-hmm. They kept all of them convenient.
And guess who owns the insurance company and Nex. How come? Big picture? Nexus Corp.
Nexus Corp. Yes. Everything
ends up there. They, they made money when you and your family died. Yeah. So you go up and you prep some motorcycles. I don't know where you're getting them, so why don't you go ahead and roll.
Actually, Mara's the one with all the connections in this area. So Mara, why don't you roll Connect.
Ooh. Yay. Thank you. I'm excited. What am I, Brooke has
connections in this area, but only through the strength of Mara.
Am I running this on intelligence or wisdom? I would say we're gonna go with wisdom.
Okay.
Or charisma. I think wisdom's great.
Wisdom's great. Yeah, that's what I thought. Cool. Role wisdom Or eight?
Ooh, eight. Great role. A six and a two. Good role. So brick, you go up and you have a contact with a gang in this area. It's a small gang, but they kind of [00:43:00] have spread across the sector. So they're in, like, they're on different planets and they're even on space patients.
Oh, no. Eh, eh, eh. So anyway, you get some motorcycles from this unnamed gang. Yeah. Uh, do the motorcycles all have like rat insignias, a rat motif? Yeah. There's a, a rat motif and they have like little fangs.
They do have bangs or do they have Mohawks?
Oh, they have s Okay. No, they're, they're, they're neon lanes.
More like lams, more like la They're neon lanes. On
lanes. Get outta here on lanes. Glad I thought of it, glad I
thought of
it.
So you ascertain some kind of shitty grab bikes from them, but at least they don't have wheels. They're a step up and hano. You are back on your feet. You are stiff, you are in pain, but you have bull uh, capability of your body thanks to the advanced technology [00:44:00] that docile had access to.
So you are back to your maximum hit points. Sick and you don't have to limp, but you feel like you want to limp. So you limp upstairs with your two friends and everyone gets on their own motorcycle.
Something's just feeling a little off about my feet. I just can't quite place it.
Your feet feel great and violated at the same time, so you all get up and there are four motorcycles waiting.
You each get on your own motorcycle and. Led by brick, you make your way off to Thero Relay on the north side of the tree. Picture on the way you pass Residential Block six. Mar and Brick don't even look up, but when you see the big sticks in Blazoned on its side, thorn and Kano. After hearing the story that you heard in the car and finished in Doc Style's place, you can't help but look up 30 stories up.
At least a blackened fire ravaged hole still existed. Side of the building. The mag love is, is long gone, but they never rebuilt that part of the block, [00:45:00] but that hasn't stopped People from living there, every floor leading up to that one is populated. People walking around inside lights are on, laundry is hanging outside, and even more crazily, people are living above the crash site and a part of block six that look like ready to crumble into the street at any moment, but has been hanging on for a year.
So maybe it's safe, but that spot, those rooms, those apartments, that's where Mara used to live a year ago with her family who were all killed in the crash. You continue speeding along the slick streets of Hock, bay Prefecture and PolyPhen. It's been about six hours still. Nighttime. It's always nighttime.
You leave. The general section of Pock Bay, prefectures city center, and is a bit of a highway for just a few miles leading to the next prefecture. Here is the only glimpse of nature that many people in this area will ever get. Bare and wasteland, scrub grass, a lone tree here and there. The mega city isn't allowed to extend to this area because well, they have to dump their [00:46:00] refuse somewhere.
Mounds of garbage and toxic waste streams that have been turned into sludge. What you can only assume was once a large hill has now been beaten down. But a small lump covered in garbage. But out here is the Northern Hock May Prefecture relay a large cell phone tower looking structure with a platform about a hundred feet up and then 54, uh, 50 feet more of relay reaching off into the sky above that platform.
That control platform is where you are trying to go, and there is a lattice work of stairways snaking their way all the way up to that platform. The relay itself is fenced in chain link, large berth around it. Lots of parking, but no one's been here in well over a year. The gate is locked. You drive your motorcycles up to it, stop, kick out the stands and get off.
What would you like to do?
Well, as Brick gets off as a motorcycle, I'm kind of looking around the area. I've been watching for tails the whole time. Looking for [00:47:00] threats on alert, looking out for any of those goons
Looking around, you don't see anyone in any direction whatsoever except for back on the highway, which is now about 200 meters behind you.
You can see a steady stream of cars and mag lifts making their way around. Alright, mark, looks like we're clear. We should move in.
Great. Let's breakthrough
break. You came prepared. You take out your bolt cutters and you snap the chain and push open the rusted fence. It's about a a hundred foot walk to the relay pick point.
Keep your eyes open. KI
tap my ghost receiver just to make sure that docks styles like aware that we are here just to confirm that that connection is made. He sees what's happening. You
hear in your cochlear implant doc style says, I hear you, Mara. I could see, be careful. I don't like the looks of this.
Let us know if anything comes up, doc.
I'm trying to access the satellite feeds now, but you know, nexus, they got it locked down. I'll do my best and good luck.
[00:48:00] Thanks. See you on the other side, doc.
See you there. Brick leading the way on point, sweeping back and forth looking for trouble. The four of you make your way the hundred feet towards the relay.
The relay looms like a skeletal tower against the haze of PolyPhen upper sprawl. It's an ancient rust street antenna, stretching high into the neon sky. Its lower levels are all exposed, steel and forgotten scaffolds. There are open air platforms bolted onto its frame like afterthoughts, cables, whip and hum, and wind flickering.
Hazard lights blink through the gloom baited nexus corp. Logos clinging to the metal, half eaten by rust. It's been a long time since anyone's been here and to climb up those winding stairs. Look dangerous. As you approach the last 25 feet of the relay, a van screes to a halt at the entrance of the fence barreling over your four motorcycles that were left there and goons begin to pile out.
[00:49:00] They take cover along the side of the fence. You see them whip out their guns. They search through the gloom for you. They haven't spotted you just yet, and they're pretty hard to see themselves. But it's only a matter of time.
I gesture. Everybody
take cover, take cover. Get down. Get down. Yeah, I run behind some detritus.
Yeah, there's a couple barrels near you if you take cover. Yeah. Yep.
I'm imagining myself like spider crawling with like my laser pistol behind a barrel. Yeah,
that's true. I, I gotta take my pistol out too. So I guess you guys have to decide what you're doing. You're currently taking cover. Are you trying to sprint up the stairs?
Because these guys are here. They obviously know that you're here. What would you like to do? Are you gonna stand and fight or are you going to play? I'm gonna leave them. Are there. You can see at least four, two on each side of the fence. But you don't know how many may have piled off the other sliding door on the other side of the van that just pulled up.
If I know anything about Nexus goons, they're like cockroaches. It's the ones you can't see. You gotta worry about.
We gotta get inside and activate this relay.
We have the element [00:50:00] of surprise now. I say we take him out, we get up that tower, get what we need and then get the hell outta here before reinforcement show up.
We're not turning around now. Brick's. Right. Hey, uh, pull out my laser nel. If
we try to go up the tower, they'll see us for sure.
Let's take a couple of them out.
Okay. Sounds like you're standing and fighting everyone. Rule initiative. There are four nexus goons that are visible. So I'm gonna rule initiative for four of them, but that doesn't mean there's only four.
It does. You can't lie to us. It's against the rules. Yes.
Yeah.
Wait,
show me the rule. Show me the rule. It says I can't lie to you. I wrote
it in Sharpie in the back of my book. Show me the rule.
You can't
legally add enemies to the combat.
Okay, with a roll of eight brick's gonna go and then Mara Thorn, one of the nexus guards.
Eno. And three more. Uh, three more Nexus goons. And then maybe more so brick. Currently it's your turn. The Nexus goons don't seem to have noticed you. Uh, they, but they do also obviously know that you are here. Otherwise, they would've not shown up at all. [00:51:00] They're cautiously moving through the fence. For you.
So I'm going to, I'm, I'm kind of crouched behind a barrel and I'm gonna kind of line up a shot with the nexus goon that's kind of like center left moving up. And I wait until I get a good bead on 'em, and then I, I take, I open fire with my light pistol. Ooh, okay. The guns are coming out. Yep. Yeah. Uh, I got, I got a nat one there.
Um, however, I am a warrior and I want to hit that first guy, so I'm gonna turn that into a hit.
Ooh, nice bang. I love when people use their re rolls. I am a warrior
and I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do three damage. So I, as he moves up, I line up and I let loose a few shots and I, I seem to make contact.
He takes one to the chest and falls down to a knee.
You imagine that he grunts, but he's too far away for you to hear the three guys around him see him and begin to fan out a bit more. They do not seem overly concerned about their down patriot. Uh, Mara.
Mara is going to try and [00:52:00] take a shot, or no, she's not going to try. She's going to feel inspired by that crazy headshot she got earlier in the evening.
Ooh. Despite
apparently needing a diagnostic on her, IM mod, but you know, she's just that skilled and she's going to, um, she's gonna shoot at one of the Nexus goons whomever is closest to her. Ugh, there's a five hit.
Uh, five does not hit.
So I watch as my little laser pings off of just a random piece of debris.
No hide back behind my cover
or stay down. I've got this thorn drags this. I'm hiding behind the barrels nearby where brick is, and I've got my laser pistol ready. Uh, I'm not super good with guns. And last time I tried to fire this thing while we were making a quick escape, the recoil almost launched the thing outta my hand.
Um, but I'm gonna do my best to try and lay down some covering fire. And so I'm just firing my laser pistol off at these dudes. And I see Rick gets a hit on one and the guy's like [00:53:00] clutching his wound. And so I take aim at him specifically and I tried to put a laser head, go for a wounded. Yeah, try to finish him off, you know, with that guy.
Looks like
he's out of the fight. Might as well murder him. He's not
moving as much, you know, so that's true. Finish him off
Thorn's always looking for dudes to finish off.
Always.
Oh God, he's just Christ. Wow. Thorn in his flat. So I feel like Thorn is telling the story and he is embellishing and he is like, there I was trapped behind the barrels.
There were four, no six guys fanning out to surround us. I took in with my laser pistol, I saw a guy, our eyes locked, he pulled out his gun ready to fire on me, but I was quicker. I drew it from its holster and this one swoop, I blasted him right between the eyes. I got it caught off in the distance through the hole in his head as he fell to the ground.
Jesus. Yeah, and he's dead. So for listeners at home, that was an 18 hit with six damage.
Insane in real life in what really happened, you know, [00:54:00] a year ago was Thorn was hiding behind the barrel, completely hidden, just firing backwards over his head going.
I just had like one eye closed and one eye kind of opened.
Just like spray and pray and then
you're on Skateboard would be like, sir, I was four predators surrounding me. I'm covered in mud, a Bowie knife to my name and no pants. None of us, none of us believe
him.
We're just sitting there shaking our heads. I was the only one
left.
And that guy collapses to the ground before the next guy's turn.
They all have to roll morale because. The first enemy went down in a blaze of thorn like glory. So I'm gonna roll for the three guys. You can see, keep saying that. I told you we're not, you're not allowed to lie to us. I know right? Number one succeeds, uh, he'll be sticking around. Number two succeeds. He'll be sticking around.
We have a DC of eight. I roll a seven and an eight. Number three, six's rule to three, which is uh, last time I checked mathematically [00:55:00] under an eight. So will be sticking around these. They don't give a shit about their friend. They look at him and then they assess their own philosophical feelings on mortality and they go, I could deal with this.
So it's not that they don't care about their friend, is that they care about the mission and they know that their friend knew what they were getting into.
So this guy runs forward, takes cover behind a barrel, and takes a shot at Brick who is kind of diagonally to him also taking cover. So because Brick is taking cover, this guy is going to take a minus two.
Good thing I only rolled a five because I rolled max damage on this rifle for 12 damage.
Yeah. Five does not hit
brick. That's a
big yikes for me though, about the damage
because he's a, what is colloquially known as a non-player character. He can't use the warrior ability to re-roll that to automatically kill your ass dead.
You can thank me later. You owe me a soda. Okay, so that's that guy. He am Myth and eno, your turn.
Well. Um, is there [00:56:00] anywhere besides the barrels to sneak and hide or is this a true firefight?
Yeah, you can just sneak off into the dark. There's all kinds of refuse and barrels and darkness itself if you want to hide.
Understood. I think I'm going to take a shot with my laser pistol at the guy still in open cover at the top, and then am going to use my movement to move towards the stairs. To use them even though they're just partially slatted for some type of cover.
Okay. Do what up? What's your, what's your weapon? A laser pistol.
Oh. Yep. We have a good, uh, variety here. We have two laser pistols and two old world style sun powder pistols. A
15 for five ditch.
Oh, 15 hits. And which guy were you hitting? The guy, the guy that moved up or one of the two that stayed back
most north. Uh, the guy that has not taken cover yet.
Okay. 15 hits, five damage instantly.
Ladders this guy's brains all [00:57:00] over the pain link fence behind him. I mean, you're playing not Robert Ross and you're still exploding head left and right. You can't help, but it's in his nature. That's what I do. Okay. Assistant gm, do they have to roll morale or no.
If they're at half of their total forces, but we can only see two.
I don't know if that means there's more or not.
I am gonna do secret GM roles and found.
Great
big camera rolls. Now you don't know if I'm rolling or not. Secret camera rolls. And that's what we call social engineering. I will not call it that. You'll call it that. Or your character will not survive. And that's what you call
social engineering.
Damnit. Don't social engineer me, I'm social engineering. You God damnit. Okay. So I may or may not have made a morale check and uh, nexus Guard is nexus next. So Nexus guard. I don't improve my jokes please. And he's going to take Glad I thought of it. Glad I thought of it. Classic box. We [00:58:00] need to bring box back.
He's stuck on Camary four. You guys gotta swing down and switch out froggy for him or something. It's nice that we didn't kill him though. 'cause that means he's out there. He might've been in one of those, uh, fighters that you guys fought. That's true. Yeah. But we
failed to destroy any of them.
That's true.
He's probably, he's alive either way. Uh, so this Nexus Guard is Nexus. Glad I thought of it. And he is going to fire a Ponzi. He actually, he is going to, yeah, he moves up and he gets behind the barrel on the opposite side of his friend who is also hiding behind a barrel and he throws out a cylindrical object.
It doesn't land exactly where he wanted. It lands about 10 feet behind the four of you. So between the three, sorry. Between the three of you and the stairs where Kano is currently hiding behind the stairs, a cylindrical object hits the ground and with a hiss hops open and a huge geyser of smoke exudes from it clouding the area around it in [00:59:00] thick flowing smoke Kano.
You are just barely outside of the smoke on your side of it and the three of you are just outside of the smoke on your side of it. Obviously he was trying to lay down a smoke grenade, but uh, sort of failed.
And now Kao's in like super cover.
Yeah. Now Kano can just like walk away. You wanted steal.
You've got it.
That was my goal. Perfect. Love it. As the round ends, you hear the telltale wpw wop, wp wop of a dual rotor skimmer, nexus maid coming out from the city and flying low over the relay tower. This is essentially a, uh, a dual bladed helicopter with H Mag left capabilities. It's incredibly mobile. It can fly in any direction, hover instantly.
It can be like land incredibly quickly. It can rise into the sky faster than you can blink. It's a V to with a V to Yeah, what you just said. It's again, a nexus, skimmer,
vertical takeoff and landing.
No, no, no, no. [01:00:00] If it's, it's purely horizontal in nature, everything it does is diagonal. Like, okay, hold on.
Wait a minute. Hold on. If it was anything, it'd be a bishop, not a rug. Okay, so it diagonally moves in towards you. I just can't let Brian be right. And he goes, yeah, it, so it burns towards you from the sky and it a giant spotlight. Boom, trashes down on you lighting the scene. The nexus GOs are still in darkness, but all four of you are now like Christmas tree, 50 foot spotlight that's radiating down on you with 10,000 lumens of force.
You are half blinded and extremely visible and an otherwise very dark landscape. And what's worse? You can no longer see the nexus goons that you were fighting. You are completely light blind.
I can't see a damn thing. Damnit, we're out mashed here.
We still have to get up this tower.
I know I put my hand on Mara's shoulder.
I said, [01:01:00] we're hunkered behind the barrels. Mara, we've come this far. You've come this far. You have to get this intel. Gimme your gun. Gimme any ammo you've got. I'll hold them off. You go get that information.
No.
Take these guys up there. You get that information.
Whoever's gonna go up that tower needs to get, have a safe way back down.
And, and thorn's the only one with the cipher
Me.
He's gonna have to go up.
I, I look over and, you know, we've done this a long time and I'm exactly where I need to be. I wouldn't be
here without you, bro. Take care of yourselves. I'll be back. And then I just like book it up the stairs while they cover me.
Don't fuck it up. You owe me so many low coupon cards.
Oh, but well, when he goes to go up the stairs, I motion for him to throw me his pistol. I, I just throw it at you, I guess.
Thorn. You leave your three friends behind as you sprint up the rain sl stairs of skeletal defund relay tower floor after floor after floor [01:02:00] until you finally reach about ninety one hundred, a hundred and ten feet up near the very top.
The control pla below you gunfire still rages between the two opposing forces. The skimmer circles, overhead, lighting, the fight like a play, keeping your friends blind as nexus goons. Close in. You look out the street, there are three vans. There is at least a dozen goons outside the fence. Half a dozen have made their way inside.
And what's worse, some of the goons are setting up shields in the dirt, creating ways for their friends to get closer. Smoke grenades, flash banks covering fire. All of this against three tenacious, albeit, but overwhelmed people that are holding the line all for you to come to the top of this tower. You duck into the control room and you find yourself faced with a large control panel.
There's a large power switch that turns a relay on, and there is a blank screen next to it. I
activate the relay.
The control panel swings to life with a feet [01:03:00] and a cascade of lights. You hear a noise from behind you in a voice thorn soft, familiar tone.
I reach for the pistol that is not there because I gave it to brick and I spin around real fast to see the source of the voice.
At first, you don't
recognize the big ear. A person in type black clothing, a a loose, dark colored cloak glittering down to their knees. They are backlit as the skimmer flies overhead. Who's there? But the skimmer passes and your eyes adjust, and then you recognize a form from the past mother. She steps into the room.
What the hell are you doing
here? I sent you that message on your data pad. I'm sorry for all the cloak and dagger, but it's necessary. Mother. This is
ridiculous.
What do you
mean?
You
sent the message? What's going on?
I sent you the message to meet Mara. I sent Mara the message to meet you. I orchestrated that entire encounter with the intention to bring you here at this time, to avenge the family, to [01:04:00] reveal the truth of Solaris fake death.
And after 10 years to to speak with my little
boy. It's been a long time. The whole time that I was in that prison, I never heard anything. I thought the entire family had abandoned me. That everyone just assumed I was guilty. They did abandon you,
and it's, it's my fault. Your mother's fault. Thorn. I have so much I need to say to you and not much time to say it.
Solaris is not the one who betrayed you. I am. Solaris was running a smuggling ring and I knew that your involvement with him was dangerous. I know that your ambitions and your recklessness and your deals would cause our company great pain. You were an increasing risk. I looked at the sheets, I crunched the numbers.
I. Saw the probabilities and I knew that our corporation was not gonna last with you at the helm. And I knew you were set to inherit it. You needed time to mature, you needed to listen to reason, but you refused. You made deal after deal deals that collapsed larger and larger money [01:05:00] sinks. Bankruptcy wasn't on the brink, but it was on the horizon.
I'd uncovered a lot of information about Solaris. I was going to expose him, get him out of our lives forever. And hopefully with that connection gone, you would simply come back into the fold. But then you started making deals with other people that were not Solaris outside of his connections. And I knew that this web had grown too large.
That you had been, no, that you had bought into this idealized life of more and more money. The end goal was never more money. Thorn. We had enough. It was not worth risking everything. So I couldn't just take Soliris outta the picture. I had to remove you as well. I didn't know how long your sentence would be.
But I implicated you in the smuggling ring alongside Solaris, knowing that both of you would go to jail. But I, I didn't expect Solaris to pin it on you. Thorny. I know. I can't. I can't undo the last 10 years. I can't undo the damage that I've done to you. God knows I want to try. After you were gone.
Solaris made his move with the power of Nexus [01:06:00] Corp. He was able to take over the company five generations to lose in 10 years. And now for those same 10 years, I have been working to reclaim it. But just after we lost the business and assassin nearly killed me, I survived only by luck and I've been on the run ever since.
And after Solaris supposed death, while I knew something just wasn't quite adding up, I know the information you need is in that control panel and where I have failed. I believe that you can succeed. Thorny. This is only the beginning. Do you understand?
Thorn is kind of completely dumbfounded right now to find that his own mother, the person that he respected the most in the world, uh, is the one who set him up and got him imp prison for 10 years.
So he takes a few seconds to process that and then remembers that this is also the woman. Not only that raised him, but that brought Drax access goods to where it was. And so she had a great mind for business. And if he [01:07:00] thought that he was in the way, uh, that maybe she had good reason to think that he knows he made some mistakes.
Mother, this is, it's a lot to take in, but I will make sure that Salus pays for what he did. I can forgive you but him, I will never forgive.
Salus is alive. I know you can take the data that's in this control panel and find him. I believe in you and I know that you can take back the company and restore the family.
Mara is tough. She can help and she comes with a bonus brick. I didn't choose them lightly. They are motivated and they are willing, and they wanna see Solaris come to justice as badly as we do. I'm pleased that you made an ally in Cano. He's an extremely useful cap burglar with a storied history. Yes, I've read all about him.
If he's willing I, I would love for him to accompany you and we will pay handsomely at the end of all of this. You have a team, now you have friends. Dare I say, ones that can help bring down Solaris. Will you do this? Will you take back the company and save the family? [01:08:00]
You don't even have to ask. We'll get it back.
Axxis Goods will be owned by Axxis again,
you'll see I won't give up. She steps forward and she produces an object from her pocket and hands it to you. Your father's wedding ring inscribed on the inside with the Drax family name. I think he would want you to have it.
I just take a look at it in the light and kinda like slip it away.
I go in for like a hug. She sticks out a hand. Uh uh. Uh, I, I just kind of dumbfounded.
A little confused. I grasp it. She holds your hand for a second, shakes it, and let's go. Thorning, you won't see me again. What are you talking about? Where are you going? You could come with us. She takes a step back, looks out the door and peeks over the railing.
The skimmer flies overhead. I better go. And with that, she turns vanishing up the stairs to the top of the tower. Mother Wayne,
come back,
but she was [01:09:00] gone.
Well, I didn't know what to think and I didn't have time to process it all. I just downloaded the cache and do a chip, and I rushed down the stairs to try to help the others. But by the time I got down there, it was already too late.
No.
Brick and Caino were there dead. I found their bodies full of laser holes.
Mara was gone, as was the van. I watched the skimmer glide off into the night. They didn't care about me at all. It was Mara. They wanted, I assume she's dead now. And the coverup of the Mag Love crash at block six is now complete. That one last loose end finally tied off. I'm so sorry.
No. Dawn Promethean owns [01:10:00] Nessus Corp.
There's data on this station. Anything that can help, I'll get it out for you. Oh, I know
Felix. It's all I can think about. I'm gonna find Sist and when I find him, thorn takes out his pistol out of his holster and he slams it down on the table in front of everyone. I'm gonna kill him.
And then we're gonna piss on his grave.
Yeah.
Damn. I mean, I had family problems. Like I know Thorn is cutthroat and ruthless. I've worked with them long enough. But to turn your own son in to send your own son to prison, damn, that is one cold-hearted mother, I guess. I see why Thorn has so much trouble connecting with people. Poor guy. I'll [01:11:00] help him find.
Who he needs to find and kill, who he needs to kill, he'll get back whatever kind of family he wants. But you know, I wonder if he still has the contact information for that Ripper dog. Sounds like he might have some useful techniques.
I always thought Thorn wasn't the most open member of the crew and honestly I feel pretty bad that we sort of forced him to talk.
I would've struggled to share a story anywhere near that. I hope we'll be able to make it up to him by wrecking Nexus Corp the next time we run into them. And you know, with our luck so far, I'm sure it's gonna happen sooner rather than later. Ugh. I feel pretty bad for forcing Thorn to share that story and I struggled and wanted to keep quiet on that too.
I hope we'll be able to make it up to him by. Wrecking Nexus Corp. The next time we run into them and with our luck, that's sure gonna happen sooner rather than [01:12:00] later.
I still can't believe Thorn betrayed by his own mama cold. Love it. That's the kind of cut that just don't heal. They scar over you. Ain't never gonna be the same again.
Then his team gets wiped out. All of them. You know, I've been there. You never forget losing a brother in arms. Doesn't matter how many years. Pass plants, your cross bases voices, they stick with you and you're just stuck sitting there thinking, why me? Why am I of all of these men? I the one who survived.
I've been there. I know that silence thorn, he's still standing. I don't know if that's strength or just stubborn survival. Maybe it's both. All I know is this crew's taking another hit [01:13:00] dorm. The storm I've been feeling and And it's getting closer.
Oh well it's true. Framed by my own mother. What a earth. I haven't thought about canto in the others in a while.
That man was a treasure. He deserved better. One minute. I'm trying to focus on exposing Nexus, the n I'm sailing through the void towards parts unknown. It's hard to keep everything together, but the more I think about it, I wonder about MA's fate. That doctor too. Maybe they're still hiding out on PolyPhen after all.
Still Felix is right. If there's answers for me, I'll find them when we get to Promethean and what the fleck was ma doing there on PolyPhen anyway. She barely answered any of my questions and only presented me with new ones. What is she involved with now? Where did she end up? I just hope she's all right.
Her and everyone back on Zephyrus. Please be all right [01:14:00] everyone.
