The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont, Episode 13 - Moonblink
- "Previously..." and Campaign/Arc Summary
- The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont Episode 13 — Moonblink
- Doug's Commentary
- Mechanical and Story Notes
- Credits
- Taxonomy and Technical Data
Previously, on The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont
After a fight in a scrapyard, the team has gotten the pieces to fix the Green Lady. Elsewhere, Eustace has returned to Earth and is attempting to regain control of his own destiny.
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 13 — Moonblink
This is a brief Time Out to check in on some conditions and to fix up some things.
Setting the Scene. Getting the Green Lady up and Running.
Date: Wednesday, June 5, 1996.
Time: 7:19am.
Place: LoGrav Helicopter Tours.
This is just a quick Time Out so we'll work out a couple of actions/tests.
Basically, grit is cleared and each character can take up to two tests/actions but we don't need anything like that.
DATE PLAYED: April 6, 2025.
Getting the Green Lady up and Running
Date: Wednesday, June 5, 1996.
Time: 7:19am.
Place: LoGrav Helicopter Tours.
Hitomi gets out of the shower and looks at herself, unclothed, in the mirror. She traces the lines of her arms and legs. Notes the fading bruises. The healing cuts. Life can change fast in The GLOW. Hitomi feels like she has exceeded all expectations. Two days ago she was in an apartment with Eustace. Two weeks ago her and Bee were running a kiosk at the Citadel and doing small but lucrative jobs on the side. Now she's standing here on the second floor of LoGrav while three people — none of which she knew more than a week ago — are outside working on an older model helicopter to try an impossible mission well above all of their pay grade. [1]
A mission that needs her attention. The original plan was to be on the Moonblink — Dave Akari's hoverboat and luxury ship — by now. Hitomi brings up one of her laptops and tries to log into her aethernet sanctum and reconnect to her warded avatars she left behind to keep track on Dave. Only, Hasan has to be running some sort of security and though her wards should be good for a period of time, it was irresponsible to not check in and re-inforce them. She manipulates a stream of symbols and tries to claw back some time by pre-announcing to Hasan's data center that reports of breaches are a log glitch. It's worse than she feared, Hasan has sent several AstralForms to guard the data. Thinking quickly, she disguises herself as a basic scraping routine long enough to dupe the Astral and then replaces the aether-ID of her warded avatars to match. The system will see her intrusion as itself. For a bit of time, anyhow. After a bit of processing time, she once again has real-time tracking of Moonblink's location. [2]
Outside, she hears a cheer. Looking out the window at the small airstrip that LoGrav shares with a couple of other tourist-minded businesses — sometimes the best way to beat the competition is to form a loose coalition with them — she sees Jones high-fiving Varvara. It is honestly the most excited she has seen the other woman act. Since they have gotten only two-hours of sleep, that probably explains a lot. A thoughtful demeanor gets wiggy after your brain crashes.
"Going well?," she shouts down.
"It sure is!," Jones shouts back up. He hops off the Green Lady — his helicopter, so named because he is using a aether-fitted Vietnam-era Huey — and pulls out a large cigar and lights up. After a few puffs he hands it to Varvara who starts smoking it proudly. "The gear we found was an upgrad of what I have been running. Should do wonders to up the output." [3]
Genny walks out. Holds up a couple of ammo cases. He had been out waking up a couple of his gun buddies to get more ammo for himself and Hitomi. [4]
Varvara, still smoking Jones' cigar and refusing to give it back to him, nimbly moving out of his reach — Hitomi suspects the two of them are flirting a bit — calls out, "When do we go?"
"How about right now? I suspect Dave isn't the kind of guy who does early mornings so we have a chance to catching him completely off guard."
The three down around the Green Lady look at each other. Everyone is a bit tired but they see the merit in the suggestion.
"Where's the bastard located?," Genny asks.
Hitomi looks back over her shoulders at the coordinates. "Looks like the Moonblink is stationed near Milton and drifting this way, actually." [5]
"Oh, good, that should save some gas money," Jones quips.
Expected Scene: The crew have to "sneak up" on the Moonblink.
Scene Test: [c49] 5. 2d10 = 9 + 1. Another minor twist (3/5). The catalyst on the card says "A secret is revealed or betrayed" so I think we'll use a bit of logic, here.
Actual Scene: While moving towards the Moonblink, other helicopters move to intercept.
Setting the Scene. Green Lady vs the Two Blues.
Date: Wednesday, June 5, 1996.
Time: 8:22am.
Place: The sky above Pensacola.
This will make it a pretty standard Chase seen. Need will be 16. Speed will start at 2. Enemies, like most chase scenes, are sort of a "Critical/Critical" kind of thing. Two blue helicopters sent to take down The Green Lady. Why are they doing it? Let's see. Drawing three cards and pulling some ideas off of them. [c70] An associate is interrogated. [c64] Improve Desperate Prison. [c105] One of the images is a tower crumbling.
Ok, Bee has been captured by Dave Akari's men. After the chase of Mother_Bored — was was known and tracked — Dave would clearly have recognized Hitomi. He had Patel put some MUNI sleaze on tracking Hitomi. Once Hitomi basically left to do this mission, these people moved in and cracked Juan Uno's safe house. Bee and BrokenRecord were captured. While neither are going to betray Hitomi, it adds some stress because they are both on Moonblink and will need to be rescued.
These same MUNI sleaze have tracked Hitomi down to LoGrav and know she is in the air and moving towards Moonblink. They are going to try and shoot her down before she gets close.
I guess that's a lot more than a Minor Twist but in principle it probably won't change a whole lot in the long run. Just add some flavor. HOPEFULLY.
MUSIC SHOUT OUT: Yeule just dropped "Evangelic Girl Is a Gun" earlier today, so it seems to be a natural soundtrack for this scene.
DATE PLAYED: April 8, 2025.
Green Lady vs the Two Blues
Date: Wednesday, June 5, 1996.
Time: 8:22am.
Place: The sky above Pensacola.
"I've got some bad news," Genny says while making a complicated gesture over his custom Scrying Glass. Layers of security for talking to homebase directly.
"You might need to save it, man, we got company," Jones says, glancing out the pilot side of the Green Lady.
"You're kidding me, a tail in the air?," Genny asks.
Jones points, and a blue helicopter of more modern design is flying to match their speed but around thirty yards lower down. Varvara points out the other side and a twin 'copter is keeping pace in a similar holding position on their right.
"Ah, fuck," Genny says and starts pulling out his assault rifle and checking it. Hitomi gets out her pistol. It won't do much at this range but gives the sense of taking part. Varvara crawls up in the passenger seat beside Jones. If nothing else, she can be another pair of eyes. Genny wrenches back the right hand doors and air floods the area.
Jones says a quick prayer — which sounds a lot of like the phrase, "By the power of Greyskull," — and then reminds everyone on board why he was a young, well-regarded pilot. The Green Lady nose dives down until its level with the other two helicopters. As they swoop up to cover the distance he pulls back hard on the yoke and sends the Green Lady forty meters up in the air. Gunshots plink around but the gunners on the other two helicopters can't risk shooting through their own rotors and have to cut off as the pilots desperate try and keep up with Jones. [6]
The pilot of the blue 'copter on the left overcompensates and cuts awfully close to the Green Lady. Jones acts like he is pulling hard to the right to avoid but then tries to do a twisting maneuver to the left to actually put both of the chasers on the right of him so that Genny can keep a shot. "Hold on!," he shouts as whips the Green Lady over. Genny deftly grabs some straps while Varvara barely shifts in her seat. Hitomi loses her footing and nearly slams into the wall but Jones, sensing this, taps the Green Lady slightly back to the other side which helps to steady Hitomi. She flashes him a thumbs up. [7]
Jones start pushing the Green Lady even faster and begins to slightly pull ahead of the other pilots. In the back, Genny takes a measured stance and begins aiming at the cockpit of the nearest Blue. Hitomi, trying to avoid being flung out tries to find a way to strap herself in but fails to find enough strapping to get a good hold. That's no good. [8]
The nearest helicopter opens two small windows in the side and gunfire rips out. Johns banks the Green Lady to the side slightly to absorb most of the shots. Bullets bing off the metal and the glass, with cracks appearing the side window, but Jones has kept folks safe. Hitomi fights good footing next to Genny and takes aim. [9]
Jones expertly maneuvers the Green Lady to line up Genny's shot. As Hitomi opens up fire beside him, plinking hard against the side. Genny breathes out as he expertly empties a clip into the cockpit of the Blue Copter. Each shot rings true as blood explodes from inside. As the nearest one starts to dip, Genny turns his fire into the now exposed far Blue. It also erupts under gunfire. A few minutes later the two helicopters collide in air and a large fireball erupts as rubble crashes down into the streets below. [10]
"Good shooting, Yusuda," Jones says, smiling back at his old friend. Up ahead, they can see the Moonblink drifting slowly a kilometer above the ground and Jones starts banking towards it. Varvara unstraps and joins the others in the back. The plan is to do a sweep over the top and the others will drop down. Jones will fly nearby and land once they have dispatched Dave and taken out as much of Dave's tech and plans as possible. Or if things go pear shaped. Push comes to shove, Jones gets out and flies back to Juan and its time for the second string to take a shot.
"What was the bad news," Hitomi asks Genny as the older man is steadying his breathing and getting ready for a return to combat. The exploding helicopters triggering some old memory of his.
"Um, someone in the organization exposed the apartment. Or Bee lead them to it. At any rate, Dave's men raided it late last night and Bee and BrokenRecord have been captured. Also, someone seems to have stolen Eustace's body."
Expected Scene: The team lands on the deck of the Moonblink and must find a way to carry out their mission.
Scene Test: [c50] 5. 2d10 = 8 + 1. Another Minor Complication (4/5). "Discover a secret worth keeping". There's also an image on that same card that shows a sort of dizzy person icon. I think the real reason that Dave Akari has been relatively difficult to find (several episodes in) is because his working with Soulburn/etc has induced a kind of Soul-madness. Moonblink is less a true "party yacht" and more a refuge to keep him hidden. This is the real secret he is trying to avoid.
Actual Scene: The team land to find that Dave is being imprisoned on the Moonblink and most of the workers are either medical carers are Patel folks keeping Dave inactive.
Setting the Scene. Twenty Mannequins in a Line.
Date: Wednesday, June 5, 1996.
Time: 8:34am.
Place: On the deck of the Moonblink, in the skies above Pensacola.
Another one of those scenes where I take "minor twist" with a huge grain of salt. Still, the armed response will be lower with a higher emphasis on other skills, perhaps. Like, harder locks and such.
Let's go with a fairly simple response force, then. I think "Commando Team" works as a good base. 9 Grit. Two Hotboxes (3 and 7). Critical/Critical. Heck, we'll bump it up 2xCritical/Critical. Tactics [Quick Actions to move require a coin flip]. Armored (-1 to hit the enemy). Flashbang (Critical Reaction [Nerves + Awareness] or become Distrated and -1 next turn), Pile on (Character with the least Grit takes 2 Grit). Tackle (Dangerous Critical Reaction [Brawn + Force], -1 to next roll). A somewhat tanky but kind of small group of well trained people acting more as Dave Akari's carers rather and his inner circle.
DATE PLAYED: April 11, 2025.
Twenty Mannequins in a Line
Date: Wednesday, June 5, 1996.
Time: 8:34am.
Place: On the deck of the Moonblink, in the skies above Pensacola.
As soon as Hitomi leaps out of the Green Lady and falls the 3 meters to the deck, she feels a sense of disorientation. Enough that she hits the deck kind of hard. One of her laptops slips out and slams down, shattering into glass, metal, and plastic shards before sliding over and then, annoyingly, off the deck. "FUCK!" At least Genny and Varvara landed better. Genny in a slightly overdone, very military style roll. Coming up with his gun already aimed at the three men running up the steps to confront them. For her part, Varvara did a kind of odd tip toe landing that turned into a running leap at those same guards. [11]
Despite the irritation at the lost laptop and one again being under threat of gunfire — a very common occurrence these last few days — it is the ServiSynths that made Hitomi stumble and nearly fall. Mannequin style. Very nearly human but obviously not past any cursory inspection. By design. Bigger department stores — the kind strictly third floor and up in the Citadel — might use them. Put clothes on them and then just walk around and act little vignettes. Let's you see what the clothing might look like in actual use. They need to look like, well, like mannequins because you don't want tourists talking to them or thinking they are people. On a broad scale of ServiSynth intelligence, these are fairly low. Just enough of a spark to play at their long game of charades and pantomimes. They don't even get voiceboxes.
And there are roughly twenty of these plastic-faced models stored up against the wall of the main cabin. In weather-proof evening wear. Holding obviously fake cocktail glasses and fake cigs designed to smoke. On the way down, she realized what this meant. These would be positioned around the edge of the Moonblink at night. To give the apperance of a crowd. This is before you get to the fact that two nurses, out for a smoke break, are currently retreating at speed. This is not a luxury yacht meant to host the young, rich, and wild of The GLOW. This is a charade.
Gunfire finally cuts through her confusion. Though by the time Hitomi has her gun out and aims up, she sees those three guards hunched over in pain and growning. One definitely has a broken arm and another is holding a rib like it might be broken. Hitomi glances towards Genny who shrugs and points to Varvara, standing on top of a rail overseeing the three me she just beat down in the opening salvo of combat. [12]
"I don't think she's happy they kidnapped BrokenRecord," Genny notes.
DOUG'S COMMENTARY
April 11, 2025
At one point in time, there was maybe this idea to have, you know, one of the helicopters — if not both — chasing Jones in The Green Lady while the other three madcap dash across the deck to get to the controls, but this episode is weird. This whole arc is weird. And the storyline keeps twisting itself. I mean, that's generally my fault. I enjoy the odd twists and playing them up more and more. First we had the pretty big swing to this all being a meta-plot to create bespoke GLOWs. Now something is up with this new tech that is doing terrible things. We'll find out next time.
BUT, to what degree I can take the blame, Genny getting "triple Jackpots" and Varvara essentially going all in and hitting the exact right "death count" also does weird things to the whole flow. Kind of fun things. The new crew is stomping it in fights and next scene most likely will trigger the return of Eustace. It is less a -punk and more a aether-pulp-adventure right now but that's ok.
MECHANICAL AND STORY NOTES
- You can clear You Look NERVOUS by spending an action in Time Out to indulge, relax, etc. The shower and minutes of self-contemplation will work for that.
- She originally had a day. It has now been almost double that. She needs at least an Extreme to just not be tracked. Crime + Fix + 1 (Laptop). She gets an Impossible. She's managed to undo the damage and buy - essentially - unlimited time. At least indefinite.
- Basically, anything Basic+ will count as working. We already killed the momentum enough. Know + Fix + 1 (his tools) gets an Extreme + Critical. +1 to Speed seems good.
- No need to stress about rolls or anything, here. He'll spend $1 of his money and $1 of Hitomi to get 2 mags each. He knows a lot of ex-mil types. Someone is going to have some bullets to share with him.
- Rolling on the map, get 20,6. So all the way to east and just a few bits above where they are. Roughly where Milton, FL and Bagdad, FL are in the real world.
- Jones gets 2xCrit. Speed increases to 3 (3 total). With the extra Critical, he is going to pay it forward into this next action to protect someone.
- Jones [Nerves + Dexterity] gets a Critial + Basic to complete the shift. Genny [Brawn + Stunt] gets Crit + Basic. As does Varvara. Hitomi misses it but Jones has a floating Crit that he uses to protect her.
- Jones gets 3xBasic = 1xCritical and Speed is up to 4 (7 total). Genny starts aiming at one of the Blue 'copters. Hitomi tries Nerves + Fix to fasten herself down better but whiffs it.
- Jones gets Extreme + Basic. That's two free Crits to help protect. Varvara does not make it, so that's one. Hitomi gets an Extreme so we'll give her +1 Help on her next shot. Finally, Genny doesn't make it so that eats the other.
- Jones gets Extreme + Basic, again. Speed is up 5 (12 total). Genny is going to get + 1 for aiming and + 1 for emptying a clip. Genny gets...um. 7 matches. Screw it, let's roll for Hitomi. Nerves + Shoot + 1 = Crit + Basic. Wow.
- Just a gentle check (Basic would have been fine) but she failes it. One of her laptops smashes. She has just one left. Genny does fine. I'm not even testing Varvara, it's her whole schtick. Varvara is going to spend one Adrenaline, though, to flying kick into the guards.
- Brawn + Fight +1 (Flying Kick) -1 (Armored) equals 6 dice. With her Free Reroll and an additional Reroll, Varvara gets an Impossible. She has taken them out in a single turn. Precisely.
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
I felt like if I searched for the Marina Bay Sands (in Singapore) there might be a shot like this that gives the effect of a luxury ship floating across the sky: Photo by Sam Quek on Unsplash.
External shot of LoGrav is Photo by Stefan Lehner on Unsplash. Shockingly hard to find a good helicopter photo for went for "small airstrip," instead.
Not quite the right kind of Huey but from this Air Force webpage. While the photo itself is in public domain, when I try to load the page about it kind of glitches out but looks like the photographer is Airman 1st Class Stassney Davis.
The Moonblink Deck is not really the deck of a ship but some stairs down to a dock that matched the image I had of this overly "so opulent it looks kind of like a relic" type ship: Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash.
The mannequins are Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash.
Taxonomy and Technical Data
- World: The GLOW
- Campaign: The GLOW
- Arc: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont
- Post: Episode 13 - Moonblink
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