Part 6: Easy-Bake Riot In Four Simple Steps!

Easy-Bake Riot In Four Simple Steps!



When we last left The Last Castoff and her band of wacky weirdos, they were going to go through with an extremely stupid forgery plan to free a guy about to be accused of treason.

Fortunately goons intervened and decided we should start a riot instead.



Maybe this horrified man will help us?



: What exactly is happening here?



: Why is everybody watching this?



: The horror of it will deter others from crime.

We have to say this to proceed. This never works IRL because many criminals are characterized by poor impulse control and a belief they will never get caught, but what do I know?



: What if I joined you? Together we could give the city authorities what they deserve.



Let's use our undeniable sex appeal from that awful haircut and the silver tongue three randos in an MC Esher painting helped us discover!

: [Persuasion]: You said the punishment should not be allowed. Did you mean it? Can a just man stand by when injustice is the law?



UGH FINE GAME

We have two companions I can drain for this.



Yiss! The man then starts screaming "let him go" and we can continue on our merry way.



: What exactly is happening here?



: Why is everybody watching this?



: If you find it depressing, why are you watching it?



: You stopped because you want to do something. You want to be the one to make a difference.



: I've seen you watching the crowd. You outnumber the levies four to one. They just need a leader.



That makes two. If we have two leaders the crowd won't riot apparently.

Maybe we should talk to this intrigued woman.



"Alexa is the future of innovation". At this point I start skipping the "what's going on" text because do we really need it?

: What if I told you he was innocent?



: Even if that were true, it is wisdom gained through another man's pain. Can that even be called wisdom?





: As important as an innocent man's life? Help me save him. Wisdom can be gained without harming another.



Excellent!

At this point I realize I have incited three rioters and nobody is rioting. I try to speak to the levy.



He won't let me pass, but he tells me that he serves the "Slave Families" and that if I want to pass I have to go talk to the overseer. Ok.

Let me know if you really need the dialogue, but I'm going to start cutting dialog with incidental characters.

Talking to the overseer! At this point I'm under the impression that I need to start a fight on the platform to get a riot going. As it turns out, I'm wrong and this is a complete waste of time.



: I want to talk to Ris.



: [Deception] Please. He's my father. I must speak to him before he dies.

I have Tybir burn his intellect pool for us.





: Can you hear me, Ris?

Ris: We make love upon shards of shattered marble. We laugh at the kiss of the wind.



: I don't understand what you're trying to say.



Go away JJ Abrams! Go away!

: Ris? Are you in there?



: I still don't understand.

Ris:The white! The white! Nothing will kill us! Nothing will devour the world!

We can repeat it but he just laughs maniacally. We're done here.



I wonder what this guy has to say? I'm sure it's pleasant.





: Try to stop it.

This is a terrible idea, but at the time I thought it would spark the great riot of...whenever the hell this is.



Fuck.



: Let the vision continue, though you know it will bring more pain.

: Black tendrils snake from the darkness, and you flee into the tunnels, ignoring the others' shouts. You have to get back to the base camp, back to the failsafe. It's the only way to save your self. As long as you can reach it, you're safe. The shell might die, but your mind will live on.

: The tendrils gain on you. The whispers fill your head. You slam into a wall and stagger off again, dazed. Was this the way? Have you gone wrong?





Nope! I then realize there's one more <adjective> <person> in the crowd and go talk to them.



: What exactly is happening here?



: Do you truly care if he's a traitor? Or do you just like watching men tortured to death?



: Then I'd think you'd be interested in making sure the real traitor gets caught.





: [Deception] This poor fool took the fall for somebody else. That's a mockery of Sagus pride. We should free him!



Git smart, scrub!



Oh shit!



: The levies edge back, their normally pleasant expressions turning into uncertain frowns. The overseer points directly at you.

: "I saw what you did, you rabble rouser! This is your doing! Well, I'm not risking my life to intervene in the fate of a worthless piece of belly trash! If you want him, take him!"

This actually isn't a particularly well armed or large crowd. The levies could probably take all...8 or so...people, seeing as they have weapons and can command that death-of-ris thing that kills people on contact. Oh well!





: "There!" cries the overseer to the crowd. "Satisfied?"

: With that, he and the levies turn and march away as the crowd surrounds the platform and cheers.

Just how weak is this government, holy shit!


Let us talk with our new friend.



: He chokes with emotion. "A whole day, Tybir. I spilled my guts up there for a whole day!"





: Calm down, both of you. Ris, tell it from the beginning.



We certainly don't know anyone else who would do that, say, by inciting a riot to free a convicted traitor.





: How would the Devourer of Wrongs know that Tybir was involved?



Fun fact: The Dendra O'Hur made it into the game as a kickstarter goal for 3.1 million dollars.

: Who are the Dendra O'Hur?



: What was the job?

Ris: Tybir said we were transporting black market booze to M'ra Jollos. But he didn't tell me that he'd hidden state secrets in one of the bottles using some liquid numenera trick... which turned a slap-on-the-wrist crime into a damned death sentence!"

: "Death sentence?" Tybir says, with an uneasy grin. "You're alive, aren't you?"



: The Devourer would have found you guilty, Tybir? Is this true?

: As far as it goes. He would have learned about me if he had eaten Ris, and I did manage to escape the levies when they showed up looking for us, but I didn't abandon you, lad!"

: He puts his hand to his heart. "Ris, I escaped the levies and saved you from the Devourer of Wrongs because I love you and did not want to see you die. You have to believe me."



: I'm with Ris on this, Tybir. You should make amends to him. He's the one who has suffered here.



: Ris, you don't know what you're talking about. I never got paid, I promise you.






Moving on! Anyway, we've pissed off the government so I'm gonna take a nap now. That's how this works.



If you scam the Cult into believing you're the actual Changing God, you can sleep there for free. If you don't, they charge you money.

I guess I can forgive "Deathcheater".





Instead of messing with the squid, I go talk to this guy. He is rallying a crowd to...do something.



: He smiles. "All you have to do is be the first to find the rogue stichus that's been terrorizing Cliff's Edge. Return here and tell me precisely where it is and I'll take it from there."



: Can I ask you more about the stichus and its kind?



: What exactly is a stichus?



: What else can you tell me about the rogue stichus you're looking for?



: Why is Cliff's Edge so afraid of this stichus?

Lord Vuntgen: Some will tell you it's because this district has suffered the most from the sticha's digging...houses collapsing on the people, others falling into the sea. There's some truth to that. But the real reason is that the people here have become weak and afraid. They aren't prepared to face adversity.



: The people aren't weak. They only need someone to lead them, to inspire them toward a common goal.



These sidequests are all going to be variants of the trolley problem, aren't they?

: I have other questions about the sticha.



: How did the sticha come to be in Sagus Cliffs?



: Can I ask you something else?



: I'm looking for an albino woman, an assassin named Matkina. Do you know her?

...you're going to ask this in public?



: Tell me about yourself.



: Who are the slave families?



Chila the Great?



No! Go away! We don't need any more cryptic bullshit!

: What can you tell me about Cliff's Edge?



: Farewell.




We go north and run into this guy. He hates being laughed at so he's gonna go to the cyborg clinic(!) we're at the entrance to. He also doesn't want to talk to us because we're a woman, and women laugh at him. You're welcome.



Riveting. Anyway, maybe we can get some sweet shit?





: Hey, the day's young.



He must be horny for our sexy, sexy haircut.



: I can't help noticing that you're a very honest man.



: How did you come to own this parlor?

: "It was originally a partnership," he says. "My colleagues and I spent two years digging it out and getting the whole mess working."

: He sighs. "Of course, we had to test the drones before we tried them on anyone else. Customers getting skinned alive on opening day is bad for business. Turns out that was a wise move."



: Show me your list of items and services.

The game tries and fails to emulate Jack Vance with clever dialogue, so I'm just gonna list the collection of crap we can get. We can afford none of it right now, but I'm hoping we can get it all eventually.

Clawed Gauntlets: Wolverine claws. Specifically, we do 4 more damage with unarmed attacks. I have no idea why we would want to fight unarmed.

Jagged Memory: A "mesh that fuses through your skin, leaving jagged marks like tattoos. When you attack, you'll always hit your enemy's old wounds, even if... er, they weren't there before." I have no fucking idea what this means. The wiki says it's...wait for it...+1 relativistic damage on melee attacks. Way to oversell it, game.

The Encroaching Darkness: A living creature that "could be good, could be bad, could be both." that gets implanted in our body. Fuck this. The wiki said it gives us...a 1/day 8 point heal that burns our action in combat. Really. Christ, these are uninspired.

For the record, nanos can just take...healing spells. We can make Cal heal us.

Blood Nanites: Nanites in our blood that purge toxins and diseases. In game mechanics terms, that's DoT immunity. This might actually be worth it?

Numenera Analyzer: Lets us identify shit. Specifically, we get a +5% bonus on various lore checks.

Artificial Eyeball: The game says it will help us find things normal eyes miss. This translates to...a +1 perception boost.

Christ, what a failure. You have an actual cyborg upgrade lab, and all you sell is boring passive bonuses. Well, at least we get this dialog when we ask how painful the procedures are!



Ha ha. Very funny. We leave.

I was going to have a vote on what to buy, but I'm probably going to grab the Blood Nanites and the Jagged Memory and leave the rest of this shit alone.



Fuck you!

I'm cutting the update here because it's late over here. Join us next time as we maybe learn kung fu!