The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont, Episode 20 - Heading Up
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- "Previously..." and Campaign/Arc Summary
- The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont Episode 20 — Heading Up
- Doug's Commentary
- Credits
Previously, on The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont
After fighting their way to base of the floating skyscraper called the Rambler — the base of the Patel operations — the team has begun their assault on the final piece — and core — of the cabal. Amy Patel has control of the mini-disc and is planning on destroying her family fortune but the team is making sure that all loose ends are tied up first.
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 20 — Heading Up
EPISODE SOUNDTRACK: Experia's Hidden Agenda.
Considering how much this episode is inspired by Final Fantasy 7's running up the stairs for Shinra HQ, I resisted the urge to play that soundtrack. However, Experia hits some of the same vibe.
Setting the Scene, e20s1.
No "expected" scene tests for the rest of the campaign arc. This will be "draw a card and make a scene that matches the card.
[c103] 4 (+9 = 13 total). Some keywords "An intellectual challenge or puzzle." "Flashing emergency lights." "Runner job gone wrong." "Personal secrets."
Going with that, and with the fact that scene is lower than normal intensity, we'll say that the alarms and lockdowns are going off around the Rambler and Hitomi needs to fix it. Only, one of the team has some history with the Rambler. The most logical answer is Varvara. Maybe this is part of why she has such a grudge against Patel and tagged along.
DATE PLAYED: June 5, 2025.
Recalling a Cleaner
Date: June 7, 1996.
Time: 2:28am.
Place: The thirteenth floor of the Rambler.
The window gives way with a smash. Eustace, sweat pouring, releases the other four and then sits down hard. Hitomi is the first to him: "Are you ok?"
Let's let the dice decide if he is ok. We'll treat this as a 2xCritical Dangerous Gamble to push himself that hard. Brawn (3) + Cool (2) to represent his mix of physical exertion and psychic power. He gets +1 since he has experience with carrying people in flight mode.
With 7 dice, he actually makes it without any Snake Eyes.
Eustace nods and pats her hand. That stunt probably cost him around four hours of his scant time remaining but they are in. Which is, annoyingly, only around half the fight.
The emergency lights are blaring bright red. Security shutters have fallen to protect the art. Fire doors have swung shut.
Going to roll a d20 (Psychics) vs d12 (Patel). d20 = 11. d12 = 11. The fight outside is pretty much evenly matched right now. Patel has the numbers but psychics have the ability.
The gunfire outside continues. As does the sound of lashings and screams. Hitomi hopes that everyone within a few kilometers' radius has gotten the hint and started vacating hard but she can't help but wonder how many tourists are running towards the battle.
Jones runs up and pushes open one of the fire doors but the side doors seem to be mostly locked down. Shouts of people trapped inside one are loud. Voices of multiple accents crying out for help in at least four languages. "What kind of bastard builds a lock down system that traps workers inside?"
Varvara is the one who answers and she just lets out a loud grunt.
We are on the 13th floor. Let's roll d6-2. 4-2=2. 15th floor, around the halfway mark.
Something in her grunt gives a personal edge away and Hitomi glances at the martial artist with a unspoken question. Varvara, to be heard over the various klaxons, points up. "Floor 15. Head of security office. We should be able to shut it down, there."
"How do you know?"
Varvara chews her lip and suddenly looks to be in her late teens. Hitomi thinks that she isn't going to respond but finally Varvara does: "Varvara Clean. Like, a...portar...a janitor. Because I was."
"Here?"
Varvara nods. "My brother was...a gun. I was a broom. Then my brother..."
"Why didn't you say so?"
Varvara shakes her head.
"We'll get the fucker, ok? I'll make sure you get a chance to punch whomever you need to punch."
Genny interrupts. "Ok, you heard the lady. 15th floor. Stay tight. Any door in our way, we shoot."
The number of doors in their way turns out to be four. Both stairway doors were locked tight and they had to punch through both the outer door to the facilities section on the 15th floor — which looks like the behind-the-scenes scuttle of a large urban mall — and then the door into the security room.
Are there any guards still here? (Good) → [c84] Yes.
The fat man with glasses and the skinny woman chewing on a crucifix jump and put on a pretense of reaching for their guns. Genny gets his up first and says nothing but makes it clear that he will shoot first.
Let's say Brawn (3) + Streetwise (2). +1 for the gun. He gets a Critical. These guards will abandon post and leave.
A few seconds later the pair have fled out into the hall and disappeared to who knows where.
"Those two might be trouble," Jones whispers to Genny.
"Fuck it, we're trouble. Besides, I have shot enough desk jockeys in my day. I want to save my bullets today. Is that ok?"
"Yeah, man."
Inside the room, the security set-up is a lot of state-of-the-art — by GLOW standards — TVs and a couple of small laptop terminals. Would be worth several thousand, probably several several-thousands. Currently the words "LOCKDOWN" flash on several of the computers. Hitomi takes lead and pulls Libby and her laptop out. Setting the robotic dog down (and fully feeling the extra weight that Libby has weighed), Hitomi starts plugging into the system and working. A second wire from her laptop is plugged into Libby.
I don't think I've asked this. Is the Rambler ServiSynth based? (Even) → [c73] No. They definitely use ServiSynths, but not in their mainframe.
"It is complex and esoteric. Built from the ground up by people paid to play the GLOW's rules. Only, it is also deeply secular. Like a code that would work in the real world as well as this shithole."
Jones asks, "Can you get in?"
"Can your ass fly a helicopter? Give me some space."
Crime (3) + Fix (3) + 1 (Libby) + 1 (Laptop). She gets a Jackpot. Oooooooo. The computer system is hers.
Around 2 minutes later, the alarms turn off and the lights go back to their normal glow. The sound of doors unlatching can heard up and down the halls. Shouts of relief. Dozens of trapped workers are now free to try and get out. Only, there's the drop down.
Does the Rambler have some sort of way down besides the hovering elevator? (Good) → [99] Yes.
Most likely it would be something like ladders and inflatables. Though people dropping would have to have a clear place down below.
Hitomi types some commands and the tannoy starts announcing a general evacuation. Emergency escape modules are activated. Only...
"What if the jackasses out there shoot their own coworkers?," Jones once again shows up with the annoying questions.
"I don't know. I could send a message to the troops but they aren't sane."
Jones sighs and brings up his shotgun. "Hey, crow boy, can you send a message to your people down there to punch through and make a corridor?"
Eustace nods.
"Good, I'm going back down and do what I can to get the people out. And if fat guy or cross sucker shoot me, I'm going to haunt Genny."
With that, Jones is gone to try and save as many people as he can.
Setting the Scene, e20s2.
[c117] 5 (+13 = 18 total). Some keywords "A major personal loss occurs." "Find inner peace." A icon of spider webs.
There's going to be ServiSynth's controlled outside of the mainframe that shoot out sticky, trapping stuff. So...kind of a fight but the grit loss is not so much damage as being trapped. Wait, not webs. It traps you in a "psychic web" of some sort. I think I can make this work.
We'll treat this as 2xCritical Attack, Critical Defense, and 10 Grit (no Hot Boxes) [aka, 5x2].
DATE PLAYED: June 5, 2025.
The Past Is a Foreign Country
Date: June 7, 1996.
Time: 2:51am.
Place: The eighteenth floor of the Rambler.
The first sign that something is wrong is when Hitomi remembered the taste of her dad's beer. Oxford. 1984. Her mom's birthday party. A group of academics had come along to swap Thatcher hate while talking shit about students. Her dad had come back from the states with new-wife and new-daughter. The conversation had turned to the philosophical ramifications of some place like The GLOW and after half an hour of hearing about the physical torture of souls as a drunken, Reverend Meyer had become frustrated with how much of a game the whole affair was being treated. In the past month, one of his parishioners had disappeared. Kidnapped. Murdered. Or simply...faded.
When he had — gently — stormed off, he had left behind his warm beer, mostly untouched. Hitomi stared at it for not long at all before reaching over and picking it up to taste a sip. A basic youthful act of defiance. While doing it, Dr. Richaud — the skinniest man she had ever met that managed double chins — had spotted it and winked. Hitomi slightly panicked because she realized that Oxford was not for her and had been building up the courage to move to live with her dad in The GLOW. What if he didn't want her there, anymore? What if a daughter that sips beer is not what he needs with his new-wife and new-daughter?
It was exactly the kind of thought that had plagued her for around two hours. By the time she was sixteen, she had become the kind of surly that hoped someone would give her shit for taking a sip of beer. She later found out that her dad was the kind of father that would maybe tsked lightly before hugging her even harder. She was always welcome at his home. In other words, that two hours of fear were such a minor part of who she was that she had literally not thought about them in a decade. But, there they were.
And just like that, it starts again. Her dad arguing with a woman with hair a color red so fake that it kind of felt natural — Hitomi thinks she was the wife of another professor but realizes her memory space has no recollection of anything like a name — and her dad leaving and fifteen-year-old Hitomi leaning forward to take a sip of beer but this time as she looks up, it is not double-chinned-and-thin Richaud looking at her, it is Eustace.
"You are under psychic attack," he says, sitting there in a chair and behind him the colorful world of her dreams turns gray in his shadow. Like he is the size of a mountain.
How I'm going to do this is roll for everyone and then really only describe the results from Hitomi's perspective.
Nerves + Cool or some other skill if it makes more sense.
- Eustace [2 + 2 but I'll give him +2 because he's pretty shored up as a psychic]: 2xCritical outright. He is very much so dodging the attack.
- Hitomi [2 + 2 but she also gets +1 for Tormented and Eustace is helping her for +1]: She blocks a Critical and a Basic and takes 2 Grit.
- Genny [3 + 3]: Critical + Basic and takes 2 Grit.
- Varvara [2 + 2]: Just a Basic and takes 5 Grit. She's going to get "You Look Scared."
Hitomi chokes her the beer and then spills it. A worse version of her memory. No doubt, as it keeps looping it will get worse and worse. As a couple of professors come over and start helping her to clean up, she ignores them and focuses on Eustace. "How do we get out of it?"
"We fight."
"How?"
"It's your mind. However you want." To demonstrate, Eustace extends claws and stabs into the earth. For a brief second she sees reality. Eustace, Genny, and Varvara standing still as in a trance on the eighteenth floor. That's right, they had to switch stair wells because from here on up it's the upper floors.
While walking across, they...
She turns and punches Richaud in his face before he could pour another pint of beer on top of her. The memory trying to take back over.
Eustace's mental body and physical body are so linked I'll let him take Brawn (3) + Fight (3) + 1 = Extreme. Thats 3 Grit down.
Hitomi is fighting with her mind but we'll let her sneakiness take over. Crime (3) + Survival (2) = No successes.
Genny is going to use his Nerves + Cool, again. Critical + Basic. 1 Grit down (4 total).
Varvara is going to use her Focus (2) + Cool (2) to try and outhink it. She gets another Grit down, (5 total).
Richaud snaps back and then the memory does the same. Only now Eustace is there from the very beginning and it's not her dad they are screaming at, it's him. Her memory is being weaponized to try and force him out. And this time the glass she is picking up and drinking from is blood. She goes quick to trick herself. Like a kid hiding medicine under her tongue.
- Eustace gets Extreme + Basic. The extreme covers him but there's not enough left over to shield others. Instead, he is going to be hitting back. 2 more Grit will be lost (7 total).
- Hitomi is going to use Crime + Stealth (+1 for Eustace's help). She avoids taking any more damage.
- Genny again gets Critical + Basic and takes two more Grit.
- Varvara will switch it up to Focus (2) + Fight (3) as she is bringing the new her into her old self. She takes the full 6 Grit. To avoid this, she will spend her spotlight. She loses the coinflip and does not get it back.
As the memory-professors shout even louder at Eustace, he begins cutting them away. Instead of blood, they bleed glimpses of reality. It is odd, but Hitomi feels his attacks like a headache in her own head.
She fakes drinking the blood at the fake-Richaud turns to wink only as he does his face half slides away. The world is burning itself up and melting to try and keep her inside. She thinks if she is quick she can dive through the holes that Eustace is carving.
Eustace again gets 7 dice. Extreme + Basic. That breaks it.
Hitomi leaps into the putty that barely even attempts to look like Richaud and then finds herself standing around as others are likewise blinking and waking up.
Genny glances over at Eustace. "Thanks for the assist back there."
Eustace nods. Turns to look at Varvara. "I'm sorry about your brother."
"Me too," she says with a sniff and it's clear that she has been crying.
"What was that?," Hitomi asks.
"A psychic trap. Or some sick person's idea of fun. Come on, let's go."
The team heads up the large spiral staircase in the middle of the room. Knowing the real battle is still ahead.
Setting the Scene, e20s3.
[c4] 4 (+18 = 22 total). Some keywords "Tresspass Inconvenient Research." "A social call turns "(b)romantic." "Personal papers."
Someone is going to try and talk the team out of stopping. Someone that might have a personal connection. Maybe a couple of someones. After they get through this, they will be in the final fight scene.
For a person, a name that was never resolved was Dr. Mariya Kazuo. We know that she teaches at Pensacola Polytechnic and that it's a "school" largely to fast track people into various millionaires' and billionaire's payrolls around the GLOW. Patel is one of the sponsors. Kazuo was not really made to be another Patel lackey or tied into the Akari situation, but just for tying up loose ends, she can be here. What is she professor of? Well, we'll say her speciality is in the economic impact of The GLOW but in practically she's more into managing cutting edge technology. Exactly the sort of person who might stay behind despite all the warnings that collapse is imminent blaring.
DATE PLAYED: June 8, 2025.
Skitter Scatter
Date: June 7, 1996.
Time: 3:24am.
Place: The twenty-secondth floor of the Rambler, the floor below the Patel's personal quarters.
"Please evacuate the Rambler, collapse is imminent. This is not a drill. This is not a drill. Please evacuate...," the voice booms out from all directions as the team gets to the top of the spiral stair case.
Ever since the psychic attack on eighteen, the trip has been pretty smooth sailing. The only three armed people they passed were running downstairs so fast that they even stood to one side of the stairs to let Genny keep going. Boxes of paperwork have showed in small piles. A smashed laptop with a scattering of blood where someone seems to have cut themselves on the screen. A small fire near a kitchenette. Patel is the kind of guy who hires the kind of people who develop loyalty only as an extreme version of selfishness. This far up, everyone likely knew of the "plan" but what good is being in the eye of the hurricane when a nuclear bomb is being dropped?
It is the twenty-secondth floor that pulls them to a stop. A huge bank of computers and hundreds of filing cabinets are the primary decorations followed by desks with multiple monitors set-up. A communication hub of sorts. One more populated than any floor they have seen in the past half-hour. The people are running around shoving paperwork and laptop into boxes. Screaming, "HURRY UP!," as they load data into disks. Rats fleeing the ship with blueprints of the ship.
It is one person in particular that Hitomi stops and hails: "Hey, Mariya, what the fuck?"
Dr. Mariya Kazuo. Professor of Economics at Pensacola Polytechnic. Speciality is in ultra-rich economic bubbles and the impact on local economies. The speciality of that specialty is The GLOW and people like Roman Patel. Makes sense that she would have been tapped to work here. Also makes sense why Hitomi hasn't seen Mariya enough in the past three months to break up. Hitomi was worried that dating a woman her mom's age was some kind of weird lesbian oedipal thing. Sex was mediocre at best, anyhow.
Dr. Kazuo turns around and sees Hitomi and lets out a smile. "Mochi, I didn't know you were working for Pat..." Then stops. Takes in the blood and the grime and look on Genny's face. Takes in Eustace. "Oh, this is all your doing, right? You are the one that is taking down the Rambler?"
"Well, it's actually Amy wants to crash her dad's estate, literally, but we are volunteering our services to help her win the worst daughter of the year award. Why don't you go ahead and tell your drones to put their boxes down. No way we're letting this data out of here."
"THIS IS MY LIFE'S WORK!"
"Your life's work is the death of the human race," Eustace says. Only, despite standing just a meter from Hitomi, she can't help but think it sounds like he is shouting with the voice of a jet engine from a kilometer away. So incredibly loud and yet so incredibly quiet. Hitomi watches Mariya's nose start bleeding.
Dr. Kazuo shakes her head and pulls out a small gun and in response Genny and Hitomi both get their guns up as well.
"Are you going to shoot me? And what the fuck is he?"
It is Varvara that answers, her voice sounding icy cold. Hitomi worries that something has broken. What could she have possible seen in the guilt trip room?
"He is something new, and they won't have to shoot you if I break every bone in your body."
Dr. Mariya Kazuo looks around and makes a decision...
Will she put down the gun and surrender? (Even) → [c72] NO!
Genny has Nerves (3) + Shoot (3) + 1 for range. He gets an Extreme.
...she aims her gun right at Hitomi and gunfire explodes out. As Hitomi is opening her eyes, assuming she might be dead, she sees Mariya's body hit the ground. Several of the drones are spinning and seeing Genny aiming a gun at them, start dropping boxes and scattering their materials as they head for the stairs.
Hitomi walks up, lighting a cigarette, and fights back tears that Mariya does not deserve. "Anyhow, I guess I'm breaking up with you..."
Eustace looks around and in the most normal voice he has managed in the past few hours says, "We have to try and take down all this data, can't risk something vital being recovered in the wreckage."
Hitomi has full control of the system from earlier so setting up all the digital aspects should be easy.
For destroying the physical, it might take a lot of time. Let's let Varvara make a roll: Brawn (3) + Fix (2) + 1 (Lighter). She gets a Critical. So that's good enough to do it but they are down another ally.
Hitomi wipes her eyes and starts logging back into the system. Data is scattered all over. It is only a matter of time before she has sent out kill commands from Patel's systems. She uses data from a back catalog of junk: solitaire rules, how to solve Rubik's Cubes, first edition Dungeons & Dragons, the breeding cycle of frogs in Brazil. The kind of stuff that will look like technical instructions and it might take days, weeks, or even years before people realize just how much they have lost.
Genny and Eustace are gathering up papers and putting them into a pile when Varvara approaches Hitomi. "I need your lighter."
"I didn't know you smoke."
"I did, once, not any more. I'm going to burn all this to dust."
Genny, overhearing, starts to point out that it's a lot of files, but Varvara cuts him off. "My brother died...was sacrified...to add a few pennies to Patel's bottom line. I want to destory Patel's dreams and make sure no one can ressurrect them."
"Amy is going to drop this building," Hitomi says.
"Good. Don't worry about me. I'm a gândac de bucătărie. A cockroach. I'll live as long as the universe wills it."
Hitomi hesitates but hands her lighter over to Varvara who nods and then starts to set fire to various piles. Hitomi thinks about it a moment and then goes in and switches off all fire suppression systems. The Rambler has a good chance of burning down. No pun intended.
As the remaining three get into Patel's private lift and start going up, Varvara shouts out to Eustace, "Hey, Witch-King, fix this."
Eustace nods and the elavator doors slide shut.
DOUG'S COMMENTARY
I am tired, space pilgrims. We have managed to cut through a lot of the extra books, DVDs/Blu-rays, boardgames, and pipe tobacco tins but still have several loads left to go before we are finished for the move. There tends to be a variety of muscles sore each and every day, but hey: moving is free gym.
I realized this episode that at some point in time I had dropped the first "r" in "Varvara" and was writing her name as Vavara. I'll go back and fix some of it but no doubt it will be woven into several episodes from here on out.
Not sure if I have much to say. As I stated up near the beginning, the mental image of it was a bit of the scene in Final Fantasy 7 where Avalanche is running up all the stairs at Shinra HQ. Only we focused on a few floors where they were running from one staircase to the other and not the scenes of them having to stop and hold their ribs because they were exhausted.
Tying in Dr. Mariya Kazuo was an odd bonus but I'm fine with it.
I'm ready to play the final episode. We'll start with a Advance and Time Out and then probably half the episode will be a somewhat freeform showdown.
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
"Up the Rambler" is Photo by adriaan venner scheepers on Unsplash.
"Alarum" is Photo by Nastuh Abootalebi on Unsplash.
"Garden Party" is this photo.
"Mariya Kazuo" is this photo.
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