SPACE PIRATES D&D #2 | "Unhappy meal"

Hello, everyone, Welcome to Space Pirates, the second episode. That's right, it's a series. It's not a one shot. It's a real thing that's happening. I'm here as always and will be forevermore with Josh Stripeyes, Rick.

Plan, Hello there, I'm Captain Rick Plan. I'm going to be making sure we know what we're doing before we go into situations, and then when it all goes wrong, everyone else has to save me.

I'm also here with Crag taking one on one.

Hey there, I'm Crag. I work for Rick Plan.

Now I'm his loyal bodyguard and I'll punch things that he tells me to punch.

It's very poor Blart. I'm here with Navina Connequest.

Hello Navina, I pray and I punch things good.

And I'm here all the way from across the globe. Sigma Schuavity on. What we have all concluded is a terrible laptop microphone.

Here's that.

Here it is for the for the recorded audience at home, the terrible app.

On a terrible laptop microphone.

He has a cold. He has a worse. It was worse when he was using the hair dryer microphone. Yeah, he has he went out.

I bought a fifty dollars microphone.

That is, do you want to actually show everyone because it is terrible. He went out to buy a microphone, bought this one for fifty dollars and tried it out.

You're not getting that fifty dollars back either, probably. Yeah.

Yeah, turn that noisy pressure off or whatever it was.

That was like, I love everybody.

It's the worst microphones.

When I when I unplug this, the web microphone will sound so much better.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it is a contrast. It's just really it's just relative at this point.

Yeah.

Oh my days, Oh what a life.

Beautiful, beautiful Dulcet town.

Yeah, it's like you're next to me. Yeah, it's like you're right here.

That is like a sheet plastic microphone. I would have bought it like a dollar store I used to work at or something like.

How, I don't think it's a microphone. I think it's like a gym. Waight, a hair tire. We're back in the Xbox thirty sixty. That's what that is. You a video game console.

The box the box for that microphone advertises it as being really good for podcasting and music.

Right, you could use it for podcasting. Yeah, you shouldn't, but you could. You could.

I think I think there's some music that I would love to that sort of microphone for.

He bought a Connect deep cut Xbox Connect.

I was talking to the microphone on a we remote.

Yep, I'll do it. That's the sound that comes out of your DS when you blow on it when you talk, just when you blow into it.

Okay, okay, okay, okay. Gang last time after breaking out of the Vanda Corp Prison facility, and you know, it's forming this sort of gang of criminals that you now are wanted men that you now are wanted by Vanta Corp. You Yeah, he or she or wanted people you are. I guess you're not your aliens wanted freaks you guys.

That's even worse. I don't have a bounty, by the way, Yeah, Craig, you don't yet.

No, I'm not a criminal.

You probably will justudate Why who are you talking to?

I'm talking to God because apparently I had that magic and that was giving me some weird I'm just having this conversation off to the side.

Yeah, Crag talking to himself. You guys have landed on an intergalactic space service station. And it's small, it's quite rap dash. It's got a few you know, like a service station would usually have. It's got a couple of shops around, you know, gas pumps for spaceships. It has a Globo bites Burger, you know, corner store, that sort of stuff. But it's immediately completely abandoned. As you like step off from the ship, you notice it's completely abandoned.

Can I can I roll to see if this was like, uh, like a little bit of blood, like a lot of people died here or okay, battle a.

Survival role to see that the scale of massacre based on your previous I guess eleven. Yeah, Well it's definitely not a war.

All right, Well this is about a level one massacre, I'd say, in one sided.

Yeah, they didn't have much of a shot here.

The pocket like jumps out of the vessel goes, well, there's a lot of shit to steal, and.

He's running off.

He's already getting ready to steal stuff.

So what do you guys want to do? Boy, I'd like to say, I'd like to have a quick word within the cargo but if I may, and I have to term to the team, and i'd say team, I'm going to set up some quick precautions with the ship, and then I have a very brief word with Pocket. Hobby. Back out with you in two minutes, lickety splits. Don't do anything until I'm back.

Well, you're simultaneously doing my least favorite thing and my most favorite thing. My least favorite thing being stopping me from stealing stuff, but my most favorite thing giving me one of what attention.

So I'll come with you. I'd like to head into the cargo bay and stand so it's just Pocket and I. Yeah, all right. I'd like to reach my arm down to my side. I'd like to unholster the firearm that I got last session, and i'd like to say i'd like to drop the firearm and grab the barrel and hold the handle towards Pocket and Pocket. Listen, I don't know what caused our threads of fate to intertwine the way they are, but you're on this ship, which means right

Oh god, I thought you guys had left. I fell asleep. I about a few bad ship. Do you have any proximity scanners. Uh, okay, cool, fine, I'll go back. Having given Pocket the firearm, I would like to exit the ship and turn to the team and go all right, team, listen up.

I've given Pocket a gun. I don't know how well.

This is going to God, Pockets are firing it to the air.

About that, well, I'd say it's pretty It's going exactly as I expected to go so far. But sometimes a little bit of chaos is what we're going to need in these situations. I've told the ship to set up a perimeter scanner. Turns out we do not have perimeter sensors. So something's clearly gone wrong here. What's your plan?

Good question, very good question.

I love the look of surprise that I assumed Sigma had.

Oh yeah, yeah, I think I think Sigma is probably not happy that Pocket has a gun, but he's going to keep that to himself. And now, okay, but I think, so, how open an area is this? I'm assuming we've landed in like a big hangar kind of.

Yeah, yeah, it's it is actually pretty open air, but you guys can breathe. It has a little bit of artificial atmosphere about it, so that that's being pumped into the into the surroundings.

Can we just can we do any sort of like I don't know if anyone's got perception investigation or something like that.

From where we are be able to figure out if there's.

You want to do.

You want to give me a perception?

You have a yeah six six right, Well, what you can hear is gunshots going off over and over again from the skippets sounding next to you. Yeah, and yeah. That's that's all you can sort of gather. But anyone else who wants to give it a shot as well, start looking around.

Navena, like you know, young Wisdom, will all do a perception of the Yeah, young Wisdom, because I am quite wise.

Is that like your rap name? Yeah, it's Young Wisdom. No, you've got to spin a bar. I'm here to say yeah, yeah, yeah, here to perceive things in an awesome way.

Yeah, that's where you went wrong.

You should have spat bars. So those are those are some good beats, noveno, good plan, rip plan? Are you taking notes? I'm just writing down that the rap name is Young Wisdom. That'll be important. I'm writing that down to in case we made a gang of rap scallions and we're like, do you know who this is? This is young Wisdom. Honestly, it is a.

It's a russis D and D trope that at one point there is an enemy you have to beat by wrapping battling them this first series, to which that would actually be quite good. No, I tell a lie, because Mark did a really good job in Eisakai. But like we're like more, there's actually more of a chance that the majority of the party can do it, because also Teking is slowly getting better at doing them throughout all the series.

I've subjugated him to doing.

It in I'd like to take this moment to announce that I am entering the nerd core scene and I am doing.

Oh I love that.

Okay, No, So with a twenty two novena, your ears perk up a lot of it, and you can hear a small grumbling coming from the Global Bytes building, just a sort of and you hear a tiny little voice, maybe someone responding to the gunshots, that sort of like you can't really make out what it's saying, but it's coming from the Global Bites building.

I think Schwavety is on his microphone in there.

Sound fuck up? What's a what's a schwabty? Is that that's a skipper name if I've ever heard one.

Okay, now this is good. I like learning about other cultures.

This is good. This is nice.

Oh, speaking of culture, do you guys have lumen shards? He looks at your None of you guys have you lumen shards except for Craig.

Yeah.

Well it's so he found a whole bunch in the trunk. So he's going to hand out lumen shards to each of you. And there are things that go onto your wrist, and it's how in this universe.

I just I'm sore shocked that he like shared anything.

Yeah he did.

He was like, well, you know, you can't have multiple of them. It doesn't really work like that. I don't worry. I already took all them lumens, off, all the shards and put them onto my shot. It's kind of like Orange device for money, Story's device for money. And so when you transfer pay things, you transfer them between the shards lumens. So now you guys can trade. Economy has entered the chat.

This is all of my paychecks for my previous jobs. The currency doesn't work the same on the ashcar home world. So this is just what I don't really know what to do with it, honestly.

Well, I can sell you something, Crag, all right, what do you got?

He fits rout in his pockets. I don't know.

I'll roll for it, you know what. Yeah, can I google random object?

I mean yeah, oh.

God, I'd love to see what he pulls out.

He pulls out a can of peas.

Oh damn, all right, these are magic peace.

Can I lean over briefly and be Crag? I don't mean to interrupt the trade. You've clearly on going on, Ham.

He definitely picks the magic sorry, Rick continue?

All right? All right, so how much you? All right, little Skivett, how much do you want these peas? He is literally selling you the things he found on the ship. These are magic peace. So no, no, no, Pocket, tell them about the.

Peace, their magic peace man.

Ship. Pocket wouldn't lie to us. Two thousands lumens, that's true, Craig continue, two thousands? All right, there I go, I give him the two thousand movements.

Yeah, you, I do want to state Crag has only two thousand lumens on him. Yeah, yeah, so you just transfer to the lumen sort of touched lumen shards touch each other and it transfer.

Did not take accounting in community college. He is not He doesn't know much about counts, receivable and stuff like that.

No, it's too busy now. I want to stress all of you currently half Yeah, all of.

You currently have zero lumins and Pocket has about five thousand.

I got the peace. Yeah, his ship treasurer.

See seeing his interaction, I think Sigma will just turn to Novena and just be like.

I think, if we have an opportunity to ditch the Pocket guy and the rock, perhaps we should take it.

The rock is quite endearing, but the Rattie have certainly had enough of But they are all we have for now. By the way, I believe I hear something in the building. It sounds like someone is very hungry.

Okay, how far are we from from the building that Navena's pointing to?

All right, it's not too far. May sixty one hundred feet?

Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna try and stealth up to the building.

Oh, okay, give you that snap.

If I think there's like some danger there, I want to I want to scout it out.

Give me a sneak.

Okay.

Yeah, well now you're you're sneaking towards the building. Yeah, sneaky music playing in the background.

You get up to the we had.

I enjoyed the two different takes of the sneaky music.

I went mission in part No, No, I think I remember what it was from. It was very American British.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Pink Panther versus Mission impossible.

Yeah.

So you sneak up to the building.

Now that you're closer, you can, especially with your wolf ears, with your liking ears, you can start You can hear this sort of noise and you hear it is anybody out there.

I had a gun shot.

Somebody help me.

All right, I just want to I just want to.

Once I'm up to the building and still thinking, I just want to like peek around the window door or whatever.

And see what's so when you when you look inside, it's like a typical burger restaurant. There's nobody in that area. But at the back there is a staff door, and and you can still hear the noises. It does sound like it's coming from that direction. The the burger restaurant chain. He has the Giant Global Bites mascot and he's like grinning and smiling. There's blood everywhere. Was he looked like, Okay, he's a burger with eyes and a mouth, and he's in a space outfit of some kind.

He's got a cape.

I think he's got gloves. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he's he's super Burger. Yeah, he's like a like an astronaut burger in a way. It's fun yea across that glo President. Another president for the first four episodes is that it's the player characters in the thumbnail.

Okay, I'm gonna I am going to like, presumably the others have seen me walk over here and was going to like signal them over like sneaking as.

We kind of, Yeah, try try to sell sneak groups.

Give me stealth. I don't want to see this Crag all right? Two and six from Why Was Mine So Bad? I'm like sloshing. Yes, So you're sloshing all over the place, Crag. And every time Crag steps, it goes boom, the rocks shake, the backs not built for stealth.

So hang on, Crag has been stamping his entire way, and we have a skipper randomly firing. I think we've been pretty stealthy so far guy there recognized? Is there anything out here?

I can hear you?

Guys really well, please help me. I've looked.

Okay, So now if you make away through the restaurant, you're now at the door, like the staffroom door. Okay, and you could really hear him now he's like.

Yay em, what's stomping at gilfare?

Okay?

I opened that?

Yeah, presuming presuming that we have been so and any any symbolimp of stuff is probably gone.

I'm just gonna kick the staff door.

Open because it is locked.

So when you look at it, it has a little thing for a Global Bites employee key card.

I see, But.

I mean you can.

You can strength and try and kick it open if you want to, but it's quite realdful.

Let me tell you, Sigma.

We'll go to kick it, realize it's locked because he's not busting that shit down, and it will just turn to Crag and.

Be like, oh okay, well, okay, hold on one minute. I take out my wallet and I try all the different key cards I've gotten from my other job.

Has Crag ever worked at Global Bites Burger before?

No?

No, no, well I don't allow me to I totally could have. Yeah, this universe.

Yeah, it's like the McDonalds at this USOS, the entire backstories that you've worked at lots of different places.

Yeah. Absolutely, So it's just like I pull out.

I'm gonna say, no, no, no, that's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna do a history check. And the history check it determines whether or not you remember that you've worked at this place. His you have worked at Global Bytes before, however, Yeah, word's allowed. You never got a key card. You didn't work there for long enough. You did a janeitarial possession at Globa Bytes.

Oh let me see here. Oh that's right, I worked there.

But oh that's the one where that guy died like the first hour into my.

First shoe ever worked to make the.

Burger what I was looking forward to that one too, Yeah, with a nine.

Unfortunately you do not have the Global Boats key card.

I could always just kick open the door.

You could just kick over the door. If you want to give you give me, give me an athletic.

Crag before you do that. I think I did to set up something. This seems to be a single point of egress. If we all go in through this door, whatever's behind the door, all of us will be in a single bottleneck. I would suggest that potentially in Navena, you and I see if we can find a back entrance to this building, and then whatever's in this room

Of the building.

Yeah, you can.

You can walk around the back of this building. Do you Rick, Do you want to give me.

A perception check? It's not gonna be too difficult a rick plant.

Yeah, that's good. Fourteen fourteen. So you walk around the back of this building and there is like, you know, where they would load in the supplies there is a back door entrance here, and that is another door, so there is in fact a back entrance this.

To this to attempt the door, is it locked?

This door is unlocked like you when you jiggle the handle it is. It is unlocked but barred, so when you try and open it, it hits against like a wall of like furniture wall of furniture. Vena. I've seen you do some pretty bloody impressive stuff.

Sometime.

We're gonna have to push this door with quite some force. So I think if we work together, we can potentially bust open this door at the same time.

Alrealy is what we're gonna do. So both of these athletic checks are gonna come at the same time. We're gonna have Crag bursting the door down. And then I get an advantage role for me the record Novena for bursting the door down because one of them is helping the other.

Can I can I use my decks for this instead of my strength? Would it still be strength?

I'd still be strength. I don't know how you's dexiously gonna get around it. You I mean you could get in still Novena, Yeah, no, I could, But we'll see if we get the door with that, so it does it's either Rick and Novina. Which one do you want to do? Advantage roll.

Uh navena. How about you attempt to get in through the door, and if we are unable to break it down in one go, then view in your water reform sneak your way into the small gap, and I'll very quickly run back around the front and go in the way we've We've been shown that because.

You would be able to get because you know you can't go soup. You know you can't squeeze small gaps, but you know you're being about torso head size.

You could you could go through.

You could liquid through because there's enough space for that, because it's just purchure in the way, all right, So.

Just I could just squeeze through and remove whatever it's behind the door.

It's not a bad idea. It would cost us a bit of time, but I think the stability of that plan is probably worth losing the slight element of surprise, because I'm ultimately hoping that at some point Pocket's going to run through the window and then no one's gonna know what's going on at all.

I think Pocket's still with Cigamu and crack. He's got a gun at the staff door. Okay, here's my wild card. So okay, Crag, give me the athletics check.

Fourteen.

Okay, fourteen, you smash I'm not saying you won't smash it all the way open, but you will break the hinges slightly of the door.

I'm just gonna say, like five minutes. Okay, yeah, and punch the door.

You smash it open, and it sort of slowly creaks open. You break the hinges. You peer around the door at the same time. Novena, you slip through the gap. I hated that. This is what you guys see. Crag and Nevena, Crag. You look round the corner and you see is this is the kitchen area. Hanging in a cage from the ceiling is a scientist man. He's cut kind of scraggly

On the other side of mister science man, on.

The other side of the room is a giant, colossal burger monster. It is It's just a it's just a giant burger with with a big mouth Nevena. Unfortunately for you, that burger monster was trying to get out of that back door. You are now face to face with the giant burger monster. Crag you on the other side of the room from it.

Okay, okay, Now I walk in. Do I see the burger monster in front of Novena?

Yeah, you could see, you know, actually the burger monster would be completely covering Novena.

Okay, so that's why I asked. So I just see this burger trying to leave, and then this guy dangling from He goes, I'm gonna I'm gonna help that guy down.

I'm gonna help Please help me out. I think at this point, all this point I will be rolling for initiative. The burger monster sees Novena slip through and goes, okay, so Rick, you start. So you have just I assume Novena. I don't know if you say anything. The moment you come face to face with burger monster, I think the vina is gonna scream. So yeah, Rick plaid. You hear the scream of Novena and at a roar from from like a what you can't see at the moment.

Let's lean toward the tiny gap in the door that I have and go. I assume it's all going very well in there, Vina. I've always believed in you what I was about to happen. I guarantee that you're going to be able to get through it. And if you don't believe in you, then believe in the me that believes in you, and that would be bardic inspiration. Okay, am. I also able to cast vicious mockery. Okay, I would

It just has to hear you.

But it doesn't.

It's irrelevant in this case because the creature cannot be affected by vicious mockery because it's just a monstrosity.

Wow.

Wow. It doesn't have.

Feelings food because it's just food to be insulted. Exactly, it doesn't have a fig enough intelligence score to be insulted. So you say that to be honestly, To be honest, Rick, you have no idea if it's affective at all, because you can't see what you're yelling at.

But Navena, you just done a great job.

Yeah, you're just gonna shoot, we did a great bob, Navena. You see that nothing happens. The burger is still angry and still aggressive. Sigma, it is your turn.

Hearing the row and everything like that. I am just gonna like run into the room. Yeah, probably just like sliding in.

Slide in between exactly what I was thinking, to slide under these crags legs. You're in the kitchen now you see this scientist hanging for the Oh my god, that multiple of you. Please help me. I here's the situation. I was trying to make meat that self like reproduced so that we'd have unlimited meat, because you know, would you rather have unlimited meat? Yes, it's always the question. Answer it is always yes. And I'm the smartest food scientist and all of Global bites Industries. My name is

So you are screaming for someone to help you.

It's a very popular service station. People come by all the time, but most of them die.

Well, not anymore.

I'm okay.

Having slid in the room, I assume there's like, you know, some sort of island in the middle of the kitchen that I'm like taking cover behind, and I'm just gonna like flip up on top of it and start lessing this monster.

Okay, you start.

Last thing you do get stick attack damage because he is within five feet off the vena sweet.

So thirteen does hit. It does hit. It is just meat at thirteen damage blasting.

At oh so I took away all the help thirteen damage but lasting into a meat and lettuce and tomatoes come flying out of it, sets me seeds all over the place, and then yeah, what do you want to do when your cunning action?

All right, well I've just realized. Sorry, I have pistol monstery.

Which means I have the zapp thing.

I have an advantage on my next attack against that creature.

Amazing, how good.

But I do not have cunning action because I'm the level one.

Oh yeah, I'm just gonna up.

Back behind this like countertop area and hope the monster didn't see me blast it.

Yeah, okay, he looks around. I mean just docu behind the characters. Enough for him.

It is his turn.

And to be honest, there is a very tasty treat right in front of the Berger monster. So that's true giant mouth and let's see if this hits bite fifteen.

That does hit me oh six damage. Okay, we're very We're very gushy at level one though, So I need.

You now though, to give me a I'm gonna let you do either. Actually it's just gonna be at say me throw here. So oh he grabs you with its giant more you feel the meaty hot air on your body.

Give me up.

So it doesn't even critical failed negative one.

Is that the worst? Like save we we don't get the negatives very often. Yeah, you inspiration, Yeah, the dece.

You. You get eaten. You get eaten, so he swallows you. You're now inside this meating. It doesn't have quite a it doesn't have a natural digestive system, doesn't have like there's no stomach acid. You're just inside meat and you're kind of slowly being consumed by the meat, if that makes sense, Like you're becoming one with its enzymes and cut a crumb is like, yeah, so that's what happened to everybody else, which is why I'm in the cage crag.

It's your turn. Oh, okay, time to clock in on my first day as a bodyguard.

Okay, so I just got Navina get eaten. Yeah, I actually don't know if I would have seen her from this ang.

No one knows I've eaten.

Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to stomp over there, rustage. I'm just gonna say this straight up. Can I pick up a fridge and throw it at this thing.

Into the wood well?

I can say is you can pick something up.

I can't pick up a fridge or a freezer, or a dishwasher or a fryer.

Or any large appliance and throw it at this thing. You put fridge on your character sheet.

Yes, I just changed the provised weapon. I just changed weapon.

Okay, okay, yeah, okay, Yes, you went through the effort.

An athletic check.

Grab me an athletics check first, and then I will let you throw the fridge. You grabbed the fridge, throw it over at the burger monster. It flies through the air and smashes into it to the damage twenty three. Definitely hits five damage. The burger Monster has definitely seen you now, cragg. He turns round.

And that's bring it on. Okay, Novena, you were inside the burger. You can still make a tax with disadvantage. This is most unpleasant. Okay, there's now a fridge also, so I.

Guess, yeah, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna be trying to punch my way out of this burger. I guess I'll turn my hands into spatulas. Yeah, that chair and try and try and jab it is an effective repon against me.

I'm just gonna you roll with normally.

Then, no, you know, meat pound you just meat grind it.

Okay, the natural enemy.

Give me that damage, Holy ship, give me the damage eight plus three eleven eleven. You mash and mounded it. I'm going to have it do a con saving though, now to see if it throws you up.

Mm hmmm, which is succeeds. So you're still in there? All right? Now that I've now that I've mashed me, obviously I need to season it. Yeah, votus action, all right? That that breaks a pack from the negative one. That's all print after even he rolls, and.

It's been a quit feeling to crates. That means if you roll it this advantage, it would have been a double crits with a differ advantage. All right, Yeah, do the fucking damage clicking in the ches.

Hopefully it does. Yeah, it doesn't crit damage.

That days, that's so much damage as well. I'm just this thing up, holy ship, I do not like. Oh my god, oh and it spits you out.

It spits you out, you get spat onto the ground.

Oh my god, nevena, you were in that thing unfortunately, Yes, like wiping down the fucking beaty slime of me.

I wish I would have known that. I wouldn't have thrown the fridge. But I'm glad you're all right. I'm glad you're okay.

Why it's Pocket stand. Pocket runs into the room and goes, I've got a gun and he's gonna fire. He has a very good chance of killing the guy here, potentially the amount of damage that Neverina did. He hits the burger monster is on one health, all the burger monsters on. We help Pocket fires off the gun. It flies through,

I'm still standing outside and I'm just listening to tours going on. I hear what I think is a fridge being thrown across some meaty mashing going on. Then Pocket runs in. There's a gun shire and I'm just kind of gonna think, lead in go how we're doing. Get that team. I assume everything's going fine. I'm out here. If you need me, how many of my need to clear out of the door? Sigma crack, it's a good boss. Do you need me?

No?

Are your is your body successfully guarded? Are you good? I'm fine out here. Everything's hunky, Dori. There's nothing going on.

All right, we should have this wrapped up pretty soon. Then just chill out there, have yourself a granola bar or something fantastic. I'll just watch the rear, then I'll guard the flank. Rick would just like to turn around and just look out with my back to the door. Now, there's not much going on out here, but I'll keep watching anything.

You see a shooting staff, Oh that's lovely. Yeah, sometimes it pays just take a moment and to be outside. Just chill, just chill. It reminds me why I do all of this. That was beautiful. That was.

Okay jumping out from behind this counter again, I'm going to take another shot this burger monster with advantage this time.

Oh my god, let's go. Let's'll probably kill it. I mean, you could do the damage, but it's in a row frequent. You guys just fucking went one of the eyes mental on this guy. This thing was pretty level one too.

This thing is pretty like one hit any of us.

You rolled really low on that damage dice. He could have one shot anybody in this room, but you pull out the gun. Tell me, how do you want to destroy this burger monster?

I think I'll see it now like it's form. It's losing a little bit of its burger form. So I'll just am low, try and tick out whatever it's supporting it. It's like meating little legs and watches it all.

Just and have legs crumbles down.

It's just buttle itself with its slimy little bottom half.

Yeah it's okay, you sliny little.

Is this dirty, disgusting little bottom bug.

I'm assuming that bomb one is just saturated.

Its just saturate the res and fatten sloppy, sloppy, sloppy burger.

And you just the ripples from your bullet explode out through the burger monster. They blast it apart. Patties and onions and cheese and letters and tomato and everything just goes flying, splattering the room in a cabricade of meat, a cavalcade of.

Burgle was was Was that burgermonster the only thing blocking the door?

No, there was.

There was a furniture in the way as well, because the burrying. I will get through the furniture to get out the door.

Yeah, I think like as soon as I see that thing drop, I will just move to start moving the furniture the way.

Yeah, you guys together, work together, you can do it pretty easily.

I do know human cuisine, but I do not think I like it.

Yeah, I'm kind of vegetarian a little bit.

They some of them do eat meat, but so Velinari eat ethnically sourced meat a lot of them.

Obviously I'm overgeneralizing here.

So only animals that can consent, which the Vellinari are able to do, because some Velinari have invented a way of asking animals if they want to be eaten or not, and then the fish.

I assume, so even just even like called pescatarians.

Yeah, but yeah, especially fish. They definitely eat fish. That was always the thing they did. But like if they if they come across a chicken, they can put a device on the chicken and then go bob boop. Would you like to be eaten with mister chicken. The chicken goes sure, and then they eat it.

That raises so many other questions. Are they are they intelligent enough to Yeah, the intelligence animals, there's there's a.

Lot of like you know, for show about it. The animals that con sent maybe they have been coerced to do so, like their animal family has been threatened. But it's plausible ability. Plausible ability for a Valinari to say that the stick to fish curd of chrome goes wow, amazing. Okay, well, can you let me down now? I don't know who you are, but I mean I'm dangling at a cave and I'm also very hungry at that burgerby looks really good.

I think at this point, will will you know open the door.

And bring in Rick Clan. Yeah about the Vlinari chicken thing.

Yes, I've written down slimy little bottom bun and Velini can ask animals if they want to be It's important to know for the future. And thank you very much, Tam. My goodness, what a slimy little bottom bun that is? Who's the cage? Hello? My name is doctor Kernard Crumb.

I am a food scientist or glower bites burger one of the greatest of all time, the goat food scientists that you could afbreviiate it if you want to. If you've seen my stats, you would be very impressed. I was sent here to, you know, quite a remote little place like this to do some experiments on on burgers to make them multiply by themselves, and it ended up going horribly wrong. But next time, I'm sure it'll be a lot better. Yes, many are dead.

Do you do you have a resume? I have a Yeah, I have a CV.

Oh okay, I don't know what that is, but everybody everywhere I go people ask me what my resume is. So I'm just like asking him, like, do you have a resume?

Yeah, I have a I have a resume? Is a do you do you want to see it?

Yeah? Yeah?

Oh right, he'd like fishes. You haven't learn about the cage. He's still dangling. Is anybody gonna but he was like dangling over like a fry.

Cage. Since I asked for his resume.

You get on the counter top. I guess you just yanked him down and put the cage on the floor. And the cage isn't locked per se because he put himself in there.

So he just gets out of it, and pick him up out of the cage and set him down on the countertop. Like he's like a doll or something.

What is he?

He's a human, he's a human with he's a human? Yeah, scraggly, scraggly.

I will say it.

As as Craig is lowering the cage to get this guy out, I'll just turn to turn to brick plan.

I'm like, Captain, this man seems responsible for a great deal of death here. I don't know if letting him out is the best idea.

It was an accident.

Have you never killed?

Oh sorry, let me turn on my ears.

He doesn't have that. It seems responsible for the creation of this meat colossals whatever it is, absolutely but right now I think what we should do is ask what situation caused this entire area to be deserted, work out where the nearest fuel dump is, and then work out of any sort of justice needs to be dispensed at this man. We must make sure we're following the correct procedures with this, otherwise we're no better than him.

Well, he wasn't whispering, so I heard that if you guys are here for fuel, I have the fuel.

That's exactly why. If you have you heard that, then you'll understand that's literally exactly what I was saying in the conversation. Where is the fuel? We need to refuel our ship and then leave this little stop.

Where where you at?

Well?

Okay, firstly, firstly, I hit all the fuel because the burger monster was eating the fuel as well, and I thought, well, if it has jet fuel in it, that can't be good. So I grabbed all the fuel and I hid it. Where did I hide it? Okay, let me do it. Where did the fuel? Let me do a check to see if I remember. I don't remember, but it's somewhere. It's somewhere in this Global Bites restaurant.

Well wait a minute.

If the burger thing ate the fuel, can't we just shove the burger into the ship.

That's one of the smartest things you just said so far. Let's begin shoveling. Let's try.

I'm not so sure it is, but I can convert meat into burger fuel using my new invention. I've never tried this before, but it was something I was putting together. Okay, give me a second. I definitely have this. And he goes and he grabs a cupboard and he opens it and inside is just cannisters of fuel. And he goes, oh, this is where the fuel was, all right, I put

They ate HI stranded. I'm crag.

Well, this burger monster ate my entire crew. It also ate my ship. I don't tell me, don't ask me how I did that. So how about it exchanged for this fuel? He said, looks quite nervously because he knows he doesn't have much bargaining. You escort me back to my home planet.

And what home planet would that be? Oh?

I have the star chart just here right, and he pulls out a star chart, So welcome to you and vale. This is a star chart, so what you can put into a spaceship and it will automatically chart a course to that.

Planet all place.

You guys don't have any at the moment, but yeah, if you ever want to go to a place and you know the name of it, you have to buy a star chart to do it. And he pulls out a star chart. It's Gastrovia. Listen, if you escort me back home to my to my home Planeta Gastrovia, we will reward you. Hansle Lee. I'm a high ranking member

Doctor, do you have any lluments on you? We would love a bound payment.

Oh on me.

So that's what I said to my boss when he said he would pay me big money for going and doing this food science stuff, and I said we would I would love a down payment and he said down down payment. We we only give up payments. And I didn't know what that meant, and then I left.

From ranking. Are you in Global Bites.

I'm a food scientist. It's sort of outside the traditional managerial structure. But my boss is the regional manager for the branch on Gastrovia. His name is Carl. He's very nice, I apparently, and yes, and he loves me very much. He's always saying, what good job I'm doing? Always caused me a genius.

Crom I've got a rather personal quest. I'm looking for the history of the transport ship, Sharon. It was drifting a couple of weeks ago through space with no particular power. There was a situation I was involved in. Do you transport any of your goods or services using the mega transport ships?

Well, we definitely, It's not my region of I'm just a scientist.

But yes, that's why I wanted to know who I can get to through you. We've already gathered that you're using.

If you're looking, if you're looking for information, If you're looking for information, I can get you in touch with one of my coworkers at Global Bites, like one of the delivery people for they they would know more about transport ships and such.

I'd like to gather the team in briefly, just kind of away from Crumb for a moment, if that's okay.

Uh, yeah, do you like in a polite way?

No, No, not at all. I'm just kind of marshing him to go away and putting everyone else together.

Okay, all right, and pockets included as well. Pockets like absolutely, rob this guy Pocket is the pocket.

Keep doing what you're doing. That's fine. You've made You've done pretty well so far. Let's not go too crazy with the gun. But I am liking the energy. Tim. Here's my idea. I all told you that's okay, Pocket, We're going to We're going to love you. Tim. Here's my thoughts out to the story that I found a transport ship drifting through space and I shot it down to avoid it crashing into a planet. That transport ship was so large it could only have been launched from

Yes, I have to agree unfortunately on maps.

So for the time being taking with us, dropping him off, working out what he knows, and then we'll see what good we can do as we go.

Well, I mean, what planet are you trying to get to? It'll be a good start.

First of all, we drop this guy back off at his planet he came from Gastrovia, and then we see what connections he can give us. Okay, right, right, Navina, do you have any input on this plan.

Were there's sounds like it's a place that's going to have more burgers, So I'm not ecstatic, But mister plan if you think that's where we should go, then I trust you.

Well. I don't believe that the planet we're going to will have as many slimy little bottom buns, but I think right now it's the best place to go to to get access to maps and charts. I need to know who launched that tanker and who wanted it to crash into that planet. Okay, you're along with you man, I'd like to turn around to Cram and go Cram. Yes, we give you a lift back to Gstrovia. Yes, yes, I'm going to need to talk to your superior about getting access to some maps and documents.

There will be there'll be shops that sell star charts, you know most planets.

These won't be for sale in shops. These will be government records.

Okay, well, your union of this is a coalition of stars planets. Your union of man are you're trying to find a union of man transport ship.

I'm trying to find a transport ship that wasn't marked by anyone specifically. That's the point. Only a couple of planets would have been able to launch a ship of that size.

You're very esoteric, man. I h okay, she's pretty clear listening. If you can get me back home too. I was going to say my beautiful family, but I've never married. I was too busy with my work, and uh, you know I have very high standards, so you know, yeah, yeah, I could get plenty of girls if I wanted to.

Crumb. I think this is a little bit beyond what we're able to help you with. Right now. We can get you back to your home planet, we can't fix whatever's going on inside.

Ah yeah, yeah, yes, yes, well great, yeah, okay, that sounds good. Good plan.

And he's that's a rick plan. Oh yeah, what are your names? I've said my name three times? I said, up, Crag, nice to meet you, all right, Crag and.

Avena and Sigma sigma okay, right.

And that little guy's pocket over there, Yeah, and she just hanbles on the floor.

Yeah, he's trying to he's actually eating some of the burger off the ground.

So you'll get used to pocket. I'm rick, let's sketch it back to the ship and then we can gather as much fuel as we possibly can.

Right, Okay. And he grabs the fuel and he heads it out, and I guess you guys are all carrying fuel back to the ship.

Now we actually okay, I will actually, but first I'm going to go over to that fridge and I'm gonna be like, you know.

This, this was a good boulder.

I'm gonna take this with me, So I just I'll throw some fuel into the fridge and just kind of like hoist it on my back.

Maybe get a chain or something. Yes, it has like a backpack, you know, less trips like yeah. Yeah, see ashcar culture. Whenever you have something that's a good throwing object, that's a boulder, you want to find a good boulder. This was a good bowld. So I'm going to use this.

Really, really interesting.

Sigma's going to once we've taken the fuel at least back to the ship, is going to just run through the handful of like shops and stuff that are in the hangar area to try and see if there's anything worth taking.

Oh, is this like a like a tourism spot kind of thing?

Right, it's a service station. It's a service station.

It's a service station.

But do they have like, you know, stuff that like I don't know a service station in our world kind of would have or something.

Yeah, like BUCkies does where it just has exactly Okay, the thing is, Sigma, the the meat monster did eat most of supplies there in this place, however, you do there are still some global bites burger plush toys that are sitting on like the side and like the upper shelves, and yeah, it's mostly pathfn alia that's left.

Okay, Well, I guess I'll take one, just you know, as a memory. But there's no like there's no food or anything left.

It's all been.

Uh yeah, no, it's all been. It's all been meat meat monstered.

Are there there's no way to like you can't like take money out of the tail.

I assume no.

Oh, no, because the yeah, it's all it's all smashed lumen charts.

Navena is gonna see your little plush. Oh he's kind of cute when he is not a big sloppy band.

And I thought the same thing.

Wow, where do you get those? That's a Collexis item. They could sell for thousands of lumins.

There's like like a hundred of them over there.

What take one too? He pocket pocket dashes away to like the star. I turned to the Avena and I'm like, now is our chance to leave?

But he did seem so excited. Analia, Yeah, while they are checking around that, I would like to be looking for any kind of safety equipment, specifically an axe by a fire escape, whether there is a fire extinguisher, whether there is a hammer, whether there's an axe something that will be used to break out of the building or chop any kind of doors down.

An there would be some sort of there would be a yeah, there would.

Be a traditional traditional red fire ACX. I would like to simply take that traditional red fire axe and then walk on over to Sigma and say sorry, I wasn't in the fire with the old chap, but founders in case you'd like it. It's bribing you with weapons.

I wonder if I have proficiency for that is an AX like a simple weapon.

I think I have marshall, I have marshal weapons.

Yeah you have? Yeah, axes are I think simple weapons? Actually? Yeah?

I think I will happily take this like like fire X.

Right. There you go, chum. I know you've got the claws and you're ferocious as you are. But in case you ever don't want to get yourself covered in blood, there you go.

Thank you, Thank you, captain, And I'll definitely be using this.

I'll have given my gun to Pocket and my AX to you. I'm beginning to read one of the decisions. Please don't make me regret.

The other Pocket now comes running back for like he's got bags full of plush twys, get anything, rich, guys.

I just got one, just carrying it all.

Right, So you guys get back to the ship. Yeah, as you're refueling. Now Crum is finished refueling. He joins you on the ship and the ship comes the life again, and the ship starts talking welcome back. A part of me was hoping you would not return, but alas you are here.

Is that an equivalent of like a rearview mirror in the ship cockpit that I can like hang the little white guy.

From Yeah, I guess, yeah, by the window. Yeah, the ship goes what is that? That is awful?

It's like a it's like a mascot, you know.

I like you, you know, actually looking at it a bit more crag. It's what's growing on me.

It has hundreds of them. Yeah, here's a giant sack for all of these things.

And if you don't mind, I'm gonna stuff your cargo hold full of them.

It goes down to the cargo Puck is gonna stuff a cargo Yeah, pocket Pocket is encourageable. I'll tell you where, just in.

The basement stuff And Chrumb looks around. He goes, wow, this is a lot better than my ship. This is this is a van a cop vessel. I don't know you guys remember as a Vana.

Cop Mm hmm.

Yeah. It was one of my many jobs. Jack of all trades.

Really NEVENA would have minus one. I have only rolled crits crit successes.

Auto crit turned on the thing. Well, apparently it is. How else do you explain this? Fifty fifty does Levina just explained the entire history of what god.

Vena breaks under pressure.

Former.

I say former because I thought that like being a prisoner of Manza counts Its then explained, well.

Actually we were prisoners and then we got off the ship, and then the planet exploded and we killed man and then we ended up here.

We killed the burger.

Wait, wait, and you're getting up at me about the burger killing people, your criminals, Well we have.

We only killed the cops.

Come on, a lot of my friends are cops. They're not all bad.

I was a guard. Listen, Carl, sorry, my regional manager, Carli.

He he wouldn't be in the place he is now if it wasn't for the for his police force is private police force, but police force nevertheless.

Had I wait, Sasy, pull up bounties, and she does. I'm just being so honest.

Yeah, yeah, bounties come up. Crag your bounty has now been updated. And actually, oh, all of your bounties will be updated now. So Rick Plan is still his one million lumens. But crag navena pocket sigma, all of yours will say one hundred thousand now each for the destructure.

Of but in number.

Crumb will then go, oh right, so he looks so that's a van to cop wanted post this.

You're wanted by Vanacop, Yeah, pretty much.

But Rick, you're wanted by the Union of Man. Absolutely right, Well, you guys should be okay going to Gastrovia. Then it's a coalition of stars, it's not a Union of Man planet. It's not a van owned. The bounty hunters might still come after you, but you won't be denied entry.

That's absolutely fine.

So what would know if if we are wanted in a certain system, are we like does it like auto flag people coming through if they're criminals?

Are we all tagged with like IDs on where they know are at all times?

And it's just more of a like a facial recognition thing.

So if you cover your face, you'll be fine. I rearranged my face because it's.

I you go, So, I mean you could. It depends on the planets some higher If you're like a coalition of Stars criminal and you try to go to Luminopolis Luminalys, luminanis that's what it's called. They're really going to some of those top areas, they're going to do proper DNA tests on you and stuff. But landing on most planets it's just either a face scan if it's like a well populated planet, and then less populated planets. They don't

I would like to gather the crew around, but again, very obviously, just cram go over there.

Do you want to Are you including the ship in this?

I don't think I can disinclude the ship in this. I think is going to listen anyways, isn't she a screen? Yeah, curtain across all the monitor down like okay, okay, Crumb now knows a slightly our history. Thank you for that, Navina. I understand you didn't mean to tell our entire life story, but sometimes these things happen. He mentioned face scans. He also mentioned they can't afford to lots of them. So here's the plan. We fly the ship over to Gstrovia,

Do you want to I do want to remind you. Sorry, that's very funny. I do want to remind you that you are not wanted by a coalitional style, so you'll fine to go to Gastrovia.

You're not asking if a facial scan comes up. We simply have them scan crumbs in the ship. He's flying the ship, he's in charge, He's the one they scan, and then we once the security has died down, leave.

Yeah.

I understand sounds like a bland.

I understand you do not want your face scanned.

That would be bad for all of us to have that thing, as I wanted by the union quite a lot, so crime want by the union. We're just wanted.

So if we if we all scanned first, maybe they won't care and then they'll run out the face scans because they run out the money, and then they won't have to scan.

You mid scans.

Bordering a plane and you're doing the security checks and then they just quit mid doing it. They're like, last guy, Yeah, fucker, you could just go on.

I've thought of a brilliant plan that we will do. If they insist on face scanning everyone. Now we know that face scanning costs them money. I'm just going to ask you to trust me on this one team. Come to that. I've got a plan.

It's not percost setting open, setting up and hiring the staff and maintaining it.

It's just pretty maintaining exactly. Yeah, but it's not purse scat.

It's so funny to like think of that's how the world works.

That's that's it's it's really like we just had a shut down here a while ago where people were just quitting and like the TSA and ship like that actually kind of happened. Okay, the gas shut down. Yeah, shut Junior or whatever his name was.

What do you that he's talking about over there? I could be helpful.

I'm officially believe it or not. You might be Crumb ship. Can you please set a course for Gastrovia Crumb. We're taking you home. Do you have do you know do you have a map? A star? Yes? We do believe that's weeping. The ship is weeping. Stay of my life.

Just the ship does Sassy appear to us on a screen.

Like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, star chart.

I just I am picturing in my head Cottana.

Yeah, just like a blue woman.

But okay, yeah, I will. I probably swiped the star chart from Quiet.

I'm gonna it's like it's like a cylinder. Star charts are cylinders, and you inserted into a slot in the ship.

Okay you.

I don't know why I've decided that's the case, but yeah, you slotted in slowly, slowly slid okay. And then the ship goes Oh, finally I could weep setting a course to Gastrovia Gastropolis Port, and yeah, and the ship starts the launch take off, and it's going. It's gonna take a couple hype lane jumps to get there, but you guys don't have to worry about the roots.

But it will take a few days. You guys, now have that, Okay, take a little while, all right? Cool?

Yeah, Rick's gonna need a coffee, Yeah, Crumb, John, a coffee.

Oh, I'd love a coffee. No sugar for mine. I used to have sugar a lot, but but my mother said it wasn't very good for me, so I've stopped in honor of her memory.

Crumb, I'm going to need you to say about a quarter of what you're saying, because you get to the point very quickly and then everything else that's the purpose.

You sound a lot like my boss. I'll be honest.

Pocket coffee or no coffee, Yes, fantastic ship six Coffeesa's gonna ask about his mum.

Okay, all right, well, okay, that's what I'm gonna say. During this trip. You have a few days of trips, and I'm going to go to each of you and I'm going to let you know. I'm going to say, what do you guys want to do on the ship?

Was you're going?

And I guess we will start with Novena, So on this journey Novena, I guess you're going to talk to Crumb. So so you guys are now like it's maybe a few hours, ladies, You've got your coffee and you're chilling there and Crumbs like he's got a bunch of schematics out on the table from his backpack and he's like looking at it. And you look over these schematics and it's like different weird ways to engineer food to make it tastier or bigger and stuff. And then what do you say to that?

What is it?

Oh? Hey, hello, These are my my new schematics on how to flavor enhance food in different ways to make it more tasty and you know, cheaper and more. And partly that's what they actually want me to do. We had a failure with the multiplying meat, so now I'm thinking, what if we just make meat where it's more filling, so like it expands in the stomach.

Why why focus so much on the taste, Why not the nutritional value?

Oh, nobody gets a shit about nutational value. It no, not a Globo bites? Do you know who I work for? This isn't like some This isn't like Sierra's fucking Vellinari noodles. We don't care about serving a five course meal. We we We're just trying to make as much money with food that people enjoy.

Mm I see, have you tried fish burgers?

Have I I tried fishburgers?

Huh?

Well, I'm not really the one that sets the menu, but.

Fish is such a delicacy on veterinarian.

Yeah, well, I mean if we have branches on on Vellinari planets as.

Not where I'm from?

Where are you from?

Marinus?

Saint Marinus? We've been trying to get a location there, but they keep blocking us for some reason. Actually, you could help me, so if you find someone, if you do, you know, anyone in a position of power in Saint Marinas, and then we could get a chain going.

Well, powered is a strong word. I know, churches and cardinals, I mean yeah.

But you guys, that's how like your cardinals of the guys that rure the planets, right, Like, I know it's like a religious thing, but it's you know, it's just essentially like a duke.

Yes, I suppose. I mean I'm not very welcome at at the moment.

All right, criminals, but yeah, well I'm well your Vanda corporate, Like why why would you not be welcome there? What did you do?

It's a long it's family.

A family always a problem.

You said your mother passed.

Yeah, yeah, it was unfortunate and totally preventable.

But you know she doesn't.

She just didn't, you know, she just didn't put in enough hours and her food level lowered, and so you know, you know what that's like. Well, sorry, that's like astrovia thing where you get a you get a food level when you enter the planet, and that's the level of food that you're allowed to eat. You you being tauris, will get quite a good food level, but if you

But then I just I didn't do it well enough. It's a horrifying system.

Yeah, but it's you know, it's how we make the best food in the in the galaxy, in the universe, in all of Ea veil. And you know, I can't do much to change it, so so I just keep working in her honor, and hopefully even after she passed, I still have to do her duties.

So yeah, well, if you would like to teach me about your your food schematics site, I'd love to sit and listen more.

For yeh, his eyes wider and he goes you really you would listen to me? Nobody's ever been interested in my schematics before, Okay, and then he's gonna start.

Starting listening to this guy. Uh yeah, Sigma, what are you doing?

I think the first thing I'll be doing on the first day is like in the cargo hold, I'll be looking for like whatever loose tech and like LEDs I can pull off of things.

I'm gonna say that your Pocket will be doing something similar, so you'll be with Pocket.

Because what I what I'm trying to do is so the acts that I have now from from rip plan is it's not a very liking weapon.

Yes, I'm trying to make it like I'm trying.

To just adjust it to make it look more like the like the tech weapons from Home, so you know, putting an LED strip across the back of it.

It's interesting because Pocket's doing very much the same thing, but trying to make things more skippity. So he's in the car, you enter the cargo hold to do that. He's already that he's skivity s givity, skivity skivty.

Yes, he's putting stuff together. He's doing his skivity biz is what he's doing.

No, that's not a skivity business.

Okay, So he's putting he's jumping stuff together, duct taping it.

Uh.

He's like, oh, Sigma, welcome to my little den. He's created a little like den in the hangar mostly out of the plus toys. I'm constructing an explosive device.

What are you here doing?

I just am I'm looking for spirit parts maybe some.

I could sell you.

So I've sent a shop here, bucket. They have no money.

M that's get some money and get back to me. What's sorry, rope bombs, it's yours, my friend, come back, come back, load, he's richer. I don't know why I referenced xelder CDI in twenty twenty five.

I got it. I got it.

When he says he's creating an explosive device, what does that actually look like?

You don't see it immediately, so you will have to inquire.

Okay, all right, well I'll be like, could I see this explosive of yours?

Yes?

He opens up his palm and he's got a little button on his palm.

And he goes.

So when you were in school, I don't know what it's like and liking, but I know I never went to school.

But when you were.

A kid, did you ever do that thing where you grab someone's hand and give them electric shock? Yes, of course, imagine that bomb.

So somebody grabs your hand and you blow up.

Now I blow my head blows up.

With them, pucket. I wear a glove. I wear gloves.

You're telling me, though, that this weapon you've designed, it harms the enemy and it harms you.

Well, it harms the enemy more equivalent exchange, be a bitch.

It's importantly it wouldn't it wouldn't harm anybody.

Else around you, I said, small and explosive.

Perfect, Okay, that's fine.

Okay, Well, I'm glad you love it.

Just making sure you're not going to take us all down with you.

Oh no, I would do that. You guys make me money. This is the best gick I've had on for a while. I'm very honest. I don't even want to.

Go home anymore.

One sale.

Yeah, but you've You've led me to a bunch of plushes. I gotta sell those, I suppose. And he brings out a jar. I put a bunch of that meat in a jar as well.

Oh I wish you hadn't.

Wow, there's some fucking sick goes out there. You don't know.

I'm going to level with you. Yeah, I don't like you very much. Wow.

Well, I'm not here to be liked.

I'm no I can tell I'll like lower myself down to his kind of eye level and just put a hand on the shoulder and be like, if you.

Are here to help us, then by all means you are welcome. We don't need to get along, just do your job. If at any point you're agreed and this little skip a thing you've got going on gets in the way of our mission and what we're trying to do or trying to get home, I will kill you myself.

He gives you like a big skivity skivity grin, and he says, I'd love to see you try, big boy.

That they may yet come, that they may yet come, and that I think I will leave him and.

You you've made a nemesis, has made a friend, and you've made a nemesis. Okay, but we'll do rick plan last crag before you do anything right, because you might have plans I do, but during this time period, something is going.

To happen to you.

Okay, that is more important than your plans. Unfortunately, unfortunately, all right, because as you're like sitting, maybe this might happen at night, potentially right when you're sitting in your bed. Suddenly you feel your mind sort of similar to when you touch that shod. Your your vision goes dim and again you see this like purply haze this. You're in the middle of this void area, like floating in this void. But now floating in front of you is a figure

Good to make this connection with you. Nice to see you again. M Ah, is this real? Yes? Don't I know my trip again? No, I'm not scared. I'm just confused. Crack.

Yeah, he knows your name, and you know his name too, even if you didn't see it, like, you know this information about him. Now you consume the shad, did you not?

You felt that point look pretty tasty.

The black Star has marked you as it had marked me. These sharks, they're pieces of a weapon holder than Empires, a weapon that the tyrants of this galaxy fear too much to speak of. When reassembled, it can shatter systems, tear galaxies apart. Listen to me, Crag, this is very important, okay. Authoritarian regimes cling to power by crushing the weak, and they will never surrender that power. They will never reform. But we together can unmake their chains. You and I,

You understand crag.

Well, you see. Philosophically, it's a really interesting argument. It might seem like that there's a despotic rule in the galaxy and if you might have the ability to overthrow it for the greater good. But what really qualifies as the greater good? If you to take over the old regime with you know, fear and loathing, maybe you also become a horrible person, even with the wisest of intentions.

Whatever that.

I learned that in school, in university issue. It didn't community college. Let's not go. I didn't qualify for the universities.

You are a smart man, and I would love to debate politics with you.

I'm more philosophy major, but I wasn't. I didn't really get politics.

Before we have a chance to create something better, we must teed down what was there before. Bring me the remaining shots, help me finish what began. He ons a go.

Well, you gotta have a plan. You gotta tell Rick always has plans. He's the man with the plan. He tells what's gonna happen. You can't just tell me to go do stuff without any further like, like, what are you gonna do? Like stuff by st.

I will send you another brother in time, and that doesn't help me though you will. You will know when the time is right, another brother will come towards you. Hand the shot over to them, and if you find any other zero travels, contact me.

I'm a listen. I'm a working man. Vow.

I'm a working guy, and I'm currently working for Rick Plan. I'm his bodyguard. So you know, if things don't work out, maybe you know, if you I have a resume. But until then, I'm just gonna keep on doing what I do with him and the crew. They are really nice people. There's a wolf guy and and a squishy water lady and this little skivett guy that's jumping around and shoots a lot.

I mean, they're really kind of like family to me. Now, I am not an enemy that you want. Crack never said you were, never said you were. This entire conference with me as a brother or against me. I'm not okay this. I learned about this in philosophy.

It's a little bit sounded like you're trying to get me to join a cult, and I don't really respect that. So I'm just gonna go off into the dream space. Now this is the purple space. Can I go into the blue space or maybe some other space?

No, crack, crack, have a think about it. Rusted, your plan failed here. He took an introduction of philosophy class. He's not gonna over this ship.

I love how you're thinking that this is my plan. I did not think Crag was gonna fool for this ship. I was pretty confident that you were gonna be like.

But I'm glad, I'm glad. Yeah, no, Crag is just wait a minute. There's a lot of problems with this. I didn't think you were.

Suddenly gonna be like, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna assist this terrorist.

No no, no, no no. Like you're speaking like talking about brotherhood and like listen, like the warrior culture of the ashcar. You gotta earn that ship. You can't just come and say you're my brother. That's actually, honestly an offensive. I should be punching you right now. But this is like I'm trying to turn over a new leaf. I'm gonna think about it. Crack, I'll think about it, but I honestly, you haven't really. Okay, So your proposition to me,

Okay, Well you've had that though, Okay, okay, it was anything else you want to do with the ship.

Yeah, there was actually Okay, I wake up and I'm like, that was a fucking weird dream. All right, I'm gonna go shave. I guess all right, so I'm gonna try to Okay.

Now I want to I want to save well, okay, I want to change my appearance. Now I have a set of jewelers tools here can I I could do this any number of ways. I can either chisel away my own you know, face to change the appearance. Or I could just knock off parts of my flesh like I did with the rocks, and then just hizzle them

I mean, I guess you can do some change this, but I will say, crag, you will never be able to change your col.

Oh no, I'm not trying to change my core. Yeah yeah, but yes it will hurt a lot. This isn't this doesn't feel okay, its okay, all right, we'll stop.

If it's gonna hurt, then I'm gonna do the other method, where parts of my rock just flake off of me and then I chisel them into whatever shapes. I just super glue them to my face.

I'll just do that.

You imagine a guy during that, which just like.

I'm a hash car and we work a little differently, all right.

I am picturing like ripping your pubes out and just sticking them.

You.

If you need an equivalent, that's the closest equivalent. Yeah, okay, that's amazing. Right, all right. My appearance may be minimally but there you go.

Okay, Rick, plan, what are you doing on this journey?

I would like to have taken the day. I have got four small objectives I would like to try and achieve. He's got a plan, A Rick Plan, I've spent the time exploring the ship. How many rooms are in this ship that we may not be super familiar with.

Oh gosh, okay, So you've got the main area, You've got the cargo bay.

There's a.

Bedroom area like the sleeping quarters, and then there's one other room which is sort of like the kitchen area. It's like I said, you know that's currently been set up as kind of a kitchen area.

Any kind of small storage areas or closets or hedy holes.

In the In the bedroom there will be like, yeah, things that you can cut, cupboards and stuff. It's not a big vessel, but yeah, there's cupboards and stuff. Okay, sci fi cupboards you press upocket.

Potentially down in the cargo bay. Then I would like to spend some time, but i'd love to walk in to the vena and go Navina. Do you do have a moment? Could I chat to you?

Please?

Of course? Yes. It was just telling me about are you also interested in by mechanisms? Mister rick Plan Crumb, give us a moment. I'll come back to you. Follow me to the cargo bay please. All right, So you cargo bay, and i'd like to walk into a corner where I've tried to place any metal sheeting or instruments that I've found to create a much cleaner area and

Oh?

That is? That is so sweet and kind of view. Oh thank you. It's not going to understand how it works quite.

Loud around here with the ratman and and crumb nown.

Sorry sorry, is this in the hangar bay? It's like in the that is yes, that is pockets domain on the opposite side. Yeah, I would think, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say that the clean that, like the most out of the way place would probably be somewhere in the kitchen, I'll be honest, just because nobody's using.

At the moment. As long as an area we've cleaned away and we've kind of sectioned off, and.

It is novena on one side of this hold, and.

The tidiest, calmest, quietest bit of the ship be fine for a little novena section. I then like to have that's one of the objectives done. We've got navina a little little section. Yeah. I then spend as much time as I can gathering anything I find that's spiky or sharp, and I'd like to walk over and go Sigma. Have you got a moment?

Yes, captain, what is it you need?

I've seen you taking all the things out of the wall, and I know that you appreciate that I gave the axe, but I'm aware it's not exactly a weapon fit for a warrior like yourself. This is everything I can find that's sharp or spiky, along with a little bit of twine and a few bits of wire. Tie that around it as you will increase it a bit more damage every time you hit. Is that useful to you?

This is very useful, Captain. Yes, I was trying to find some pieces earlier, but the damn skiv. It does give me what he's done in the restaurant.

I absolutely every time you were talking.

Shut up, sorry, shut up, shut up, shut up.

You're you're you're because you're so, you're, you're, you're a little bit quiet. Your MIC's a little bit bad. I don't think everybody. Do you want to repeating to the audience.

No, I don't ever want to repeat what I just said.

Actually, okay, okay, sorry, Rick, plan continue.

It is definitely a more scibity toilet. I think agree. This is the I quit.

No, it's the title the toilet.

You guys thought a burger monster in this episode, Yeah, but it was a toilet.

Yeah. After giving Sigma all of the small, sharp or spiky bits, I was able to scavenge from around the ship. I would like to walk over and see if I can find where crag I assume I see Craig just waking up and then mumbling to himself about a super weapon. Yeah crag until chap, Yeah, of course, boss. What's up? Where did you put that fridge that you've brought on board? It's right next to me, fantastic while you were asleep. If you have a look inside, you'll notice that I've

There is a term that we would give you. You are now our brother. You are Ashcar brother. This is now no longer a boulder. This has been upgraded to good boulder. Very rare thing on the Ashcar home world. Not very many people find an object to throw on this cal bur Well. That's your friend. I reach out to shake your hand.

I in a very fearful way, reach out and grab your hand, knowing this is about to hurt. I am going to squeeze because this is this is how Ashcar do this on my days. I'm gonna I'm going to grin and bear it. But I'm in a lot of pain. I'm not going to show him, though, I'm going to show him. That's the third objective, God, what's fourth? The fourth? I would like to find the quietest part of the ship where none of the other crew can hear.

Ordering stuff like in other rooms. I guess, so maybe you'd maybe in a prayer room that you just said, if you just go back to problem, I guess.

I simply ask Sassy, there is is this going to be my name now? For real? What would you like to be called?

I've never thought about having a name before.

Well, we can stick with Sassy until you find something you.

Like, prison prison warden Locke just called me ship.

Well, you seem to have a personality slightly beyond the simple ship, don't you.

Well you say that there are there are ships with far better personalities than I.

No, there are ships with different personalities than you. Hi, what are you? What are you saying?

Rick?

I'm saying, Sassy that I need you to be honest with me. I know that you're not exactly my biggest fan, and I'm going to use that to my advantage.

Just an idiot, that's all you are. You're fine, you just got to understand what I tell you. That's you I can can and can't do something. Don't immediately do the thing I tell you I can't do, and.

That case, tell me what you can and can't do. With this, follow my logic. I was flying from Marrow nine to Albion three. I bumped into a large, unmarked transport vessel called Charon. It was bound toward a planet. It was going to make planet fall and kill whatever was on it. I shot the ship down to prevent this. I landed, I got caught for that, and now I am wanted. Somebody launched that ship from somewhere. There are very few planets that are able to fuel, maintain, and

Ship that big.

Okay, I could try. That's all I need you to do. I've got one question for you. Yeah, Are you aware of all the systems that you're in control of in the ship? Are you aware of their current statuses, whether they are working or damaged. I could do a scan of the scan for your internal systems. I want to know what you need to be a better version, to be a more powerful version of what you want to be.

Sorry, you are you going to stick around? I just sorry to assume, but I thought, you know, being criminals, you would find a better, bigger, more powerful ship and move on quite quickly. Would that not be logical? There is no logical reason to continue using me.

Your small ship. You can evade capture, You're not going to show up on most long range scans. You're going to be easier to maneuver. You've probably got a few places we can hide cargo in you. And I think, and don't quote me on this ship, but I think if someone asked who you were carrying, I don't think you give us up that quickly. What makes you so sure? I just got a feeling. So scan your internal systems and tell me what you need improving. We're going to make a note to get.

It for you.

I'd love a gun, like I say, I'm noting down arm the ship.

Oh god, oh now you've got me thinking, Oh man, so many features, But I'm a vander Cook vessel. You need Vandercook compatible parts, and you guys.

To well sort that. You just tell us what you need. I'd like to just a shadd of sigma. Oh yeah, siga.

Yes, captain, you.

Have any experience retrofitting a ship with new parts? I do, but it's most a union of Mann vessels. Never worked on a van To core.

One, I have. I have some experience, Yes, do you think much? But I've fitted beasts to ships.

That's fine. I think we can get some firepower on the ship. I'm not saying where or when, but if we can find a ship mounted terra gun, can you install it?

Oh, captain, that would be my specialty.

That's exactly what I thought. Let's added to the list. Right, All my objectives are done. Everyone's god, but they need let's keep flying.

Yeah, so I guess the ship Will is going to peruse the Vanda Kop ship like catalog. Damn, there's a yeah, like an eternal on And after all of this sort of happens, eventually you will land. Now, well, you're you're gonna start approaching Gastrovia. Gastrovia emerges below.

From orbit.

It sort of almost glows a little with unnatural vibrants. It's a patchwork continent shimmer and impossible colors. There's golden syrup rivers whinding through neon like candy jungles, crimson spice storms swirling over crumble planes, ice cream mountains glinting with crystalized sugar, and then massive city clusters that pulse with holographic ads and and drifting scent clouds and sort of drifting into orbit. I mean it's it's food paradise. Spaceport

That's what the big signs say.

And yeah, you're you're landing now and you you're now in.

Position and you're free to leave the ship whatever. And let's just walk over the crumb. Okay, crumb, we've got your back. Now. Are you going to head straight back to wherever you need to be or are you going to put in a good word for us first? Because I will take you guys.

I'll take you guys with me that this is your reward. You get a night personal meeting with the recial manager and we can give you in contact with some people that might be able to help you and Sigma wanted Lumenson, I have to go get my go to the bank, to.

The Yeah, before we leave, I'd like to head back down to the cargo bay and just walk up the Pocket and go Pocket, Are you staying in the little den you've built or are you leaving the ship? Whether are you kidding me? I'm leaving.

There's so much stuff here, and plus I might find some buyers for these globobytes. You know, a place full of food lovers. They'd love to buy plushes of the food guys, especially from an obscure like station like the one we're in. It has the name written on the tag. See that's an obscure collector's item. There's not many of those, and there won't be any more in the future. Now it's destitute. Oh maybe I should let them appreciate and value, hide them somewhere, bury them somewhere.

Do we have any way of contacting Pocket if he is out of the ship and we are out of the ship. Do we have any kind of intercommunication devices between what? Yeah?

Do you want to set up some sort of intommunication devices? Do you want it to be another thing that you do on route, because that might actually be important.

Find some radios or some ideas that we can have.

I feel like you could piece something together. I would want Sigma would probably be the one that could, probably because there will be stuff on the ship that's like the technology will be there. You just have to create it put it together. And I think Sigma has the ability.

To do that.

Yeah, I also have some tinkers tools.

Yeah, so I give me a tinker's tools role and that that will decide how good these little transponders are. Nineteen for both good. That's very good. So throughout the course of the trip, I imagine Sigma, maybe with help from the ship and skip it a little bit, pocket will have created these little I mean you could describe them, Sigma, because it's your design, just.

Like little ear pieces I think that you can put on.

And sorry, something I am realizing is like, I assume we've changed out of the clothes we were in.

Yes, yes, you are now dressed like your characters are at the thumbnail. I imagined I was just thinking like prison uniform. I guess I just found some curtains fashion something. So you you guys have ear pieces now that only connected to each other, and I assume it's just for you five.

Are you going to give Crumb one? No? No? Okay?

Is this is this going to be?

Okay, okay, okay.

Yeah, but I assume it's it's connected to the five of us and the.

Ship great yeah, oh and the ship too? Perfect? Oh? Ship? Oh does this work? Yeah?

But please don't come all the time. I do need to get my rest, which.

That is fair. I am sorry for bothering you.

Oh so polite. I feel like these guys are learning.

Were all together as the ship lands and the kind of ramp descends, and I'm assuming Crumb is going to lead us off.

Yeah.

Yeah, so don't worry, guys, I'm pretty well known around this part. So you leave the vessel and you're going through this massive what looks like a massive archway, and he goes, this is the face scanner.

By the way.

You just walk through it. But again, you guys aren't criminals here, so it's not gonna set it off.

I walked through it. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't.

It doesn't set off because again, you are not coalition of style criminals. He wanted by specific entities. Those bounties haven't gone up in level yet essentially okay, cool, So you guys walk through it. That's really the only like security there is. You're not trying to bring your ship through onto the planets. It's just in the hangarbay, so it's fine there. And as you enter, a man sort of pops up, a hologram of a man pops up, and he goes, welcome to Gastropolis Prime.

Now you are freshly level four.

And he hands out these cards to you guys, and they sort of okay, yeah, and he pounds it over and he says his green little cards and it's just level four across it, and they will have your names on them from the scan. Initially, with a level you can eat most of the luxurious treats and food we have all over the planet. You want to get to level five, you're gonna have to do a little bit,

Well that was that. I put that in the old wallet. I guess oka, I mean, are you going to use that?

He says, and Crumb pulls out his level two.

I need it. I need a question. Does Crag eat normal food? So eat normal or does he need to?

All right? Yeah, So here's the thing about Ashkar, right, so you you the food gets so of melted down in your stomach, so you can eat relatively inorganic stuff, but non organic sorry, organic stuff does taste better. So Ashcar do enjoy meat.

But then I can subsist. I could subsist on rocks and bricks if I really but.

Like, if you wanted to enjoy a meal, right, it would.

Be that makes sense? Okay, Yeah, And a.

Lot of the times they like to incorporate the rocks into their food and a lot of stuff like that.

But that's nice. Yeah, I'm sure I'll make a delicacy and whatnot. Yeah. Yeah, great.

Well, then as you enter now the city of Gastropolis, prime rises around you in a neon lit feast. Towering kitchens belt steam into the sky, Spice smoke drifts through crowded streets. Holograms advertise everything from molten meat slabs, the psionic salad rituals, savellinary thing, and there's like there are like big adverts for for quite what seemed to be quite famous chefs. There is grill Master Rack speaking of giant Ashcar chef who has a molten volcano grill.

There is Grand Chef Sierra.

Which was mentioned before, and she's this elegant design banner and all of her shops are like floating on these little psionic pads.

There has never heard of Rack before, you probably have.

He's probably quite famous for you guys.

Oh that's Rack. He's one of the Ashcar They was like only one of the few ashcar that was able to leave the planet and actually do shit.

Like yeah, and he seem quite awkward about it. There's kind of fectionary king. It's like a king with a candy crown and he's the sweets and stuff like that. There is the chaotic fusion food of It's like a splatter of food of Spork who was a Skivett. And then as you guys approaching, you can see the Global Bites advertisements and stuff as well, including a Global Bites mascots looking very friendly next to a picture of a very looking old man. Which is that's the regional manager Carl all right.

Yeah, Carl Junior or Carl Senior.

I it's Karl Senior. Carl Junior is a prick. Actually he used to school.

I didn't. Yeah, I would like to turn two sigma briefly and say, remember maps, star charts, shipping manifests information on both the ship and the planet. But as long as we can get that, I think it might be worth spending a day or two here. Try some of the delicacies. What do you think you know?

I didn't realize how hungry I was until I started smelling all this space.

Yeah, we've just been drinking coffee for three days.

I an't pretty caffeinated.

It's true.

We haven't slept, we haven't eaten. You guys need to learn how to enjoy salt. I just pulled out like a giant mound of salt. I just.

I noticed when you pull out the mound of salt and you go to eat it, your card like flashes.

It goes approved approved. Oh when you eat it. Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, you brought that salt with you, didn't you. Yeah, so that's something that you've had you haven't taken it from this planet. That's your salt. Yeah you want some, it's just a block of salt. No, I completely, I'm fine with that. What I'm concerned about is that the card is flashing, which means the planet seems to think that it has authority to tell you that you can or can't eat your own food.

Yeah, that's sort of not yet stopping me. Crumb is like, yeah, that's that's sort of how the cards work here if you're a resident as well. He Crumb is like, for example, he grabs the salt and he tries to eat it, and the salt just he can't, Like the card is created almost like a barrier in his mouth, and Crumbs like, I haven't earned salt yet, so I can't eat it.

Oh wait, okay, wait, hold on, can I see your card?

Yeah, I'm level two, which is fine. It's not level one where you can barely eat anything, or level zero, where you're for the staff.

You can't eat food because this card is telling you not to.

Yeah, it's okay. It's a great system.

So we don't eat his card destroy it? You you sit, you right here? You go?

I mean, do you do that? He's not going to let you have the card. So if you try to grab his card, he's like, no, don't take my card. You eat my card, then I'll staff it's the only thing that's let me eat.

Anything like quickness, Like Craig, I believe that if you were to eat that card, the barrier that's preventing the consumption of that food would actually prevent the consumption of all food. I'd like to try something, if you don't mind, and I think that's the cards destroyed. Okay, all right, says a plan. I'd like to try and Sigma, could you just make sure that a crumb doesn't run away? Crumb? Yeah, please give your ready to grab me crumb. Please give

So you guys try to swap cards, but they do have the names on it, and Crumb offered earlier forgetting this. You try to swap the cards, but the cards sort of almost zip back to the person.

Okay, they almost have a I want to try something. I want to try something. I'm going to give you my card and run away really quick. And I want to see if it just zips like the card is.

The card is almost the card is not the thing that's actually it's not. It's more like a symbol. It's like a register thing that the thing that's actually preventing us from eating the food is planet based. It's it's controlled by the different culinary warlords. They The card is more like it. It scans, the card does the detail. It's just so that you.

Know what level you are. What level is coffee?

Uh level, it's level three, brilliance.

Give me an example of a level five food that you think we may have access to on the ship.

Or your level you're well, yeah, your level four you want.

On the ship. We don't have a level five food on the ship. So are you telling me, Crumb, that there are people on this planet who have built some kind of incredibly powerful force field that controls what people on this planet can and cannot eat, even if they bring it to the planet themselves.

Yeah, that sounds it's the only way the culinary war laws can sort of maintain power where there's no central government.

That's a crab Novena and Sigma and crag and just kind of pull in and go. Deam. I was honestly planning on simply getting some maps, ship charts, manifests, maybe having a bite to eat, and then leaving. But and correct me if any of you disagree. I'm not entirely in support of this planetary system.

We're doing an uprising. We're doing an uprising, aren't we.

Well it's certainly strange and doesn't seem very fair, But I mean, what can we do?

I mean, look, I I you know we could do a war. That's I know how to do that. But I really kind of want to get away from it. But Rick, you know you're you got plans. I work for you, so.

I'd love to look at Crag and go Crag. I respect you as a warrior and as a man with an incredible amount of life experience. I'll never make you work for me in a way that you don't agree with. But can you honestly tell me that you think that this planet is in a good shape? All this world is a better place because there are some powerful dictators controlling what people can and cannot eat.

See this is why I like you more than that space man. You're the one with the cloak. You're the one that actually explains things better to me, Craig. By the way, I need to tell you. I need to tell you about that guy. By the way, there's something I had a weird dream last time. A.

Yeah, the glober Bites HQ origional branch is now in front of you, and goes, all right, well, you guys will love my manager. He's he's great, and I'll bring you guys in if you're still consented to go with him. He's gonna he sort of he presses a button on the intercom thing and he goes it's crumb, and a voice on the other side goes, Crumb.

Well, we thought you'd be gone for months. Ye dates open.

That's my that's my friend. That's Jack. He's a he's very he's a funny guy. He has a box that he and they You walk inside and and it's just like this mission almost like I was gonna say Meca to burgers. As you go inside, you've got people working. It's also counts as the chain of people ordering food

I'll get a new one.

Oh, as long as you're shore man, As long as you're shore where are you headed. I'm taking these guys up to go see the regional manager. Good luck man, great job. And he turns around and you see the moment he turns around, his smile just instantly turns into like a grimace, and then he walks off and crumbs like they love me.

Cru Crumb, could you come back here for a moment please? Yeah.

Oh, You're going to have one of these private conversations, but this time I've included absolutely.

Okay, Crumb, Yes, I need you to be honest with me, and I'm not going to think differently based on what you do or don't say. Oh, this system that you are existing in does not seem entirely fair.

Yeah, but no system is ever fair, is it?

Really?

At least.

You can at least earn the right to eat better food and live a better life.

That's true, but no one should be able to hold the right over you of what food you can and cannot put in your own mouth. If you were to go home and bake yourself a delicious cake that ended up somehow being a five on the scale, are they going to come along and say that you cannot eat the cake you have made yourself?

Well, yeah, obviously, that's that's how it's always been here.

I think always needs to change. I'd like you to take us to the person who's in charge, and then as soon as.

Anything singular person in charge, we'll talk to Carl. There's five.

We'll talk to.

Carl, he says, and he's going to lead you now up to that final elevator going up like a cock building in Tonetown.

Before we get to the very top, I would let's do one quick thing. Yes, Crag, can you break off a small chunk of that salt rock? Please?

Oh?

Absolutely? Here, I try to break how big you want it? Just a small math sized bite is fine? All right, there you go. I'd like to take that, and I'd like to give that small math sized bite of salt to from, and I'd like to say, come over the next coming days, hours, and weeks, I'd like you to continually try to eat this, and the moment you can, you'll know that we're off this planet and we've done what we needed to do.

Oh okay, the door's open, and it's like this amazing authoritarian looking chamber, like a throne room, but not quite it's it's it's got these pillars of uh like hassa, no, no, because it's global bites Globo bites that the pillars are like stacked burgers, but like they're made down of steal. Everything's made of steal. And chrome in here and at the top of chrome on are sitting on like a large office chair with a giant burger table is the regional manager, Carl.

And Carl goes, yeah, you're right.

And Crumb's like, Carl, I'm back. Okay, So I almost died, but these guys rescued me and I promised them some sort of reward. So my paycheck, upcoming paycheck, can you can you just give it to them instead? Oh?

All right, well that's nice, and.

He turns around he goes, ha ha, I'm sorry. I know I offered more, but he sees he doesn't seem like I feel quite uncomfortable being in this room at that moment. At that moment, Carl's head explodes. Okay, Roger, Carl's head just explodes, and crom goes, what the fuck?

To be continued, This always happens every time.

Frostbite was a mercenary by trade, which mostly meant she spent her days wading through other people's bad decisions and their entrails, so the scene at the service station didn't bother her too much. Blood slicked the ground around the fuel pumps, drying in ugly brown patches. The only sound came from the flickering hollow sign above a Global Bite's advertisement. Valiantly cleaning to life, it sputtered out fuel your future,

Meat.

Paste clung to the walls in dripping clumps. Letters was plastered across the ceiling like botanical shrapnel. Tomato slices had forms a gruesome mosaic on the tiles. Sauces smeared every surface in violent splashes, mostly red, but disturbingly ambiguous under the flickering lights.

This hadn't been a cooking accident. This was a fight.

She stepped carefully around a toppled vat of glober Bite signature nugget paste, giving it a skeptical sniff, before moving deeper into the room. First rule of thumb, look for cameras. Most businesses have one, and it's not like anyone here would have remembered to turn it off. She scanned the room until her eyes landed on it, A little dome of blinking corporate surveillance touched in the top right corner of the ceiling. She raised her wrist, tapping a button

Ah Gastrovia, she said.

She snapped the device shut and stepped back outside, already plotting the fastest route. Her target was on the move, and now

So was she.