The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont, Episode 1 - Psychic Boy Meets Hacker Girl
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| Hitomi Meyer. Hacker. Part time kiosk owner. Broke. Ambitious. Image © Dean Spencer |
- "Previously..." and Campaign/Arc Summary
- The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont Episode 1 — Psychic Boy Meets Hacker Girl
- Psychic Boy Meets Hacker Girl
- Three Little Pigs
- A Fine Day for Violence
- Carving Out a Plan
- Earlier that Day: Taking a Walk
- Doug's Commentary
- Mechanical and Story Notes
- Credits
Previously, on The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont
Special Agent Jani Blum, aka "Johnny Blue," aka "Demontongue," has gone off the grid. His long-term psychic partner — Eustace "Nurse" Delmont — has therefore graduated from Psychic Agent Liaison to potential Field Psychic. He is taking his Walk: a brief respite from active duty, to try and figure things out for himself and to solve one last piece of unfinished business.
About The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont
Eustace Delmont is a psychic on the cusp of "graduating" into a full-blow Field Psychic. He requests his right to Walk, a brief period of freedom to encourage psychics to see the other side of The GLOW. He tries to finish his long-time partner Jani Blum's final unfinished mission: to find a mini-disc and crack open the Patel crime family. He meets Hitomi Meyer, a criminal hacker. The two are now on the run between a powerful crime family and an even more powerful adversary: The Order and its plans for Eustace.
Content Warning: Occasionally very foul language, lots of smoking, quite intense violence, drinking, gambling, non-graphic sex, drugs, criminal behavior, and black magic. The GLOW is a world of spiritual torture and weird horror.
This post is in the standard Doug Alone post style. See Anatomy of a Post for more details.
Attribution for the tools and materials used—including the splash art—can be found in the Credits below along with some details.
The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont. Episode 1 — Psychic Boy Meets Hacker Girl
Setting the Scene. Psychic Boy Meets Hacker Girl.
Date: May 30, 1996.
Time: 4:15pm.
Place: The Orange Beach Mall, aka The Citadel. Smokey Joe's Tavern. First Floor.
Expected Scene: Eustace meets Hitomi while investigating the Kiosk.
Scene Test: Opening Scene Is Given
Actual Scene: As Expected
Don't really need a lot of details at this point. We know Eustace. We know Hitomi. We are still early enough in the game that we can riff of previous lore, just saying what I would like to be true, and establishing a new vibe to two characters.
What's the name of the worker at the kiosk? → [c92] Bianca "Bee" Malthe. Company name on that same card says "Quiet Forest Medical" but we can just yank that. "Quiet Forest Trinkets". As previously established, Bee is non-gendered and quite young. The kiosk sells scrying glass trinkets (think talismans to attach to a semi-mystical version of a cell phone).
What are some popular designs? Heck, we'll just squeeze full value out of this card. There's a image icon of a rib cage and a necklace so stuff like that looks like bones, skulls, etc and stuff that looks like old amulets. Just sort of the, you know, cartoony-crayon-y version of it.
Psychic Boy Meets Hacker Girl.
Setting the Scene. Psychic Boy Meets Hacker Girl.
Date: May 30, 1996.
Time: 4:15pm.
Place: The Orange Beach Mall, aka The Citadel. Smokey Joe's Tavern. First Floor.
Picture the mall. Orange Beach Mall. Called the Citadel by a lot of locals because the half burned sign out front once read, "Citadel Corp Welcomes You to the Mall," only "to the Mall" is gone and some jackass has spray painted HELL over Welcome. Badly. "Citadal Corp HELLcomes You." Tourists consider it a feature.
Eight stories above ground. Three under, including a subway station that is the site of five and a half violent crimes per day on average. Tourists also consider that a feature. There are a bullet proof booths you can rent by the hour to watch. It is the third busiest stop on The GLOW's whole route.
Open 24/7, the Citadel is a city within the mega-city. Larger footprint than large city parks. Inside dimensions warp and strain against reality. Average population makes some state capitals blush. The generated wealth every day makes many small countries blush. The GLOW feeds off of commerce.
Each floor you go up is like climbing Dante's Paradisio, getting closer to Capitalist God™. Eighth floor sells ten-thousand dollar suits and million dollar diamond crusted bathroom suites. Sane people park high enough they never go below the third floor. Even there the grime is part of the shine. Below gets worse in various ways. The two stories above the subway are specialty shops. The kind of places that sell the kind of goods you only tend to find in The GLOW. Mystical drugs. Hedge magic curses and love potions. ServiSynths. People. Those stores can hire security that specialize in violence. Or wreck your life with any of a hundred tricks. Those floors tend to be surprisingly clean on the surface. The dirt is in the soul.
First floor, though, is a human zoo. Punk kids. Addicts. Unhoused people who live in the mall full time, feeding off scraps. Disaster campers and urban explorers in it for the thrill. Families making below the poverty line feeling safer here than their own neighborhoods. Tourists. Lots of tourists. Some hiring personal security details. And a hundred stores stores selling plastic junk and cheap clothing while hiring budget guards in budget uniforms that just so happens to carry real guns.
Dozens and dozens of kiosks for the real street sellers. Street food and shoe shines and hand carved talismans and calendars marking out moon signs and star shapes. The odd thing is the punks tend to leave those alone, like an unwritten code. Here are your kind, save it for the rich bitches that sell discount prank farts near customer service. Some pay the various unhoused folk a few dollars to bite anyone who breaks the rule. Some are just clearly mall people in a way that other mall people recognize. A new dangerous carnie for the big nine six. They are not dumb, though. Unwritten rules only go so far. Many buy kiosk sized security lockers roll the kiosk up at 2am or 3am or 11am, whenever the college kids and stoners who run them need to get some sleep or grab some food or catch a fix or go to class.
Needless to say, trash and refuse are commonplace. People urinate in the plant pots so frequently that all the plants are now plastic or dead. Servisynth janitors with fat bodies and animal heads sweep the trash around without ever seeming to pick anything up. A common conspiracy is that most of the grafitti is painted by corporate interests. Sometimes it is obvious. "Eat more Chick'n" in swirling paint dripping down a blank spot on a yellow wall that once advertised aftershave on the second floor.
MUNI cops show up ten times a day on slow days and just cart people off. Conspiracy says it is for show. Realists consider it efficient. Grab someone and then figure out why. Your chances are good.
He walks through this zoo. Over two meters. Over 120kg of muscle and aetherware. Head is shaved bald. Bearded. Not saying a word to anyone but people move out of his way. Kiosk hawkers keep their mouths shut and do not pester him to try their Dead Sea skin cream. Several of those very many budget guards wince. A man like him means violence. There are so many places to look that are better than looking at him. People in The GLOW are really good at selective blindness.
A Greek tourist snaps a photo of him and the tourist's wife looks like she is going to cry. Fear? Joy? Fine lines, here.
He walks through the mall like he is in a drunken haze. The Citadel does weird things to psychics, which he is one. A very good one by most standards. To your average tourist, the mall just seems to glow a bit brighter than the lights allow. To your average GLOW citizen, they can make out the finer hues of the Glow, like an auora. To him, he sees the whole place covered in a thick fog. Soulburn dances and waves and says hello. If he tried to tell the people around him that sometimes that many-colored fog follows them, reaches for them, wraps tendrils around their faces: they would call him mad. But it does.
He walks by one of those many kiosks and his eyes glance over it like it is a nothing to him, which is a lie. Those who know him might realize he is contemplating something. Then his eyes turn and follow something that no one here but he can see. He walks towards the noise of a loud bar a few meters away, then goes inside inside while a bouncer that is a few centimeters taller and several kilos heavier conveniently realizes their shoe is untied.
Inside, he turns around not far from the door, and watches.
The person at the kiosk has sea green hair which through either misdemeanor — read: the Order won't care — levels of hedge magic or some sort of cosmetic aetherware is made to look like it is floating underwater. The hair shimmering in its own murky light as it hovers like a fluid halo overhead. Age? Unknown. Young. Personality seems happy. The fact that she is treated so kindly suggests that someone is looking out for her that people know and appreciate. Job, selling cheap Taiwanese knock-off cell phone dangles that have been custom-fitted to work with The GLOW's ever growing scrying glass industry. News at Antioch was a multi-million dollar deal with TMPL has been breached to build aethertech parts in Taipei City, fueling speculation that the Lamark Society is looking to export the Harrowing. The kind of news that makes Eustace feel weird in that part of his brain reserved for feeling weird about bad news.
"You know, Bee is just eighteen. They don't have a thing for creepy grandpas watching them from bars. They get their fair share."
Eustace looks over at the speaker. Woman. Asian-American. Wait, no. British. A hint of a British accent. She has just lit a French cigarette and is drinking a South Korean beer. The future is now, he thinks. Smoke trails out of her mouth as she watches him through half-closed eyes. Flirting? Perhaps.
He fishes around in his brain. Fights back against the Citadel's self-sustained fields that normally short out psychic impulses, and pulls a few syllables forth, then more. Hitomi. Japanese mother. Never been to Japan, herself. Flirtation somewhat authentic but also a tactic. An attempt to get under his armor. Not that he has much. He thinks of himself as an open book. Stacks of reports unable to properly assess his psychic potential vehemently disagree. [1]
"Sorry if it looks like I was creeping on your friend, Hitomi. I was actually thinking about getting something from the kiosk."
This makes her fully open her eyes. She takes a drag from the cigarette and blows smoke out of her nose. She is chewing on what he just said. The flirt dropped to show the real Hitomi underneath. "How the fuck do you know my name?"
"Name tag," he says, lying. Pointing at her nametag. Hoping she doesn't pay attention that it's on the other side of her belt, facing away from him.
"Hmmm," she says noncommitally. Tapping her beer bottle against the tag. [2]
"They have nice hair, though. I appreciate the effect," he says, channeling one of Jani Blum's techniques of moving a conversation around in a circle to avoid the target at the center. Only Jani was the kind of attractive that made people willing to forget. Eustace is...well, he's big. He has that going for him. Unfortunately, "big" is not helping right now. The plan had been to find the kiosk — Young Forest Trinkets — and to find out if he could get a certain mini-disc that Jani had stashed there three nights ago before potentially dangerous people found it first. Only, Eustace stands out even in a place like The GLOW.
Not sure how to proceed — does he just lift the kiosk with one arm and take the disc that should be underneath, bribe the worker with his small amount of cash, take control of their mind? — he spotted an emerald green line floating in air and leading here. A psychic thread. For him, looking like a physical object. Leading to Smokey Joes. Not a misnomer by any stretch. Nearly everyone is smoking something. Tobacco and pot form a thick haze. Near capacity. Watching a game show where people in exo-skeletons punch each other for prize money. The scrolling text at the bottom reads, "RIP LEGEND. REMEMBERING D SANCHEZ." Smokey Joes reaping the benefits of a hundred bored partners and spouses not suited to shopping when shopping is the equivalent of walking back and forth across a small city. Even with all the trolleys and self-driving rental bikes.
Why did he see the psychic thread leading him here? Why not any one of a million other points of interest this labyrinthine place must hold?
Hitomi leans a bit closer, openly staring now. Letting her eyes coast over his arms and chest, moving down past his hips and lingering just long enough on his crotch to make sure he notes it. "Maybe I just discovered that I happen to have a thing for big bear grandpas. How much do you lift? I don't weigh very much." The flirting is back.
"Why do you keep calling me grandpa? I'm only thirty-five."
"You would rather I call you curls?"
Eustace smirks at this continued dance of jabs against an ego he barely has. The fact that he shaves his head to make it easier to use some of the psychic aetherware made him stand out a bit. Few other psychics would go so far. Most are strangely vain for a people that as a rule spend over half their time in other people's heads and lives. He just liked having a more complete connection.
"My name is Eustace. We can start there, Hitomi."
Again she taps the beer bottle against her name tag and he can see measuring up line of sight, looking for mirrors, reflective surfaces, something to explain a fact that she can't explain without realizing she is talking to a person who breaks the rules of reality. Citizens of The GLOW learn to think of people like him as something like a convenient myth. The way most people might think of ghosts or demons. A story that could be there.
"Eustace? I would have figured you would have a name like Killer or Sharkbreath or Basher McBashings. You got a nickname like that?"
"Nurse," he says before he can stop himself. The Order is kind of unclear about the sanctity of the codenames.
"Nurse? Like, you heal people?"
"Sometimes."
"Well, Nurse Eustace, I think I have a little twinge with my neck. Want to," she says pulling her strap back from her neck a little with the hand holding the half-smoked cigarette, "get a beer while you give me some medical advice?"
"Wait," he says, suddenly tightening his stance as slight whirs can be heard in his arms as they prep for action, "I think Bee might be in trouble." [3]
Setting the Scene. Three Little Pigs.
Date: May 30, 1996.
Time: 4:25pm.
Place: The Orange Beach Mall, aka The Citadel. First Floor. Young Forest Trinkets.
Expected Scene: Eustace tries to intercept trouble as three of Roger's goons show up to get the disc.
Scene Test: [c75] 5. 2d10 = 1 + 5. Scene passes fully.
Actual Scene: As Expected
Going to generate three quick goons working for Roger Patel. Each one I'll pull a card and then snag a name and at least one other detail from somewhere off the card:
- C77 → Lucero. An ominous chuckle. Note: female name of spanish origin.
- C69 → Minato. Pulsating disturbingly (twitchy, like they are on something. Couple of different possible origins, but we'll go with Japanese male.
- C104 → Doruk. Abrasive smell of bleach + ticking bomb. Turkish male name.
Lucero is going to be the spokesperson, the other two are more like a threat. Good cop + two bad cops.
These will be relatively rough goons, so we'll use "Goons - Template 5" which gives them 12 grit (as a group), Attack = Critical, Defense = Basic.
How secure is this part of them mall? → [c26] 4. Security cameras on the kiosk [note: witnesses are a given but people in The GLOW learn to look away]? (Even) → [c83] No? There might be a few angles that would catch some of the action, but it would be more secondary.
Will these any of the three be likely to pull a gun right out in the open? (Good) → [c35] No? They will if threatened first but generally not. They will imply guns, though.
Three Little Pigs.
Date: May 30, 1996.
Time: 4:25pm.
Place: The Orange Beach Mall, aka The Citadel. First Floor. Young Forest Trinkets.
"Wait, asshole, what do you mean that Bee might be in trouble?," ask-shouts Hitomi as she runs to keep up with Eustace striding right for the kiosk. People keep parting out of their way. A man in a suit urinating in a trash can — penguin-headed ServiSynth clucking at him but doing nothing to intervene — zips up half finished and scoots back into a store selling cheap plastic flowers that sing your name. She can appreciate the sentiment. A person like Eustace means problems in a place like this. Assuming he is not a corpo thug, he looks like he gets hired on the reg to smash in thick metal doors for people with the right sort of cash. Times like these, it is best to not be the door. The GLOW does not reward good behavior and many crimes have a major lack-of-eye-witnesses problem even when they happen on crowded streets.
The flirting game is a technique she has been working on to try and work the angle. Any angle, really. That being said, she has learned in the last few minutes that she might have a thing for the kind of guy that could lift her and the bed at the same time. That doesn't mean she is going to let him get away with threatening her or her staff. And what the hell was up with that name tag thing?
Bee looks up from a customer walking off and sees Hitomi. "Hey, Mochi, are you back from your break? I need to pee like...right now and....oh my god, who is your friend?"
Based on the involuntary lip bite that the kid gives while staring at Eustace's chest, Hitomi realizes she might have been wrong. Maybe Bee does have a thing for creepy grandpas built like the side of a barn.
Hitomi makes one more lunge to grab Eustace's arm and when she does she sees what he is looking at. Which is not the kiosk or Bee. But three people walking up the other side in suits. Shoving even more people out of the way as those people try to find any other place to be. One of the suits drops a coin into a scurrying unhoused person's cat and then knocks the hat down and scatters all the coins on the floor. Assholes. Even without baseline jerk demonstrations, the three little pigs are wearing the kind of suits that telegraph, "Hey, I'm trouble," to the world. Clothes that cost money but not so much that they would mind getting a bit of blood on them. A bit baggy to hide guns and knives. Unfortunately, her gun is back in her "office" which is a little storage room in the guts of this mall. Mistake number one.
Eustace stands still like a mountain stands still. The three approach. Leader is a woman. Hitomi isn't the best at the country of origin game — her own genetic code combines Germany, the US, Japan, and Britain — but she'd peg the leader as probably Hispanic. Two behind her are men. One on the right, the one who slapped the hat, is an twitchy Asian fucker that might be undergoing some DTs or just that hungry to hurt people. One of the left has shades and a toothpick. Darker. She has no idea where he comes from but he seems the obvious threat. They one that gets called to bring the bat and the chains. And that smell? Why does he smell like that? Whatever it is, it stands out even from all the human smells that drench this part of the mall.
Senorita opens the ceremonies with a weird laugh calculated to imply pain and suffering and teeth. "A little bird told me you might have exactly what I need?"
Bee, whose danger sense is so low it is below sea level, fails to read the situation. Like, at all. "OH, did you want one of our new trinkets?! We have these awesome ones that look like bird skulls!" She starts walking around but Senorita cuts her off.
"No, sweetie. We need our mini-disc. A very bad man did a very naughty thing and left it here. We would hate for someone to get hurt because of his poor life decisions."
Hitomi notes that Eustace, still standing still like a mountain stands still, radiates a sense of anger at this. Violence is definitely near the edge of the playing field. Foot traffic is down to a minimum as the good mall shoppers have taken the hint so hard that even tourists are growing scarce. But one thing a person in her line of work — both of her lines of work, really — never needs is free publicity brought about by having her kiosk smashed up. It is way too convenient of a front. She needs to get the show back stage. And soonish.
"A mini-disc? Yeah, weird guy dropped that off, right Bee? I stashed it in my office. Lost and found. Figured the owners would show back up." [4]
Bee nods, finally picking up on the vibe or just following boss's orders. Eustace, though, turns his head to catch Hitomi's attention. She has glimpses of sudden thoughts she know is not her own. Roger Patel. Violence. The number 91? What in the hell is this shit?
"Hey, Tony," Hitomi says, placing her arm on Eustace's shoulders, "Want to help me get the disc for these people? I said the owners would show up and it was best we just kept it safe. Bee, you watch the Kiosk while mommy and daddy help these people out?"
"I have to pee really bad."
"Won't take long, sweetie. I promise."
Senorita tsks and lets out another of those weird damned laughs. Nods to Quiet and Dark who now comes up stand real close to Bee, opening his coat so Bee can no doubt see the gun inside. "Now, now, the poor thing says they need to pee. We'll all go as a big happy family." [5]
Bee turns and looks at Hitomi will a pale face. A wet stain on their leggings suggests the full bladder has resolved itself. "Mochi..."
"Hey, lady, I said I'll get your goddamned disc. You can't expect us to leave our kiosk unmanned. In this place? Freaks will steal all our shit!"
"If anything goes missing...," Senorita says, pulling out wallet full of cash.
"...like livers...," interjects Twitchy with a shrill laugh.
"...You'll be reimbursed. Now let's move. Big one and you will go first. Green hair here will keep me and Doruk company. Be good."
Eustace looks a bit half beaten as he walks side by side with Hitomi towards a staff entrance. His eyes clicking back and forth. Is he just going to run? Hitomi feels a bit deflated as a week's worth of wet dreams are being deleted before she got to enjoy them.
Foot traffic is completely gone but Hitomi knows in a few minutes that hundreds of dollars of merch will be disappeared from the cart. Unwritten rules and the kindness Bee inspires — and the favors that dangerous people owe Hitomi — are collectively not enough to warrant the most important rule of "Watch your shit." What can you do, though?
Setting the Scene. A Fine Day for Violence.
Date: May 30, 1996.
Time: 4:35pm.
Place: The Orange Beach Mall, aka The Citadel. First Floor. In the Back Hallways.
Expected Scene: Eustace is going to do a murder while trying to protect the others.
Scene Test: [c90] 6. 2d10 = 3 + 2. Scene passes fully.
Actual Scene: As expected
This is going to be mostly the set-up for a fight scene. In the previous scene, Eustace scanned them for weaknesses. I'll tally it now but it was part of his standing still and silent. That is -2...I think. Essentially, he finds how each will try to use the others as shields and take advantage of that by quickly switching enemies. Him and Hitomi have 3 Adrenaline at this point and he's about to spend it.
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| Eustace "Nurse" Delmont. Order Psychic. Weapon. Kind of a nice guy. Image © Dean Spencer |
A Fine Day for Violence.
Date: May 30, 1996.
Time: 4:35pm.
Place: The Orange Beach Mall, aka The Citadel. First Floor. In the Back Hallways.
They push thorugh the doors and three young women — unhoused prostitutes or just middle-class thrill seekers pretending to be such — are smoking some variation of crack that has been magicked to give off pink smoke. They glance up at Hitomi and whatever taunt or offer they are on the verge of proclaiming is stifled by Eustace right beside her. Once the three little pigs cut through the door, the girls turn into backdrops. Still and quiet. Like good little mice. They are gone when Hitomi glances back.
A man whose eyes glow from sort of soulburn virus working through his brain smells like literal shit. He does not acknowledge any of them, not even when twitchy gives him a kick.
Turning a corner, though, the halls are suddenly clear. The smell of smoke and bedrolls tell the recent presence of mall workers and roustabouts who have all picked up the signal of the psychic airwaves to get scarce.
Grafitti here is a lot less corporate. Taunts and tags mixed in with random wards of unlikely actual purpose besides edginess. An old pentagram shows a lack of imagination in a place where actual devils are said to roam. As she passes by the words, "Thank you for not smoking," spelled out in what appears to be someone painstakingly gluing burnt cigarettes into the gray paint, she feels the always present need for more nicotine in her bloodstream.
"Do you mind if I smoke?"
Senorita replies, "Go ahead, though if anything but a cigarette and a lighter comes out of that pocket, Green Hair's brains come out of their skull, got it?"
"Yeah, I got it." She pulls a lighter out and lights her cigarette while trying to run calculations. She's not the kind of person who tends to deal with violence head on, most days, though she is able to fend for herself. If she had her gun. Which she took off this morning because she wanted to enjoy the warm air and it's hard to hide it with just a thin shirt. That'll teach her to care.
Right as she exhales, she notes that Eustace is no longer beside her. She hears a double sort of scthick noise, two shouts, the sound of someone chopping through large heads of cabbage, and several thuds. Hearing a new noise at her feet, it's Twitchy's head rolling past. [6]
Breathing hard she turns around while bracing for the horror and the first surprise is that she underestimated what she would see. Blood and pieces of the three goons have painted the wall and floor. Quiet and Dark's gun hand, gun in it, is on the floor next to Senorita's smug face. The back half of her skull is still on her body. They likely died too fast to even register the slaughter. More surprising is how little blood got on Bee, standing super still with arms tucked tightly by their sides. Eyes closed. More surprising is Eustace is on his knees in front of Bee — arms now sporting large blades jutting out from his aetherware, large blades dripping with human blood. Most surprising are his words as he holds out his arms in a way to stop her from getting caught in the dripping gore, "Are you ok. I'm sorry about that but I didn't want them to hurt you."
Bee opens their eyes and then closes them again before leaning into the massive arms which Eustace closes into a hug. Still somehow keeping the blood off. [7]
After a second, he stands up and leads Bee forward, helping them to walk around the gore without really explaining. Getting up near Hitomi he turns and kicks the head back into the pile. "I appreciate the severity of this question, but are you ok?"
Hitomi sorts through roughly twenty different answers with various degrees of profanity but instead opts for simplicity. She jumps up and wraps her arms around his bloody neck and kisses him with a force just south of a headbutt. At least the man has the sense to return the passion and it's a pleasant eight or a seconds before she breaks away, gets her feet back on the ground, and then slaps him as hard as she can. Again, to his credit, he actually tilts his head back a bit like it did anything to him.
"What in the loving fuck are you? Putting thoughts in my fucking head. Knowing my name. Goddamn mantis arms? Are you a hitman looking for these goons?"
"No."
"A fucking hedge mage with a thirst for human blood?!"
"No."
"Some sort of corpo bastard hired by the goddamned mall to protect kiosk owners?!"
"No."
"AND WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SO NICE!?"
He shrugs and now she is puffing on her cigarette hard and wondering if she should burn him or kiss him or just take off running with Bee and hope they make it. And why the fuck does she feel so excited? It's like meeting a walking legend or a comic book character or some cryptid. Like meeting a...oh fuck. Oh NO. [8]
"You people don't exist." She says quietly but with emphasis.
"We do actually."
"If Bee and I leave now, will you let us live?"
"I'd rather you not. Leave, I mean. Those are just the low level people. Worse are coming. I want to help. Besides, I need that disc. And you owe me a beer. Help you with your neck, remember?"
"That would be so much sexier if you said it without blood dripping down your arm...blades."
"Oh...right." He goes over and starts wiping the blood on the few pieces of clothing the three goons have that aren't already soaked in it. Then with another double schtick the blades retract and his forearms close up. He reaches over and searches their pockets. Holds up car keys. [9]
He walks back up and tosses them to Hitomi and pulls off his jacket. With a few flicks of the wrist he gets a fair amount of the blood off. Then he wraps it around Bee's waist and her pee-soaked leggings.
"Your office?"
Setting the Scene. Carving Out a Plan.
Date: May 30, 1996.
Time: 4:53pm.
Place: The Orange Beach Mall, aka The Citadel. First Floor. In Hitomi's "Office".
Expected Scene: Eustace and Hitomi discuss plans.
Scene Test: [c81] 7. 2d10 = 4 + 4. Scene passes fully.
Actual Scene: As expected
Has anyone found the bodies, yet? (Good) → [c84] Yes.
They can hear shouts down the hall, increasing numbers of people. The chance of any witnesses willingly coming forward is slight because of reasons but it's only a matter of time before the back halls get a bit too hot to handle.
Also, the one-adrenaline per scene is definitely too much. Instead, I'll try rolling a d6 for each character at the start of each scene. If they roll under their current adrenaline, they will get one. In this case, Eustace gets 1 (up to 2) and Hitomi does not (stays at 3). I'll re-balance as I need.
Carving Out a Plan.
Date: May 30, 1996.
Time: 4:53pm.
Place: The Orange Beach Mall, aka The Citadel. First Floor. In Hitomi's "Office".
The room is three meters by four with thin metal walls giving a few centimeters of clearance at the top. A dozen crates are packed across the entire left wall with a few more on the floor as makeshift furniture. A card table is against the right wall with three aether-enhanced laptops. One is for the kiosk. The other two are for Hitomi's other job. On the other side of that wall, an old Laotian woman has turned her mall storage into a small apartment. In exchange for not complaining about the smoking, Hitomi snags a few bucks here or there for her. As soon as the screaming started down the hall, five minutes ago, the neighbor cut and ran. Foot traffic is building up outside and radio chatter alerts the trio that MUNI is on the scene. Eustace avoiding stepping in any blood has helped to slow them down from coming this way but it can't be long.
Hitomi is on her third cigarette since entering the office. In her defense, the second was snagged by Bee after stripping out of soiled clothes and then wrapping Eustace's jacket around their slight frame like a blood-soiled bathrobe. Bee is currently sitting on a crate of would-be-overpriced-tat and rubbing their legs together. To keep warm or to try and get Eustace to notice them, Hitomi is not sure. On a psycho-sexual scale, having Eustace the Barbarian absolutely murder people holding you hostage has to trigger the holy trinity of Fight, Flight, or Fuck to the nines. Speaking off Nurses...
Hitomi holds up the mini-disc after shoving the gun in her pants pocket. "What the fuck is on this that is worth that?"
Eustace looks at it and once again shrugs. "Honestly, I have no idea."
"Ok, if I pull out my gun and shoot you, will you die?"
"Probably. Kind of depends on how many bullets you get off."
"Please. I used the magic word you will note. Please. Explain."
Eustace points towards the mini-disc. "My partner. Ex-partner. He worked a sting to get that mini-disc and all signs pointed that something bad was on it. He got pulled off the case at the wrong time and had to stash it. It went poorly so it ended up at your kiosk. He had a feeling that it wasn't over so I decided to interven."
"Another asshole psychic?"
"Sort of. He was more about the physical side."
"He was more about the physical side?!"
"It's complicated."
"Use your psychic powers to tell me what is on the disk."
Eustace stares at it for a few seconds. "It's hard to tell. Some folks screaming. That's it. We need someone who is good at hacking aetherware codes." [10]
"How much?"
"How much what?"
"How much is it worth to you to get the info off this disc?"
"I'm not exactly flush in cash."
"But you can do things. Besides murder, I mean. You can help a girl become flush in cash, right?"
"You?"
"That body and brains to match. I am impressed. Why the fuck does this have to involve me?"
"Do you know about the psychic threads matrix?"
That last shout was definitely only around ten meters away. Time is very scarce. "Let's say for the record I do but that you need to explain it to Bee."
"I see psychic threads weaving around each other all the time like green threads. My partner needed a place to stash the desk and the lines pointed to the mall. He picked your kiosk for some reason. I came to take the problem off your hands but another of those green threads, a very big green thread, led me to you."
"And why the fuck would it do that?"
"Maybe it knew you were a good kisser."
Hitomi stares at the hulking killer beast of a man. "Are you flirting with me right now!?"
"How am I doing?" He smiles at her confusion.
She points a finger at him and then realizes they have to get moving. Shooting him or fucking him would both be in the future. After he helped her with some tasks. "What's the plan, Nurse?"
"We need a place with no cameras. Well, maybe a few. We are going to take the Lucero's car and park it there and then get scarce by going in the opposite direction. Know anything?"
Hitomi sort of chews on the nearly finished cigarette. "Century. Know it?" [11]
"Vaguely."
"Place that has pushed back against the GLOW a bit. Kind of folks who don't want to fuck much with the Order. Like a reverse oasis. Old stores. Old people. Foodland there is a place I've used to do some business because the owner likes me."
"Why?"
"You ass."
"Sorry, just curious."
"Owner is Yuuki Jones. Widow. Married a sweet black man after WW2 when they were both too young and moved here. Never had kids. She keeps saying she wants to adopt me. She sees me as a bit of the old country." [12]
"Despite you never have been to Japan."
"I am going to shoot you, you keep that up."
He goes to apologize and chokes it off. "Can she watch Bee for us?"
Bee, silent this whole time, goes to argue and both Hitomi and Eustace cut her off with a "NO!"
"Sure. I'll tell Yuuki that mommy and daddy need a date night. My kiosk is fucked, isn't it?"
"Seems so. If Patel's goons know about it, won't take long before they know the owner. Did you use a fake name to sign up?"
"When you need an alibi, it's best you use your real name." [13]
"Then your apartment is going to be hit pretty soon. Maybe less than a couple of hours. Any roommates?"
Hitomi points to Bee. "And they'll be stashed with Mrs. Yuuki."
"Ok. First stop, Lucero's car. Second, Century and Mrs. Yuuki. Then, if we can, your apartment to grab your stuff."
"Question. Who the fuck is Lucero?"
"The weird laugh person. I caught her name as I was cutting through her brain."
Silently flirting Bee gags hard enough that Hitomi braces for the vomit but Bee chokes back the bile. Suddenly doesn't seem to have the hots for Eustace any more. Hitomi is still undecided.
The three glance outside. Somehow the crowd has manages to not get this far down the hall, but chances are someone will glance around the edge and see them any moment. Hitomi grabs up her three laptops and shoves Bee out the door and directs them away from the murder scene. Eustace strides out and moves fast following. [14]
"By the way, Mochi, stop four is we probably need to save Amy Patel."
Hitomi sighs and then wonders how much a Patel would be willing to pay.
Setting the Scene. Earlier That Day: Taking a Walk
Date: May 30, 1996.
Time: 6:22am.
Place: Antioch Psychic Command Center. Near Cresthill, Alabama.
No scene test. This is technically the opening scene of the whole campaign arc but it was more fun to save it for the end to make it seem like I was foreshadowing.
Earlier That Day: Taking a Walk
Date: May 30, 1996.
Time: 6:22am.
Place: Antioch Psychic Command Center. Near Cresthill, Alabama.
Above the sky of Antioch, soulburn dances. Twists. Turns into sigils and wards. Gives the sense it is watching you.
Eustace sits out on Bel's balcony and smokes his pipe. Burley and rich. He stares up at the dancing soulburn and not for the first time wonders what everyone else sees. To him, it feels like the shapes are trying to communicate. He can very nearly make out the words. Like he is meant to speak in turn. A syllable stuck in his throat trying to find a way out.
Antioch is full of fountains and artificial waterfalls. All the water is brought up from the Gulf on the regular. To normal people it shimmers. To psychics like Eustace, it absolutely shines. The afterimage of tortured souls dance in Harrowed glee.
Besides enhancing the psychic field to nearly max, it allows a convenient lie. Agents communicating with their PALs are under the false impression that Antioch is somewhere underwater. It prevents incidents where Agents try to seek out their psychic halves. Literal soul mates and the twain shall never meet.
Eustace flexes his arms. Aetherware tech has replaced them from elbows up. Preparation for his inevitable rise to Field Psychic status. A warrior for the Order. Going where Agents do not have the authority. The ultimate storybook monsters GLOW citizens are afraid to discuss but which protect their very lives. Or, in cases, end them. Morality is around a dozen shades of gray in this place.
Technically, his arms are not proper aetherware but Gnole-made. That ancient race of bio-engineers that have found a home near Cresthill. Another lie. That the Order is somehow unable to penetrate here. The Gnoles love the Harrowing. They have been torturing flesh for centuries. Torturing souls is right up their alley. They were fast allies.
"You beast! I told you if you were going to smoke that nasty thing to close the damned balcony doors." Bel is awake.
"Sorry," says Eustace, but smiling. It would have been hard to leave without saying something. Around Eustace's age, Bel has taken to rocking the femboy look with a certain fox motif. Which Eustace said was in bad taste. Bel just smiled his fox smile. He and Eustace have been lovers for the past two years but Antioch disrupts the old nuclear family concept the same way that a bomb disrupts a building. Gender, fidelity, sexuality? What do these things mean when you are a group of people who are constantly plugged into other people's brains. Prom queens end up tatted and smoking cigars. Lumberjacks wear dresses. Ego loss is a real danger.
Bel comes out and bites Eustace on the shoulder. "What are you doing up so early? Didn't Demontongue run? You are on vacation, love."
Eustace taps out his pipe. "Bel, I'm going on a Walk."
"Oh."
A special feature of psychics is that once their agent dies, retires, or requests a new psychic: you have a brief period of a few weeks where you can Walk. Get out of Antioch. Go visit the GLOW. Around a third never come back. Either neutralized or fled out of the GLOW. The worst offenders end up quadruple amputees sans eyes and placed in salt water tanks the rest of their short lives. The infamous blind psychics. Getting burned out early to provide deep scans of the threads, floating in constant sensory deprivation.
In some cases, like Eustace, graduation approaches. The secondary purpose of Antioch is temper PALs into Field Psychics. On paper, he's a Grade 5 with heavy suspicion of hiding his Grade 6 potential. Grade 6 tends to run the higher end of Field Psychics. He has worked had to keep the truth from everyone, even himself. Bel, on the other hand, is a comfortable Grade 3. Barely above the most psychically gifted agents. In it for the long haul here and enjoying the good food and great sex.
Bel lets out a sad smile, "The oldest joke in the psychic joke book. Why didn't I see it coming?"
Eustace shrugs.
"When?"
"As soon as I stand up and walk to catch the bus."
Bel nods. Eustace is sure Bel will find someone else to share his bed but still, it very nearly hurts. Love is the wrong word but "like" has a capital-L.
"Well, only one thing for it, let me brush my teeth and you come say goodbye proper."
"Bel..."
"Nuh uh, Mr. Muscles. You owe me a backrub. Fifteen minutes and then you can go? Ok?"
Eustace nods as Bel goes back inside. He could just leave but might as well enjoy himself for a few minutes before things get bad. He has had dreams of burning buildings, screams, and entire rivers of blood. Men in green and pain. Eustace's dreams are only dreams in the technical sense. In the same way that a tree is kind of a photograph.
The worst thing was him using his hidden potential to get a glimpse of his own Walk request. It was approved. However, the bottom line is significant.
Eustace Delmont is suspected of hiding as much as Grade 7 status high potential of rapid growth in near future. Threads actively cloak his actions. Chance of Rebellion: 91%. Recommendation: Follow discretely and prepare to detain with extreme effort.
DOUG'S COMMENTARY
January 31, 2025
This is something like Draft 3.1 of this first post. Draft 1 started out with Antioch and had more stuff between Bel and Eustace. Draft 2 moved that to the bottom so that the first scene was more about strongly establishing this quasi-new GLOW vibe. Draft 3 then went back and added a lot more details to make sure The GLOW feels more like an amoral mega-city. Jani might not have ever really "looked up" but Eustace is the kind of guy that reads bar codes as he walks by. I wanted to nail the difference between how he might see "The Citadel" and how Jani might see the mall.
There will almost definitely be an intermission next (and possibly a fourth wall break after that just to catch up on some things). It is pretty common for me to focus on the character side of stuff but there are little details that make Outgunned an interesting system. Stuff like tracking "Heat" to show stuff getting more hectic. Building up a stack of bad folks. A Mission and a Director's Sheet. I want to take some time to build those up now that I have an ok grasp of some of the mechanics. The goons were meant to survive a scene or two and to add pressure but Eustace got such a good roll it was fun to delve into the "weapon" aspect. He is definitely overpowered for this stage but it makes sense to me. A fair number of enemies will be overpowered as well.
Right now, I cannot imagine a happy ending for Eustace. Not really. That's part of the spark of this arc. Hitomi and he hit it off immediately — and it was fun having them going right into flirt mode instead of dragging that out — but he also knows he is running against time. I am a sucker for happy endings so we'll see.
With the plan of focusing almost entirely on Eustace and Hitomi, the danger of sticky side characters increases a bit. Bee will be shed relatively quickly. I think Amy will be a bigger part since thats kind of a running joke but a few scenes at most. Each time, the story will shift to Eustace and Hitomi up to shenanigans.
We got a lot of talking out the way. Next episode (after the Intermission) will be a bit more action. I want to see how it plays out when a character doesn't get, essentially, a double-critical++.
Finally, there are a handful of "in-jokes." She calls him "curls" again. Gnoles are originally from Lord Dunsany's "How Nuth Practiced His Art Upon the Gnoles" and the ancient bio-engineers version — who also sided with "The King of Elves" as a straight cosmic horror entity — is from my short story, "How the Gnoles Stole [someone, I forget her name, dang it] for Christmas." Antioch is sort of a real place from near where I grew up, largely known for a church and a water tower. In a story of mine, "The Garden," the non-existent town takes on significance for a mass suicide and a divine encounter. Here it has been repurposed to feed off the Alabama Weird. Besides that I am mostly just trying to find some new jokes and concepts. The idea that the psychics were lying to their partners — originally called OALS but changed to PALS from the psychic side because it is a dumb joke — was from very early on. Similar to how it is known that psychics lie to each other all the time. The oldest joke in the psychic joke book: how did they not see it coming? Because people who can directly interact with the psychic threads can rewrite them, essentially.
New Eustace acts a lot like Old Eustace but with murder blades and a constant stream of information slightly overwhelming him. New Hitomi acts a lot like Old Hitomi but with a bitchy, violent side. Of course, the Old Hitomi had a bitchy, violent side. Bee is kind of a brief stand-in for a Morgan type. Will Daphne show up? I have no clue.
MECHANICAL AND STORY NOTES
- Just wanting to try out a few rolls before things get more serious. Not sure how to properly handle his psychic connection but for this one we'll got Focus + Style. He's wanting to show off a little. Gets a Critical + Basic. Gets her name plus another simple fact.
- Another fluff roll. We'll try Crime + Awareness to see if she can suss the lie. No successes.
- Focus + Awareness. Even with the free reroll, only gets double basic. He has a definite sense that something is about to go down but nothing like an actual vision of what it is.
- Smooth + Speech. +1 for offering what they want. Three basic successes. Will combine into a single critical success.
- Do they let Bee stay behind? (Good) → [c108] NO! They definitely are taking Bee as a hostage.
- We are going to make this flashy. Eustace will have spent one adrenaline to detect the enemy's weakspots for +2. Using his arm blades, he will get +1 help. Spending another adrenaline to get +2 Fight. This will give him 9 dice (actually 10 but 9 is max). With a reroll, he now has an IMPOSSIBLE success. Three Exceptionals becomes Nine Criticals becomes Twenty-Seven Basics. He slaughters them. Neat. He will 100% get a reward for such a thing. For completely dismantling the enemies before they can act and saving two people he considers innocent, he'll gain a spotlight.
- Will Bee accept Eustace's comfort? (Even) → [c61] Yes? They are not really ok with what just happened, but they recognized that Eustace just saved them.
- Crime + Streetwise + 1 to see if she pieces together that he must be someone from the Order, and not a typical order agent. She gets double Critical. She has figured it out.
- Does Lucero have car keys on her? (Even) → [c90] Yes. So there isn't a driver type who would know something was up more immediately. That gives them some time. Well, at least until the next worker walks into the back halls.
- Focus + Detect. -1 because of the background energies of the mall. Only a basic success.
- Crime + Streetwise. Using the Sprawl feat. Gets a Critical and a Basic success.
- From c60. Yuuki. Jones I just threw in. Loyalty. Greed. Has a cough. Long time smoker.
- Did Hitomi think to give a fake name? (Even) → [c72] NO!
- Is anyone close enough to see them leave? (Even) → [c74] No? Crime + Stealth. Will give Eustace a +1 due to his awareness. Hitomi gets a Critical without a re-roll. Eustace, with a re-roll, gets an Exceptional. They manage to sneak out.
CREDITS
The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont is played using Two Little Mouse's Outgunned and Outgunned: Action Flicks (especially, but not limited to "Neon Noir" and "Great Powers"). It uses Larcenous Designs' Gamemaster Apprentice Deck: Cyberpunk 2E as its main oracle.
Other sources used include:
- Zach Best's Universal NPC Emulator.
- Cesar Capacle's Random Realities
- Kevin Crawford's Cities Without Number
- Matt Davis' Book of Random Tables: Cyberpunk 1, 2 and 3.
- Geist Hack Games and Paul D. Gallagher's Augmented Realities.
ART CREDIT AND EXPLANATION
The art for Hitomi has been in the barrel since around the time I played the OG The GLOW arc. The fact that it would be a stand-in for Hitomi showed up around the time I thought about bringing over "New Eustace". The art for Eustace is a newer decision that changes a lot of thing. It is easier for me to play slightly older characters, though. I like Eustace having a lot of confidence.
Some art is © Dean Spencer. Used with permission. All rights reserved.
Taxonomy and Technical Data
- World: The GLOW
- Campaign: The GLOW
- Arc: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont
- Post: Episode 1 - Psychic Boy Meets Hacker Girl
Dates Played: January 29, 2025 & January 31, 2025 with rewrites into Draft 3 on January 30, 2025.
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