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• "Previously..." and Campaign/Arc Summary
• The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont Episode 12 — Scrap in the Scrapyard
• Rooting for the Rotor Control
• The Return to Antioch
• Doug's Commentary
• Mechanical and Story Notes
• Credits
• Taxonomy and Technical Data

Previously, on The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

After the death of Eustace, Hitomi has started to gather a team of specialists that can help continue the mission. Genny Yusuda is an ex-commando and now gun-for-hire that has put aside monetary considerations to do what is right. Nemesio Jones — helicopter pilot, mechanic, and nerd — is an old friend of Genny's that has joined in. Finally, the street-punk monk Varvara Clean — known for using artificial meditation-enhancing moods — has brought her own blend of street smarts and physical prowess. The team is currently trying to fix Jones' helicopter, the Green Lady, while racing the clock.

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 12 — Scrap in the Scrapyard

Let's find out where they can get the parts needed at this time of night. We'll draw a card and take it's difficulty rating - 4. c34 = 5. -4 = 1. So not very hard at all. I'd like a little fight so we'll say scrap yard with minimal guards [enough to help test out the new team]. Thompson & Sons Scraps. Owned by Geoffrey Thomspon's daughter. Jill Lakeford. Hires recovering addicts and ex-cons to help run the place. A non-lethal Brawl rather than a full on fight. That's fine with me.

Location in the GLOW: We'll do d66 but count from the bottom right instead so it is near the current location. 6 and 4. Looking at the GLOW map table, this puts us at 15,9. That puts us in the same rough area as ex Knives-compound which makes sense for a scrapyard.

Expected Scene: The new team attempts to steal the parts from Thompson & Sons Scraps.

Scene Test: [c60] 3. 2d10 = 3 + 5. Another minor complication (2 of 5 for Eustace's return). This tells me two things. 1) This was the same card that was pulled that led to Eustace's death and therefore I need to shuffle the cards because I probably flipped the deck and 2) There's something else to fight. Something from the scrapyard itself? Yeah, that's funny to me.

Actual Scene: The team goes to break in but finds military grade tech coming to life and fighting all people.

Setting the Scene. Rooting for the Rotor Control.

Date: Wednesday, June 5, 1996.

Time: 2:45am.

Place: Thompson & Son Scraps.

The brawl with the workers we'll just put at Critical/Critical/6. Very much so a warm-up.

The fight with the tech, though. Let's see. [c41] gives me a helmet icon and "demanding tones." [c93] gives me a robotic leg icon and "a might or endurance challenge". A police enforcer robot, a bruiser type, designed to intervene and break up riots. Scrapped after it killed a few peaceful protesters.

Funnily enough, Dean Spencer dropped an absolutely awesome bit of filler art that will do nicely to help describe the robo-enforcer. Almost gorilla-like. Wrist guns in its right arm. Extendable baton in its left.

Now, to stat the thing. I like the "Angry Giant" template. Bad Guy 3. 6 Grit. Attack is 2xCrit. Defense is Crit. Has the Titan feat (only takes one damage per attack). Grab and Throw and Parry. Instead of Parry, I will use "Defective Cyberware". Essentially, instead of taking Grit damage, the enemy loses a bit of itself. It will rip off its arms or some such. Maybe the characters get a bonus depending, but I like it.

DATE PLAYED: April 3, 2025.

Rooting for the Rotor Control.

Date: Wednesday, June 5, 1996.

Time: 2:45am.

Place: Thompson & Son Scraps.

"Geoffrey Thompson, before his death, had a contract with the US Military. Note that I said You Ess and not The GLOW," Hitomi explains as the group approaches the outer fence of Thompson & Sons Scrap. Actually owned by Jill Lakeford. Geoffrey's daughter. Jacob and Joshua, the two sons that were meant to take over, both ended up washing their hands of it. Jacob by way of meeting a man-of-means who enjoyed showering a younger husband with fancy clothes and a triple stack of designer drug habits. Joshua by way of contracting a Soulburn virus and being forced to leave the GLOW. Jill, who married humble architect Waylon Lakeford, figured it was at least worth a tax write-off. Her and her husband now keep it functioning partially as a half-way house and occasional money laundering scheme.

Declare a successful building project a failure. Declare the valuable materials from the failed project as consigned to the scrapyard. Toss in a bunch of junk scrap for the records. Or just fake the records. Then use the good building materials to cut corners on the next project. Repeat every two to three years to skim a few million creds off the top.

"This leads to an opportunity for us. You see, Pensacola can handle the building of aether-enhanced helicopters and drones with no problem. However, some of the parts are actually handled by the American Air Force which has legacy contracts with the Pensacola air fields. The American government over builds parts that have no use outside of The GLOW and upsell to us poor GLOW folk at premium. We have more money than sense so we over buy. A lot of it gets melted down and or reconstructed into expanding the land more and more kilometers off the coast. But some fiddly bits end up in places like this."

As Hitomi is talking, Genny is cutting a hole in the fence large enough to bring his truck around. Varvara is keeping a careful watch. Jones is chewing on an unlit cigar and sweating profusely in the late night heat.

"Daughter Thompson, now Lakeford, stashes some the tech for her own use and contacts. Word on the street was that she put out a fire sale on some parts that might fit the bill but there's a general consensus with my contacts that most people consider any tech capable being made by the US Military-Industrial-Complex being a bit too 1989 for their tastes. Its the 90s for goodness sakes. Hoverstones and Liquid-Air Dirigibles are the rage. That and small unmanned-air-vehicles. Helicopters are for tourists. No offense, Jones."

"Umm, none taken," says Jones as he wipes his forehead.

Genny finishes pushing the gap in the fence back far enough that they can drive the truck through. Only his truck is old and loud and will surely trip all the sensors. The plan is to get the part as close as they can to the gap and use the truck as back-up if it goes pear shaped. Another element of the plan is to use non-lethal force. The people hired to watch this scrapyard are the kind of folks one offense away from disappearing into the kind of prison people don't like to talk about. Hitomi tries very hard not to think about the phrase "Spiritual Torture" and the intersection with the incarcerated.

Besides, the general wisdom on Jill's reformers is that they are meant to put up token resistance but if people want to steal scrap then so be it. She'll just claim the scrap was worth way more credits than it actually is and get a bigger insurance pay off.

Genny nods and Varvara takes point. Leaping from junk pile to junk pile with such speed and silence that Hitomi wonders if the woman has mystical powers. By contrast, Jones and Genny just clump on through. Hitomi follows somewhere in between. She would rather not get punched. Besides, there's a part of her that still has a internal twitch remembering the fights Eustace was in. Blades slicing through flesh. Eyes and body glowing with Soulburn as if The GLOW itself were directing him. The GLOW or some terrible intelligence behind it.

She looks forward to retiring to some cottage somewhere and growing petunias.

"Jones," Genny says a little bit too unquietly for Hitomi's comfort, Yusuda might be itching for a fistfight, "You are up my man."

Jones nods by way of reply and in the half-light of the nighttime scrapyard beings looking through stacks of parts. It only takes him about half an hour to locate the bits needed. Another fifteen minutes and he has detached all the parts required. Hitomi fights the urge to light up during this time, despite things going smoothly, because she is pretty sure that your average ex-junky can smell cig smoke at a quarter mile. Chum for the sharks. [1]

After Jones frees the part he strains to stop it from dropping to the ground. Varvara, who has been pretty much just a pale shadow this whole time, drops down quietly beside him and hoists it up. With a little help from Genny and Jones, she gets it balanced on her back. Good news, they won't need to get the truck past the fence. [2]

Bad news, the dim half-light has gone full-bright which means someone, and not one of the four interlopers, has triggered the alert. Sure enough, five men of various ages and a fairly singular background start walking towards them. Each has that washed out harried luck of a person who has put a wreck of a life back together through energy drinks, shallow faith, and the kind of help group where you talk shit about your ex-wife and what a bitch she was for not taking the abuse.

The leader, a black man with fuzzy hair and a tattoo of a teddy bear on his face, speaks in a thick Jamaican accent that seems well-below honest: "Naw, Naw, four littl' piggies. Can't be doin' all that." Yes, definitely fake.

Varvara, not saying a word, shifts the load on her back and then does a little tip-toe run that makes Hitomi think of a Russian ballerina she saw as a child while still in Oxford. The run ends with Varvara leaping three meters in the air and then dropping down right in front of the leader. Without dropping the rotor control parts they came from, Varvara kicks straight up and catches the leader in the chin while the man is trying to get out, "Wha," in what has to be his normal accent — bog-standard Mississippi drawl — before his whole body travels up on the end of her foot and crashes back down. A white man with beard and various runic symbols on his arms — Pagan or white supremacist, Hitomi cannot tell at this distance — shouts something about "skinny bitch" before lunging to grab Varvara. Seeming forgetting the gravity defying woman has two legs. Her first leg comes down and springs out her second which hits the Mr. Runes in the chest hard enough to bounce him back. His head slaps into an old car and bounces and he goes down harder than his supervisor.

Genny chuckles — Hitomi is a little bit irked that overprotective mode isn't being used to smother the ShaoDra — and runs forward pulling out his Microwavers. They look like a pair of defib paddles and are capable of sending out quick bursts of microwave energy that does funky things to people's brains at close distance. Nothing permanent, unless the user has a vindictive streak, but it can make you a lot less likely to be active. Jones, on the other side, grabs up some scrap metal and goes to join in. [3]

The leader is trying to stand back up, saying "Hey, now..." when Varvara kicks him hard in the back of the head and drops him a second time. Two men, looking similar enough to be brothers of some Hispanic background, rush over to protect their boy when Genny is there point the Microwavers at one each. A look of confusion on their face turns to nausea as their brain and nervous system decides maybe vomiting is a useful tactic. The one on the left spews hard enough that Genny has to step back. The one on the right just grabs his stomach with one arm while waving away the fight with the other. This leaves just one guy, who has squared off with Jones. Jones swings the pipe at the man's head but the man ducks and punches Jones right in his nose. Brass knuckles shinning the bright artificial light. Jones goes down hard on his backside. [4]

While Varvara and Genny are sizing up the man fighting Jones, a loud tearing metal sound pulls all eyes over to a stack of junk metal. Another tearing roar and a car door flies up and lands near the foot of Varvara who easily dances away. From this gap, a silver arm punches through. Then another. Then a head, strange and beastlike. Glowing green sensor lights blink as the head swivels and picks out the combatants. "STOP. PRotesTING....withOUT PRIOR APproval IS A CLass......Threeeee Viola....SHUN." The first arm out the heap clicks and clacks and a pair of guns pop out.

"Oh shit," Hitomi says, pulling out her own gun. Likewise, Genny is bringing his assault rifle around from his back after unceremoniously dropping his Microwavers. He kicks at the feet of the barely conscious black man who was leading the night scrappers. "This one of yours?" The black shakes his head. All four of the conscious scrappers are looking terrified. "Fuck," Genny says. "Like a goddamned Kindergarten class. Get your boys out of here!" [5]

Varvara takes off the running and gets on top of a stack of cars behind the strange Gorilla bot with the shouty voice. As it turns its head to start tracking her, Genny opens fire but the bullets just bounce off of all the junk metal the bot is encased within. Genny curses and pulls out a fresh mag and slams it home. Hitomi has her pistol out and shoots into the robots head. With a satisfying clang, one of the bullets seems to land. The bot swivels its head back around to look at Hitomi. Jones moves back and scurries around some wrecked A/C units to try and get cover. [6]

In retaliation, the strange bot lets loose a hail of bullets from its gun arm. Genny and Hitomi run to the sides but the sheer quantity of bullets is hard to avoid, especially since every bullet that misses as a chance to bounce off of scrap and send more projectiles in the air. A number of minor cuts break out and blood starts dripping down their arms and backs. After its barrage, the Gorilla looking robot pulls itself out of the wreckage and starts closing the gap. [7]

With a leap, Varvara comes down off the stack of cars and crunches the bot in knee joint on its left leg. The hefty enforcer stumbles from this and swings its left arm, now sporting a retractable baton at her. She dodges back but is unable to get clear of the fight. Genny takes careful aim and shoots into the main body of the Gorilla with some of the bullets being rewarded with internal fluids spewing out of the front of the beast. Hitomi keeps up her fire but aghast to see one of the bullets bounce off and catch Varvara in the cheek. It's a minor glancing blow but it still rattles her. [8]

With a big sweep of its gorilla-like arm, the enforcer bot grabs Varvara by the lag and tosses her. The street monk easily catches herself with the fall and lands gracefully and is back into an attack stance within seconds. During those seconds, though, Genny and Hitomi are again in the fire range of the bot. Genny is hit pretty badly, with blood squirting from his leg, as Hitomi takes off running and skids behind a home gas tank. Praying to no god in particular that it has been completely drained. Which it has. [9]

As Genny and Hitomi are bracing for the next round, a loud clang is heard and a huge chunk of scrap falls down and smashes into the back of the enforcer bot. Its gorilla frame shutters. The huge magnetic mover arm has just dropped an industrial level bread oven on top of it. Clanging and shouts are heard from all around as the scrappers run back out. They seem to have clocked that the robbers have turned into protectors of sorts and are paying back Genny stepping in to protect them. They are not so stupid to get out into the main line of fire, but are putting up enough fuss and noise that the Gorilla's head keeps turning and is having trouble locking onto actual threats.

Taking advantage of this, Varvara once again kicks the same damaged knee as before, this time kicking through it, and the bot falls over to one side. She then dances back out of the way in another ballet-like flourish as Hitomi and and Genny open fire. Genny goes all in, emptying and entire magazine into the bot. After a few seconds where they think the bot is definitely down, it stands back up. It shutters a moment and then ejects its gun arm which it just used to take a good number of the shots. [10]

The Gorilla then swings upon Varvara, bringing its baton down in a crush blow. The woman, maybe 1/3 the weight and build of the artificial enforcer, kicks her leg up in a sweeping axe kick. She grunts as she holds the baton up for a moment, then using the Gorilla's own weight and force brings her leg down hard and smashes in its head. Sparks fly up and the whole body crashes. [11]

Everyone breathes heavily for a few minutes. As soon as she catches her breath, though, Hitomi finally gives in for the cigarette she has been craving the whole time. A few deep inhales later she looks at the scrappers who are standing around and congratulating themselves for helping. "Thanks, guys."

"Hey, ma'am, no problem," says the leader. Fake accent all gone and attitude a lot less street thug. He points up towards the poles. "Boss likes us to put on a good show. Helps with the insurance claims. If we wallop you good, it's good for business. If we get wallop we flee early and often and make it look like we tried. Send in both tapes and bam, she gets paid. You know how it is." He turns to look at Genny, still clearly bleeding. "Thank you, man."

Genny shrugs. "Couldn't just let the thing kill us all. Instincts kicked in."

"You a vet?"

"Yeah, but not a good one."

"I hear that."

The two men shake and then the groups start to divide when Hitomi calls out. She tosses a Cred to the leader. "That's for helping, too. Tell your boss that this bit of MUNI enforcer bot tech might be worth shopping to a bidder."

Leader laughs and waves and soon enough the lights go back to half dim and the Hitomi and her new crew walk back to the truck, the gear the needed still being carried by the person who just kicked a killer robot to death.

Setting the Scene. The Return to Antioch.

Date: Wednesday, June 5, 1996.

Time: 6:32am.

Place: Antioch, secret base of the Order Psychics.

Another scene where I just play it by ear.

DATE PLAYED: April 3, 2025

The Return to Antioch.

Date: Wednesday, June 5, 1996.

Time: 6:32am.

Place: Antioch, secret base of the Order Psychics.

Bel wakes up next to Jade. She claims her name is Jade Evertree. Why she thinks lying to a psychic is a good idea, he will never know. Tamara Jenkins. Age 23. Too young for Bel. Too femme. Too slight. Still, in the aftermath of saying goodbye to Eustace, Bel needed something different.

He starts to get up and for a second pauses half-way out of bed. Why in the hell is he up? It takes him nearly twenty-seconds, a lifetime for a psychic — even a low-grade one like Bel — to have missed the obvious issue. The screams. Other psychics screaming is a very. bad. sign.

Though Bel (aka, Belladonna, the not so rare case of low grade psychic whose self-given name and code name have blended together, see also the aforementioned Jade) would rank himself pretty low down on the heroic scale — he doesn't even heroically do homework — the compulsion to be outside on the balcony is strong. So strong it takes him three seconds to even contemplate if he is doing this of his own free will.

In those three seconds, he spots the second sign that things have gone awry. Several Antioch Psychics are staring up and shouting. That's bad. The real bad part is that some other psychics have joined them. Psychics in kitsune masks. Field psychics. Who very nearly never show up to Antioch unless they are here to bring a renegade home. Wasps in the bee hive. Wolves in the sheep pen. It is around now that it occurs to Bel to look up.

Above Antioch a door the size of all heavens has appeared and opened. Large enough that folks must be able to see it for miles around. Miles and miles. Only he suspects that only people in Antioch can see it. He hopes so, or the whole "secret base" thing has just been greatly spoiled.

Right as Jade, blinking back sleep from her eyes, joins him on the balcony, he gasps and says, "Eustace?"

Because it is. Only the last six days have done something to Bel's former lover. Eustace has lost some body mass. His body is covered in some sort of primal sigils that burn the eyes to look at. That, and the wings. Eustace Delmont — formerly known as Nurse — has massive Soulburn wings spread out to either side and is gliding down over the lake and fountain at the center of Antioch.

Bel realizes he needs a much bigger list of bad things when they come down behind Eustace. Them. All Three of them. Returned to the surface after twenty-years. And no longer feeling the need to appear normal. They are unclothed. In their true form. Bel hears more screaming. Then more screaming. Jade is clutching her head and crying out for her mother. One of the Field Psychics has his mask off and is punching himself in the face. At least one of Antioch psychics seems to be trying to drown themselves in the fountain. People are scratching at their eyes. Blood is starting to flow.

The ground ruptures and large tanks shove up out the dirt. As they open, quadruple amputees — eyes removed and mouth turned into a breathing-and-feeding complex — are ejected out. Strange moans erupt from them as new limbs start growing to replace the old. More screeches for the damned.

Bel wonders why he is not so moved but the answer is obvious. He is too weak on the psychic scale to see what must be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off around him. Could a normal person even see Eustace?

As Eustace alights on the top of the fountain, Bel finally catches a glimpse something. A thin magenta line. Three thin magenta lines. Woven together. From each of the Witches Three. Tethering Eustace to some destiny. Bel sends out a thought. A wish. "Break free, lover."

Almost like Eustace can hear him, Eustace grabs at the line, seemingly aware of it for the first time in some time, and then extends one of his arm blades. Only know it looks like bone. Which it always was.

"Stop it, you are killing them," he says to the Three, who laugh and cackle. Then Eustace neatly slices the line clean in two. The Three laugh even louder and its the worst sound Bel has ever heard. What shocks him the most is that he realizes it is approval. They wanted Eustace to break free. [12]

With the line cut, the psychic onslaught seems to be dying down. People lapse from screams into sobs, from sobs into quiet moans.

Eustace lands on the ground and his wings fade into the morning light. "Everyone. I'm sorry about that. But I need your help. The Order is under assault and we must work together."

Bel shouts. "Nurse, is that really you?"

But before Eustace can shout back, the Three speak for him. Each one saying their bit. "Nurse no more." "Welcome your new brother, reborn." "We give you, Eustace Delmont, Witch-King."

DOUG'S COMMENTARY

Initially called "Moonblink" this episode was mean to focus on 3-4 scenes of Hitomi and crew getting up to at least the start of infiltrating the flying yacht headquarters of Dave Akari. However, I had the fun luck of catching a serious enough infection I had to take double dose antibiotics. For those keeping score — a peer group largely consisting of myself — this would be the third major illness in 2025. It has been a blast.

The change created by this illness is that a slightly simple opening scene grew into a fairly developed scene. And we got the Witch King. Which is a bit much but my voice currently sounds like gravel when I try talking so a little bit of too much is ok.

MECHANICAL AND STORY NOTES

1. Know + Detect (5 dice). Gets Crit + Basic. Then, to remove the part in a timely fashion, Know + Fix. Again, gets Crit + Basic.
2. Is it too heavy to carry? (Even) → [c113] No. It's carry-able. Let's do Brawn + Stunt + 2 Help. For Varvara that is 8 dice. She gets 2xCritical + Basic. She can essentially carry it without penalty once they help her get it up.
3. For pure show, Varvara goes in for Flying Kick. -1 ADR, +1 to hit. Can close the distance. Gets Extreme + 2x Basic. Genny and Jones have to spend their time closing the space. Hitomi holds back for now. The scrappers have 6 Grit remaining.
4. This time Varvara gets Crit + Basic and does another Grit. Genny will uses his Microwavers at this range with Nerves + Stunt + 1 (Range). He gets Exteme + Basic. That's 3 more Grit. Jones is Brawn + Stunt + 1 Help from the scrap. He whiffs and takes 3 Grit. Scrappers have 2 Grit remaining. Time to bring out the real threat.
5. Genny said his catchphrase in a dramatically appropriate way. He gets a Spotlight!
6. We'll give the enforcer bot partial cover this first time, making the characters shoot at -1. They also get +1 to dodge. Varvara will spend her turn closing the gap (no more ADR to spend). Genny rolls Nerves + Shoot +1 -1 so 6 dice. He fails to get a hit. Has to slam in another mag next turn. Hitomi only has 4 dice but manages Critical so does 1 Grit. Does Jones have his shotgun somewhere on his person? (Bad) → [c15] NO! Jones is pretty much out of this fight.
7. Hitomi spends a point of ADR to roll 7 total dice. Manages to roll a Crit + Basic and so takes 2 Grit. Jones is in full cover. Varvara will be out of arc of this attack. Genny has a total of 6 dice and also gets Crit + Basic and also takes 2 Grit.
8. Varvara gets 3xBasic = 1xCritical. She does damage to it, but doesn't have enough left over to get back out of the fray. This means Hitomi and Genny are shooting at a Gamble. Genny will spend his Spotlight to avoid hitting her, but due to the Titan feat it only does one damage. Hitomi spends 1 ADR and rolls 6 dice. Gets no hit and a single 1 which strikes Varvara. We'll give Hitomi You look NERVOUS for this and she uses up one Mag. Jones remains under cover.
9. Enforcer Bot uses Grab And Throw versus Varvara. She makes the Brawn + Endure roll and rolls with the fall. Genny spends ADR and only gets 2xBasic. He takes 4 more Grit. With ADR, Hitomi actually makes her dodge and takes no Grit.
10. Will the scrappers come back to help? (Even) → [c13] YES! They definitely want to repay Genny for helping them to escape. We'll give +1 Help to Dodge and Shoot but if the team misses then one of the five guys takes the hit. Varvara rolls 7 dice (Brawn + Fight +1 (Scrappers)). She gets Crit + Basic. Enough to kick the bot [2 Grit remaining] and bounce far enough back to not be in line of fire. Hitomi gets 5 dice (Nerves + Shoot -1 Nervous +1 Scrappers) and gets 1 Critical. Genny gets 7 Dice (Nerves + Shoot +1 Scrappers). He unloads a whole mag to get +1. He gets 3xBasic = 1 Critical. This would normally be enough to kill it but we'll say it uses its Defective Cyberware to tear off its gun arm to have one grit. It will go in for a lunge versus Varvara.
11. Varvara blocks Crit + Basic with her 7 dice. She takes two Grit. She then gets an Extreme on her attack. We'll add some flourish.
12. Eustace is going to get +2 Help. One because the Witches Three are kind of rooting for him. One because Bel, who probably loves Eustace second only to Hitomi, is sending out psychic support. 8 dice. And holy crap, Eustace rolled a Jackpot. He has 100% passed the Witches' test. He has graduated.

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 top picture for Thomspon Scraps was this photo by Documerica on Unsplash.

The second picture for Thompson Scraps was this photo by TFM WAC on Unsplash.

The Gorilla Bot is © Dean Spencer. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Antioch is actually a building on a Bogota campus: Photo by Camilo Botia on Unsplash.

Taxonomy and Technical Data

• World: The GLOW
• Campaign: The GLOW
• Arc: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont
• Post: Episode 12 - Scrap in the Scrapyard

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• "Previously..." and Campaign/Arc Summary
• Rebuilding the Squad
• The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont Episode 11 - Gathering New Allies
• Genny Yusuda
• Elsewhere
• Commentary: Soulburn and Runworld
• A Bird with No Wings
• The One Who Imbibes Thoughtfulness
• Doug's Commentary
• Mechanical and Story Notes
• Credits
• Taxonomy and Technical Data

Previously, on The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

Eustace Delmont — GLOW Order Psychic on the cusp of rising to full Witch — has died. Hitomi has managed to track down the Moonblink — Dave Akari's traveling hoverboat — and is planning on attacking but must deal with the emotional fall out of losing Eustace. Unknown to her, Eustace's spirit has been gathered by the Witches Three — the three otherworldly beings who are at the core of The GLOW — and has been taken elsewhere into dreamspace. Now Hitomi gathers up a new group of allies to carry out the mission for which Eustace gave his life: protecting the Order from a group of billionaires who seek world domination and an alliance with an ancient evil.

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.

Rebuilding the Squad

Eustace Delmont is dead. 

He is also still quite active but on another plane of existence. I am not sure if this will be a few scenes thing or a couple of episodes thing but at any rate the Outgunned way — and the Doug way — is to move forward. Eustace will be going through a few otherworldly moments. Hitomi will be getting revenge by going after Dave Akari and then Roman Patel. Eventually the stories will meet up, but it should take a few minutes.

KEYED SCENE: The next Major Twist or the fifth Minor Twist will set-up the return of Eustace Delmont to the world of the living. Somehow. I'll work it out.

When he does return he will be different. He will have the power of flight. He will also have extensive primal scarring.

For now, though, we need some new faces to help give Hitomi a chance. The obvious candidate #1 is Genny (Jinjuro Yusuda). The most logical Role for him is Commando. For his Trope we'll go with Party Killer. Genny is all about complaining about the situation though generally doing the right thing in a world where the right thing tends to get him in trouble.

For #2, we have a bit of a void. The other three main back-up characters: Libby (the mechanical dog), Bee (the twee sidekick), and BrokenRecord (the mentally frazzled street runner) are all poor choices. However, there was a moment where I considered keeping the Fractal Apocalypse and Shaolin Dragons as back-up allies. One of the previously introduced characters (from Episode Three - Bad Decisions Are Made) was Varvara Clean — bald [though finding art has changed this to more "really short haired], Eastern European, and a bit more serious than her partners in low-level crime. She would make a good hand-to-hand fighter with a parkour focus. Somewhere between street urchin and spiritualist. Her Role would be Fighter while her Trope would be Free-Spirit.

As for #3, I want a pilot-type that is attached to the party. An Ace with a helicopter. I have no previous person that perfectly fits this so we'll dive a bit into a few rolls. African-American by way of Central America. A bit chubby. The sort of character that gets a bit sidekick'd and left behind on the actual missions but occasionally comes into focus. Using Cyberpunk 2 we'll for Hispanic first name (#1, 75, Nemesio) and American last name (I like something a bit plain, like Jones). Nemesio Jones. Goes by Jones. Worked some overseas stuff with Genny before returning home to Texas. Eventually set up shop around the Pensacola area. Manages some flights out over the Gulf. Likes watching old cartoons and collecting old American comics. For him, Role = Ace. I think it will be fun to lean into his obsession with cartoons and comics and chose Neurotic Geek as his Trope.

In each individual case, we'll have a quickish scene all about set-up that introduces them and gives me a chance to work out their characterizations and such. I'll build them up from these basic foundations.

The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont. Episode 11 - Gathering New Allies

Setting the Scene. Genny Yusuda.

Date: Tuesday, June 4, 1996.

Time: 9:17pm.

Place: Juan Cafe, the After Hours Version.

Before we get to building a character for Genny, let's start out with a single question: would Juan have a place to cold storage a body [like, maybe not him personally, but somewhere he could call up]? (Even) → [c103] Yes? There's a corp prompt of "Piano Tuner's Anonymous". Let's build up from there. A building a few blocks from Juan towards the seedier section of the area. Piano Tuner's Anonymous with a weather-faded picture of a piano. Actually used to hide away bodies of various jobbers and on occasion sneak bodies out in various musical instrument boxes. Not owned by Juan but he and his jobbers are a major part of their business model so they would cut him some favor to stash Eustace's corpse. That's where Eustace is physically located during the interim.

Now: on to making Genny. He's a Commando. From that he gets a point in Brawn and several skills. For his Feats related to his Role we'll take Marksman (gets rerolls when handling rifle, shotguns, and machine guns) and Military Background (rerolls related to recalling/using military training). From the Party Killer Trope he'll take Nerves and the Feat Head on a Swivel (Free reroll with sensing danger/enemies, essentially).

He'll get an assault rifle with two mags. He also has his "microwavers". These are close range only, +1. Non-Lethal. Besides that he gets his scrying glass and a knife. From his part of the deal he has enough he will buy a bullet proof vest and have $1 left over. His flaw is that he distrusts folks. His catchphrase is "Like a goddamned Kindergarten class!" usually said as he is treating everyone else like a child.

PLAYED ON: March 23, 2025

Genny Yusuda.

Date: Tuesday, June 4, 1996.

Time: 9:17pm.

Place: Juan Cafe, the After Hours Version.

The mood is appropriately funereal. Which strikes Hitomi as almost funny. With the exception of Myranda — currently chain smoking in the corner and looking more upset than Hitomi — most of the people here had a much more questionable relationship with Eustace. Genny and Julian both seemed terrified of him. Juan laughed it off but Hitomi knew that having anyone representing some degree of law and order — if the Order represents such a thing at all — was a point of contention. Bee treated Eustace like a violent uncle. BrokenRecord liked Eustace but then BrokenRecord is prone to have conversations with flowers she finds growing in the sidewalk.

Still when Genny drug a distraught Hitomi — and Eustace's inexplicably mutilated body — to Juan's in the early morning hours Juan put out an all-call to jobbers than the cafe was closed. Invitation only. Bee was summoned to put Hitomi to bed while Juan handled the body. In the midst of Hitomi's near panic attack at the words, "I'll take care of the body," Juan ensured her the body was going to a cryo-storage facility that owed him enough favors that he could cash in a dozen directives over the handling of Eustace without even scratching the surface. With that she relented and crashed for four hours — most of it nightmares involving strange crows and distant planets — before waking up. After a brief check-in with Mrs. Yuuki, Hitomi returned here. To find a sort of wake. Everyone here was someone that had worked with her and Eustace in these past few days.

"I said I am in," Genny repeats after Hitomi's seconds of shocked silence have lapsed into nearly a minute. The older man went from harangued uncle to protective big brother almost immediately after Hitomi had repeated the phrase "Eustace is dead" to him last night. Other people at the PS Nontooth Fillup had spotted the very-bad-stuff-happened corpse and cleared the area. Hitomi went into guardian mode, expecting the skeletal ServiSynths to kick up some sort of fuss but for some reason they actually helped to act as a screen and went around powering down the station to avoid any other customers.

How could she have known they had received orders from a force so inhuman that most people would go mad just looking upon them, the same force which killed Eustace in order to alter the shape of his soul?

"What do you mean you are in? There is no pay."

"Fuck the pay. If the story you said was true, then this is all of us. You and Eustace were going above and beyond. He punched through multiple people to get to me and get me safe. I want in. If these people work out their plan as intended, everyone's life will be hell. A world-wide battlefield sold to the highest bidder and people like me would end up shooting kids just to buy a loaf bread. Fuck that. Been there, done that."

"It's true. Fact is, since Dave's had the tech to create small-scale Harrowing for years now, it's probably worse than we think."

"Mochi...?," Bee asks from her corner where she has been sitting quietly for the past hour.

"Yeah, Bee?"

"Are we all going to die?"

Hitomi grunts and lights her first cigarette in hours. It's how she knows she is depressed. Her mood low enough that things like caffeine, food, and nicotine just barely call out to her. It tastes terrible. Her body is in some sort of panic-survival mode where it just wants to drink water and sleep.

"Yeah, Bee. Some fairly powerful people are about to get a lot of people killed and everyone who dies is only going to make them stronger. Bonus points if we die screaming." After Bee starts stobbing, Hitomi wishes she could take it back. Only she knows what she said is true. No doubt the Patel-Akari alliance will sell this to the masses as some sort of innovative new forward thinking march of progress, but the reality will be a great slide back into feudalism. The great cycle of power. Power disperses and collects. Toss in the strange brew of The GLOW and Soulburn and Lamark and his Witches Three into it all and it will be unlike anything reality has witnessed before.

The whole terrifying puppet show barely holding the Earth up a few meters from the Gates of Hell relying on such thin threads. "That's the way to do it!," by the biggest Punch of them all.

Genny looks Hitomi in the eyes and lights up his own cigar. Juan shrugs and takes a sip of expensive coffee.

Hitomi stubs out her cigarette and reaches over to grab a room temperature sandwich that was meant to be her dinner over an hour ago. Takes a few bites and washes it down with sparkling water that has long lost its bubbles.

"Ok, Genny, you win. Let's form a band."

Setting the Scene. Elsewhere.

Ehhhh, just going to riff this one.

PLAYED ON: March 23, 2025

Elsewhere.

Eustace awakens to see stars and little else. There is an absence of sound. An absence of smells. A sense of a deep, dark cold runs through him. Against his back, he feels a rough surface. He blinks a few times and has the disconcerting sense that his eyes are not eyes but mere frames of reference. This becomes even more worrisome as he realizes that had he organic eyes, they would be boiled out of his skull. Because he is nowhere with an atmosphere. A place wholly hostile to human life.

He is elsewhere.

Sitting up — again another pretense to organic existence where it merely comes down to a shift in the frame of reference — he finds himself on a dark rock somewhere in the depths of space. Unsure how he knows this, he knows immediately that the one speck of light — admittedly brighter than others but on a scale where it is like comparing a rock to a grain of sand in the shadow of a mountain — must be the sun. He tries to bring together the psychic threads to run the math at probable distance from the center of the solar system but is shocked to find himself completely clear of the threads matrix. He knows he should be afraid but fear is for living things and he doubts he qualifies for the entrance exam at this point in time.

"You are standing on the remains of Yuggoth," says a voice behind him. More pretense at organic reality. Not a voice. Not words. Just an agreed upon lie.

Turning to face the speaker he sees the Witches Three and at least one pretense has ceased. They no longer appear anything like human. The three of them are each tripoidal. A body of three sharp angles jutting out from a central axis like three fish having swum together. In the center of the main fish body, where the dorsal fin would be, an arm extrudes with three joints between the body and the hand — an extra elbow of sorts — only the hand is a three fingered claw not unlike a crow's foot. Where the caudal fin would be the fish-like form tapers into a long twitching snake body, one per section. Each witch therefore moving around on three snake-like legs. At the top the three sub-bodies come together in a head like what would happen if you glued three beakless bird heads together into an obscene take on a triskelion. The true mouth seems to be at the top, with each body contributing a bony wedge like a three beaked bird only where the beak juts out of the top of their skull. A scattering of crab-eyes on stalks dot the head and upper torsos.

In the intersection between these three parts, large wing-like structures extrude and contract. The infamous cowls no doubt being some human trick to see them as robes rather than as what they are: appendages capable of interstellar travel.

A second of the Witches "speaks" — and Eustace senses this one is the Maiden of the three — "A terrible place full of vile things that met its end in a war finished before the genetic code for life on your planet was finalized. Destroyed by the war between its people and our own. A deadly war that ended both species at the same time. Scattered us to star winds to drift. Until a single piece of dead Yuggoth with the ashes of us three and a number of them broke free from its long stasis and fell down into the gravity well of your star."

The third — "Mother" — adds more details to the story. "Had Yuggoth lived, they would have turned your people into a kind of plaything."

Eustace sorts through all the various concepts that make up his being and finally finds one not unlike a voice. "Unlike yourselves? Turning us into playthings?"

Crone lets out a shrill laugh at this. "Lamark tasked us, tiny child."

Mother: "If we cheated a little and spread bits of ourselves into your human code, so be it. A dead race has a right to survive."

Maiden: "You surprised us by finding a connection to us. Not the first, but you called out to us harder than the others."

Crone: "Faced with the Symplegades you choose to steer your ship not into calm waters but deeper into the rocks and find home there."

Mother: "Flowing with the tempest like barnacles sinking upon a wrecked ship into the deep."

Maiden: "You seek to befriend the dragon rather than conquer it."

Eustace attempts to interrupt their constant lecture. "I am so very confused." All three laugh at this, which only slightly enrages him. Emotion finally finding a way into his strange aether-body. "I assume I am dead but how is my spirit here? We are so far from the nearest Soulburn."

Crone: "You think that we are limited by Soulburn?"

Eustace: "It is well known that the effects end at the edge of The GLOW. Out here should just be physics."

Mother: "Pah, little thing. Things impacted by those in Soulburn are not limited."

Maiden: "Only those in the Soulburn can see the miracles, though. Such is the limits of your fourth-dimensional minds."

Eustace stares at them. "Are you saying that witches have the power to change the world outside of The GLOW."

Crone: "Of course. There's a little white farmhouse in Nebraska. 107 Jerry Lane. Plinkett. Owned by the Dallas family. Only just now, I thought it blue."

Mother: "The Dallases see it as white because they are not in Soulburn."

Maiden: "The people of The GLOW do not see it at all because they are not in Nebraska."

"Then what good is it?"

All three: "One day one might be within the other: the farmhouse brought into The GLOW or the GLOW into the farmhouse."

Eustace stands in silence long enough that the Witches unfurl their wings and fly up into the space around the fragment of Yuggoth. In this environment, it is not like wings at all but more like manta rays. After a moment — in this non-place it could be a week later or days before the conversation even began — he speaks again. "27B-6. They use Soulburn to pull it to earth. Then, after it crashes and creates a new Harrowing, the people who never realized they were at an impact site wake up one day dead. Bootstrap paradox on steroids. You get the power to cast the spell after the spell has already been cast."

All three: "You can learn!" They dance and piourette in the absence of gravity.

"What happens then?"

Crone: "What happens when any one gains the power to destroy worlds? They make new worlds to destroy."

Mother: "Even now, those fools are seeking to align themselves to Him."

Maiden: "And when he has the Harrowing, he will rewrite the stars to always be right. He will bring R'lyeh up from the depths and humans will be as terrible as gods."

All three: "So long has he dreamed the dream of Harrowing in man until they were ready to give the dream back."

"Who?"

All three: "Cthulhu, high priest to Azathoth."

"WHO?!"

This brings more of that strange bird-fish laughter. "What does it matter," they all say at the same time and millenia apart, "if you stop it? Beat your drum, Skarl, and keep the mad center of the universe asleep."

With that, they stop and each raises a single trisectional arm and brings it down in a pantomine of knocking. In space, between here and that very distant sun, a large door appears and begins to open. It is the size of a few atoms and larger than Jupiter.

Without saying another thing Eustace kicks off of the shard of Yuggoth and pushes himself forward. Wings the color of every possible shade of visibile light at once flap behind him and propel him through the door. To elsewhen and nowhere.

Commentary: Soulburn and Runworld

March 23, 2025

Many, many years ago I wrote an RPG and played it with friends and posted bits of it online: Runworld. It was heavily inspired by a kind of pop-lit precursor to an over-fandom take on Philip K. Dick's writings. In it, there was an odd mechanic based on two drugs. The first was Run, which gave you the power to create miracles, and the second was Seek, which gave you the power to witness miracles created by Run. Only the people who took Seek could see the effects of those who used Run. It was one of several reasons why the world was fracturing into many versions of itself.

It was a hyper-paranoid, very strange sort of RPG that had a tri-stat system using descriptors that somewhat guessed several big shifts in the indie RPG landscape. After playing at it a bit, I left it drift into nothingness but the central concept I still really liked. Another major concept, that the world in the 2020s would devolve into a War on Meaning where realities split over and over due to people arguing about the meaning of words, is a bit less of happy place, considering reality right now.

While trying to think up what to do for this scene — where would be a good elsewhere, how strongly was I going to cast it into the Lovecraftian mythos with some major changes — the realization that Soulburn was kind of a repeat of that concept occurred to me. It allows for near infinite approach to miracles but you have to be inside the sphere of Soulburn to actually wield and witness those miracles. By sheer coincidence — as much as two ideas roughly two decades apart by the same author might be coincidence — I had stumbled upon the same paradox a second time. I figured it was good to just establish it as such.

Since the Witches Three were introduced back in the second ever The GLOW post, they were noted as likely inhuman forces. They have been broached a few times. Outside of hinting them as more crow-like, I had no real idea of what they were. In the back of my head, I had the idea that they were alien forces somehow beholden to the initial impact event. When I was writing this scene, I came up with the entire description as tripoidal fish-bird-snakes and how they were tied into the world lore pretty much on the spot.

There is a glitch between that early post and this one though. In that one, they turned the White House blood red as a warning. By the logic of this post, that would only have worked if the White House had been subjected to Soulburn. My only real explanation is that while Soulburn enhances their powers greatly and allows them to return briefly to reality, their true powers extend past it in more limited fashion. That or someone snuck cannisters to the WH. Either/or.

The reference to Cthulhu includes an important clarification at odds with many modern retellings of the Cthulhu Mythos. In the original story, Cthulhu is not seeking to destory humanity. The reason why people might serve him is not a paradox that needs any trite answers. In fact, the wording is this:

These Great Old Ones, Castro continued, were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape—for did not this star-fashioned image prove it?—but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R’lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for Them. But at that time some force from outside must serve to liberate Their bodies. The spells that preserved Them intact likewise prevented Them from making an initial move, and They could only lie awake in the dark and think whilst uncounted millions of years rolled by. They knew all that was occurring in the universe, but Their mode of speech was transmitted thought. Even now They talked in Their tombs. When, after infinities of chaos, the first men came, the Great Old Ones spoke to the sensitive among them by moulding their dreams; for only thus could Their language reach the fleshly minds of mammals.

Then, whispered Castro, those first men formed the cult around small idols which the Great Ones shewed them; idols brought in dim aeras from dark stars. That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return.

It makes a lot of sense given the various balls that I have been juggling — some from my own mind, others found through months of dice rolling — that The Harrowing with its hints of Mythos from the very start might in fact be the mechanism to which They seek to rise.

It occurs to me this entire episode might essentially be lore. That's ok. I'll no doubt get a few roles in but the second arc of The GLOW has been missing quite a few lore scenes already and its nice to sit down and try and work out what everything might actually mean.

Expected Scene: Hitomi and Genny gather up Jones.

Scene Test: [c112] 4. 2d10 = 2 + 10. Minor Twist (1 of 5). "Your hardware is recalled." Jones is available but his copter is being worked on.

Actual Scene: They show up to LoGrav — Jones' business — to find out that the particular helicopter cannot fly.

Setting the Scene. A Bird with No Wings.

Date: Tuesday, June 4, 1996.

Time: 11:23pm.

Place: LoGrav, Nemesio Jones' Helicopter Rental Business.

This is mostly to establish Nemesio Jones as a character. Like with Genny, 2/3s playing this scene will be working on a character sheet with a quick in-character scene.

Jones is definitely an Ace. From this he get Nerves (and some skills). Jones is going to be the type of pilot who likes taking care of his ride [maybe why he gave into a voluntary recall] and getting there with skill over any crazy stunts. This will give him Proven Driver (free reroll when handling a helicopter) and Mechanic (free reroll when repairing a ride). His gear is the Green Lady (a green helicopter of practical functions) and "she" has a speed of 1. He might get an upgrade ver shortly. His weapon of choice is a shotgun.

For his Trope we are going with Neurotic Geek. For this, he'll take Focus [much more about brains over sneaks]. For this Feat I think Scientist [Engineering] would fit him the most. Got great scores in college but his laziness and general avoidance of struggle left him a bit behind so he went into military tech before found that was worse and was semi-rescued from the life by Genny.

DATE PLAYED: March 27, 2025.

A Bird with No Wings.

Date: Tuesday, June 4, 1996.

Time: 11:23pm.

Place: LoGrav, Nemesio Jones' Helicopter Rental Business.

The black man behind the counter calls out as they walk through the doors, "Sorry, folks, we are closed for a week." A TV screen is showing the Super Friends work through the kind of world-destroying problem that can be solved in twenty-two minutes. The room is thick with cigar smoke. The man, not badly dressed, has a cigar and a pint of ice cream and seems to be watching Saturday morning cartoons. Hitomi notes the shotgun in each reach just in case the "folks" don't take the hint about being closed.

She walks up him and puts a trio of items down in front. [1]

He glances down at what whoever this person who clearly failed listening class might have tossed on his clean counter and chokes on his cigar smoke. "The first three issues of Doom Patrol Revives!?"

Hitomi leans over the counter in full flirt-with-geek mode. "The only three issues." A 1974 limited run meant to hit at least eight issues. The Doom Patrol, killed off in lagging sales in pay disputes, were resurrected by being shifted into The GLOW. It rankled people on both sides of the divide and DC shelved it rather than attend a congressional hearing (or an Order Tribunal).

"Is this a birthday gift?"

"Is it your birthday?"

"Um, yes?" [2]

"Jones, what did I tell you about lying to women to get laid?," Genny asked from near the door where he had stopped to watch Hitomi work her craft.

"GENNY! Holy shit. Is this your daughter? She looks just like you!"

Genny and Hitomi look at each other. It's Hitomi that answers, "No, no relation. Genny said you are the best helicopter pilot in The GLOW."

"I said he was the most affordable pilot."

"At this moment, that's the same thing," she slaps her hands down to stop Jones from sliding the three comics off the counter. "How fast would we be able to take off?"

"June 11 at the earliest."

Hitomi makes a low growling noise in the back of her throat and then walks back to a black fake-leather chair and sits on it to light up. "How much to speed that up midnight tonight?" She blows smoke into the room which is immediately lost in Jones' hefty contribution from a night of cartoons, cigars, and snacks.

"Sorry, no can do, Genny Jr.. Recall on the rotor control. The Green Lady is currenly unable to take off."

"Fuck!"

"You are telling me." He points at the comics and Hitomi nods. He picks them up and starts very gingerly flipping through them while making a giggling noise. "Where did you get these?"

"A collector who will wake up to find them missing in the morning. Word on the street is that she uses Fractal Dreams due to crippling insomnia."

"YOU STOLE THEM!?"

Hitomi shrugs.

"Oh shit! Insomnia? You stole them from Alessia? She's gonna be pissed!" [3]

Another inhale. Another exhale. Another shrug.

"They call her the Gumshoe!"

"Jones," Genny interrupts.

"Yeah, man?"

"If you can't fly, who can fly us?"

"Why do you need so fly so bad you steal comics from the grumpiest damned comic hoarder in the entire GLOW?"

"It's bad, Jones."

"How bad can it be? Compared to normal? Isn't that just Tuesdays, here?"

"Bad enough I am doing it for free."

Nemesio Jones stands up at Genny saying this and is shaking his head. "Oh hell no. That's it, I'm retired. Jinjuro Yusuda on a crusade means it is time to leave the state and not look back."

Hitomi pipes in, "The bastards killed Eustace. Sort of..."

"Who the fuck is Eusta...you know what, fuck it. No, I change my mind. I'm double retired."

Hitomi walks closer. No flirting now, it is all business. "People are going to die."

"Let me guess, if I don't help then a busload of orphans are going to end up in pies."

"More like a billion people."

"A billion people!?," Jones starts to laugh at this but catches Genny's eyes. "Wait, no shit, Yusuda?"

"No shit."

"Fuck."

Hitomi points back to the helipad where the Green Lady is inactive. "If you can just point us to somewhere who fly something like that, as soon as possible, then I'd appreciate it."

"If you can steal comic books from The Gumshoe, can you steal a rotor control?" [4]

"Yeah, probably."

"Ok, I'm getting my coat and my tools. I'll retire tomorrow."

Expected Scene: Hitomi, Genny, and Jones pick up Varvara.

Scene Test: [c32] 6. 2d10 = 2 + 5. As expected.

Actual Scene:

As expected.

Setting the Scene. The One Who Imbibes Thoughtfulness.

Date: Tuesday, June 4, 1996.

Time: 11:23pm.

Place: Gorgath Park in Pensacola.

This scene will likely be even quicker since Varvara doesn't talk much. Let's build her.

Her Role is The Fighter. She gets Brawn for this (plus the skills). Her first Feat is 100% Martial Artist (free Reroll when fighting and reacting unarmed). Her second will be Flying Kick (essentially she can get to Close and Medium opponents for 1 Adrenaline and get a +1 for leaping into the fray).

Her Trope is Free Spirt (she'll take Crime). The Feat she gets from this will be Parkour (free reroll when doing, well, parkour).

She also gets a $1 item of her choice. We'll go with grappling hook which she uses in her moving around and getting up and around places. She'll also have a can of Thoughtfulness that she tokes from occasionally.

DATE PLAYED:March 27, 2025.

The One Who Imbibes Thoughtfulness.

Date: Wednesday, June 5, 1996.

Time: 1:27am.

Place: Gorgath Park in Pensacola.

During the day, Gorgoth park is a place full of families, kids, and college-aged couples. At night, it is full of street punks showing off boards and tricks. At dawn, a group of ServiSynth cleaners make sure the PM does not distupt the AM, but overall it is the sort of place where rougher elements tend to avoid which makes it too authentic for tourists and outside the care of city surveillance. Hence, a great spot to meet up for a quick stop.

Genny parks his truck over near the concrete skate park where a dozen punks on boards are showing off and hanging out. Marijuana smoke mixes with tobacco but besides that the harsher element is restrained. Word is that a gang pushing crack tried taking the skate park a week back and were not so much thrashed as completely ignored until they limped off with only a bit of cred attached.

After a minute, three of the skaters break off. An outside observer would just see two black men with a slightly older — and vastly more serious — white woman. Nothing to raise any eyebrows. Hitomi, riding in the truck bed, recognizes Banshee, Vorpal, and Varvara. Banshee is still running Happiness while Vorpal has seemed to move on to huffing straight Bliss. Varvara — Hitomi is unsure if this her street name or actual name — is either rocking no artificial emotions or has chosen whatever "Quiet, sexy, and badass" might be.

"Did you get my message out?," Hitomi asks as they approach the truck.

Banshee nods and then starts giggling. "Yeah, Brokie passed on the word. V here volunteered right off. She wants in. One way to stop Brokie from going, herself."

Hitomi thinks what it might like to have BrokenRecord along on a life or death of billions mission — Darya being an accomplished parkour artist, shit fighter, and strange talker — and is glad that Varvara stepped up. "Thanks."

Varvara hops into the back of the truck like two-meter leaps with graceful landings are nothing and then makes herself comfortable. "Where first?," she asks. Again, Hitomi hears that hint of some Eastern Euro accent.

"First we have to steal some helicopter parts. How are at breaking and entering?"

Varvara does not answer but starts stretching which Hitomi takes as a good sign. "Ok, let's go."

DOUG'S COMMENTARY

March 27, 2025

I have enjoyed a lot about this arc and killing off the titular character might be the kind of zany twist that I enjoy the most. There are at least a few stories where someone "dies" and comes back as something different and its the kind of twist-trope — right next to the sort where the hero is a secret antagonist/monster — that still, to this day, gets me right in the happy vibes to read (assuming it is done well). This does not mean I started out trying to hit that note. The original idea was that Eustace had Witch powers but it might show up at one moment as a big finale. The scale of this whole arc was meant to be kind of small and personal but various forces have driven it outward. This is now a world-saving big-budget plot. We are about to have people parachute out of helicopter into a hoverboat while a dead man turns into a magic crow. That's something weird.

And special. To me, at least.

I really don't know how this series will end up but I'm happy to be here.

On a more technical side, I have added the second of two "features" to hide non-direct-story elements. For those that do not need my long winded commentary or notes they can trim that out as well.

MECHANICAL AND STORY NOTES

1. A dice roll in THIS session, how about that? Anyhow, for her to find 'the bribe' let's go with Crime + Streetwise. I need an Extreme with every 'miss' requiring $$$. That latter bit is not needed since she gets it.
2. Screw it. Is it Jones' birthday? (even) → [c72] NO! It's about as far from his birthday as it can be (which would then in early December).
3. Just snatched a quick name from [c74].
4. Rotor control is nonsense of course but let's pretend.

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

Genny comes from this photo.

The space door is from this photo by Kai Pilger on Unsplash and this illustration/render.

Nemesio Jones (after some debate) came from this photo by ManuelTheLensman on Unsplash.

Varvara Clean is this photo/model. Originally she was balder and just a bit younger but I'm going to slightly shift her up since she is the more sensible member of the ShaoDras.

Taxonomy and Technical Data

• World: The GLOW
• Campaign: The GLOW
• Arc: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont
• Post: 11 - Gathering New Allies

← Previous Arc Session |[ ↑ Arc/Campaign Page ]| Next Arc Session →

Hide Prep Phases

• "Previously..." and Campaign/Arc Summary
• Turning Point 2
• The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont Episode 10 - Tracking Dave Akari
• Sometimes They Come Back
• In the Skurry
• Commentary: After a Few Days' Break
• Said the Spider to the Fly
• The Crow Takes Flight
• Doug's Commentary
• Mechanical and Story Notes
• Credits
• Taxonomy and Technical Data

Previously, on The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

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.

Turning Point 2

Getting the "bad" out of the way, the Heat is up to 7. That doesn't mean much for the moment but it is a good indicator of where things are.

Now for the other math. With Turning Points we get a Chance to Advance.

For Eustace, I am going to make a special Feat: Witchery. Spending an Adrenaline: he can rewrite threads. Effect will determine the difficulty. For now, we'll treat each as a Gamble since it will drain you to use it often. He gets a free reroll when using his Witchery powers. This is a Super Feat.

For his Skills, I'll give him a point in Speech because he talks all the time and it's in his character. Also to Awareness because my god. The boy has to pass a roll at some point.

For Hitomi, she'll get the Feat "Shadow," meaning she gets free rerolls when sneaking about. It's a pretty common thing her to try and stealth.

Her skills will be Awareness and Heal.

Both will get 1 Adrenaline for the Advance and 2 for the previous session. A goal this time will be to spend Adrenaline with Hitomi and maybe save some with Eustace but it's so fun to pop his abilities.

The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont. Episode 10 - Tracking Dave Akari

Setting the Scene. Sometimes They Come Back.

Before we figure out exactly what this scene is, let's ask a simple oracle question? Would Hasan's be something that Hitomi would be able to find out with just her Sprawl/GLOW knowledge? (Bad) → [c116] Yes? Then let's do a roll. Crime + Streetwise + 2 Help. She snags a Critical and with a reroll [she gets a free one] it becomes Impossible. She knows exactly whom to contact. Going with the card in question, I see two names "Mei," "Flavio," and "Zombie." Does the name Mei "Zombie" Flavio make sense? It does now.

Hasan has a Terminal Farm. Is Hasan a person? (Even) → [c97] No? In this case, let's say there is a Hasan but this is a brand name. Someone running a in-GLOW business though located elsewhere.

The business will be Hasan Information Solutions and HIS has a local terminal farm. I don't think I have any tools to generate a full Arabic name so let's come up with some backstory. Hasan's family is from Jordan but currently work out of London. There is some connection to the Patel's as his (and HIS's) "in" to The GLOW. Feeding a bit of that into ChatGPT, I get a d66 list and rolling 4,1 on that I get his full name as Hasan Adel Al-Kurdi. How legit is that? No clue! It's just flavor that might not ever show up again but I like to stack the pieces.

Going all the way back to Episode 2, I came up with a chart to map out places. Rolling 18,12 gives me a spot currently over the Gulf. That's fine since this means it is in the new construction. A place a bit more Top. It's going to take more clearance and fights to get inside. I'd like a different sort of fight. A tank-drone. Like the spider tanks from Ghost in the Shell. Tough nut to crack.

How intense is Mei's fee for this? [c21] 8. Very. Let's roll d6+1 Creds to start: Just get a 1. I'll bump that up to $3 in game currency. A chance to haggle it down.

These two factors suggest we need at least a scene to figure out how to get inside. ADO Security Zone. Full of the kind of start-ups where corporations split off a smaller company for tax purposes. Or, in this case, to get access The GLOW.

Date: Monday, June 3, 1996.

Time: 11:28pm.

Place: Near the entrance to ADO Security Area.

Expected Scene: Hitomi and Eustace have to find a way to get into ADO.

Scene Test: [c17] 5. 2d10 = 10 + 10. hahaha. Ok. Shit. Um. "Foe's local presence increases." And it's a big deal. Did Mei tip off the Patel's? (Bad) → [c92] No. You know what, I don't really need a good excuse. It's just that scene in a movie where the bad guys show up because they were chasing the hack or something.

Actual Scene: Yori and Ambra (from Episode 6) are back as Eustace and Hitomi are trying to get into ADO.

Yori and Ambra will get combined. Boss Template 1. Extreme/Critical. 6 Grit (hotboxes on the evens) with a special move of their final hotbox will trigger them escaping again. These are those bad guys. Bulletproof vets (-1 to Range), Hard to Kill (each Hot Box stops damage even if damage goes over), and Martial Arts (-1 at close). Special actions include Disarm (1, Critical vs Brawn vs Dexterity or lose weapon), Don't Think So (1, negates on Adrenaline special move), Weak spot (-2 to next Reaction roll), and Escape Clean (2, as it says, Impossible to stop it).

Got to love when a scene takes possibly longer to set up than it will to play. Maybe.

Scene Played: March 13, 2025.

Sometimes They Come Back.

Date: Monday, June 3, 1996.

Time: 11:28pm.

Place: Near the entrance to ADO Security Area.

ADO Security Zone is a tiny, by The GLOW standards, dense area around 10-15 miles off the old coast in the NewGLO construction. Around 10-15 stories below would be water. Sort of water. What water becomes when it is infused with so much Soulburn that it has a personality. The in-between holds enough room for subway systems, cables, conduits, office space, and an entire nightmare world where sunlight never approaches and is never needed. Average cost of living? Yes. If you have to check your bank statement, you may not be able to afford it.

ADO's specialty is non-GLOW citizens — read: corporations from other countries including the United States — setting up a tiny bank head so that traffic in aether-tech becomes feasible. A few countries — Japan and Taiwan for instance — just push through and make formal, above board contracts. Others have stacks of reasons to avoid such paperwork. For them, there is ADO. A dozen city blocks of rectangular buildings, shipping crates, empty storefronts, and even a few cubicle farms. All granting them an in-GLOW address. The clever ones sublet their spot down to square-meter marks.

Apparently not Hasan's. Hasan Information Services. HIS. Started by Hasan Adel Al-Kurdi last decade in London and shipped around the world to get ahead of what most people would call the World Wide Web. One of the first international investors in The GLOW but also deeply suspicious of getting too entangled. Keeps ridding the razor's edge of full buy-in and interloper. Hasan has picked an entire quarter Block at ADO prices to host a bank of mainframes and then takes subletting to a whole new level. Claims it is encrypted against magic and psychic energies. Salt. Iron. Sage. The old classics.

They found out Mother_Bored's meaning behind her final few words after talking to Zombie. Mei Flavio. Another of Hitomi's many contacts. This one a bit more contentious. Eustace doesn't know the history of what soured, but on the working side of things they settle it by way of monetary exchange.

"I can't believe she charged me 2 Creds," Hitomi fusses as her and Eustace approach a back gate to ADO Security Zone. [1]

"She was going to charge you 3," Eustace tries to console.

"And I can't believe you shoved Mother_Bored's body on a train!"

Even without stooping to reading her mind, Eustace can tell this is more upsetting to Hitomi than the loss of the money. Even thought Eleanor, aka Mother_Bored, betrayed her. It was a sense of another young female hacker chewed up by Dave Akari and fed to The GLOW. The brief hope that Eustace had gotten to Ell makes the seemingly tossing away of the body a harsh metaphor. Possibly a fear that Hitomi has of Eustace doing the same to her when she is dead.

"Hitomi, I'm sorry. They found her so quickly I suspect that Dave had a tracker implanted. Or psychics. Though in that case, we might be in..."

"Trouble?," asks a voice that Eustace recognizes. "My mom said I had the gift. Could always guess whatever surprise she had for me. Never realized I had hacked into her bank account."

Eustace turns and sees the man from outside the Knives compound. Well, the man and the woman. She has on a new set of glasses, still glowing. He however has avoided putting his own. Or the cowboy hat. Or some of the twang. The bravado is still there.

The man points as Eustace and Hitomi. "The Doctor wants to see you. Please let's make this super easy. Just give him the disk. Make an apology. Maybe get paid. No need for blood."

"The Doctor? You mean Roman?"

"Ah, a man of culture. This makes it easy." The man holds up a scrying glass showing video of Eustace swatting down drones and then running off after Mother_Bored. "Such great footage. They really captured your rage. Your murderous rage. Shame you killed her. That little trick with the train almost caught us off guard but you didn't realize the Doctor owns that shipping line and her tracking flagged the very next stop."

"How'd you find us?," Hitomi asks, trying to stall for time. Her hand has been frozen over her laptop she was prepping to follow Mei's instructions. ServiSynth brains pilot secure trolleys into and out of ADO. Empty buildings acting as address forms rarely need human bodies to enter it. Convince a ServiSynth trolley you are a piece of cargo and presto!

"Nah uh! That would be telling," finally speaks the woman. Her voice a strange blending of accent somewhere between Chinese and French.

While the conversation goes on, Eustace is searching for two things. First: any sort of advantage he can have in this fight. Second: if there are any psychic threads connecting to him or Hitomi. For the first one he realizes that the man is starting to shake the longer it goes on. The woman is also nervous. Eustace frightens them. For the second he finds a thin red line broken and half-formed like a discount laser shining through thin fog. He reaches out and snaps it in a way it will take some time to reattach. [2]

"I'm going to be honest," Eustace starts, taking just a moment to search the man's mind, "...Yori, we're not going with you. Or your...sister?!"

The man, Yori, coughs. Sweat starts beading on his face as he pulls out a large pistol. Ambra, his sister, pulls out her katana.

"Well, then," Yori starts, "I guess we'll..." And Eustace hits him full on in the face. Yori's nose explodes in blood but as Eustace's left arm is bringing the blade to bear, the gunman is spinning to his left long enough for Ambra to leap at Eustace and block the strike with her sword. Then herself has to dodge back as Hitomi starts squeezing off shots. [3]

Hitomi knows that the gunfire will bring ServiSynth guards soonish. However, she first to take care of the gunman before Eustace is dealing with two on one. She keeps her gun up as the swordswoman uses her left hand to send a small kunai flying and knocking Hitomi's gun out of her hand. As the gunman targets her, Hitomi leaps over a power box she had been using as temporary laptop desk — grabbing up her laptop — and dives hard behind. The swordswoman tries to use the momentum to chop down into Eustace who repeats her previous success by bringing up his arm blades to jam the katana back up in the air. [4]

Eustace uses this momentum to lock her Katana in his twin blades and then brings his head down hard against hers, knocking her down to her feet. He sees the gunman circling around to get to Hitomi. [5]

As Eustace watches Yori go to leap out and catch Hitomi off guard, the lights of a trolley swing right at him and a few seconds later a loud crunch is heard as his body is snapped off its security shielding. The gunman hits the ground and rolls. Ambra shouts his name and runs over to grab him and get him up as Hitomi shouts for Eustace to get on (calling him Nurse). [6]

He takes off running for the trolley, stopping just for half a second to grab up Hitomi's gun, and then the two of them are riding past the security gates into ADO. [7]

DOUG'S NOTE: I actually screwed that up in three different spots: Hitomi's shot, Eustace's deflection, and Eustace's hit. I basically ignored the Bulletproof Vest and Martial Arts feats. That's probably ok since they made it by more than enough to damage/avoid in both cases and such things happen. I won't punish Eustace or Hitomi for it but we'll play it out that the siblings were actually going a bit easy on them for some reason. Like, maybe they are secretly working with Amy and trying to slow down Roger or some such. We'll find out next time they show up which should be in the final arc (even stronger).

Setting the Scene. In the Scurry.

Date: Monday, June 3, 1996.

Time: 11:41pm.

Place: Inside of ADO.

Expected Scene: Hitomi and Eustace have to avoid security while getting to Hasan Information Services.

Scene Test: [c120] 4. 2d10 = 3 + 4. An expected scene!? IN THIS GAME!? Hot diggity!

Actual Scene: As expected.

I want to set the avoidance up sort of like a Brawl meets a chase. Critical difficulty. Getting spotted is a Danger. Once they accumulate 12 successes, they have completely lost the guards. However, if a character fails more than twice in a row then it will turn into a combat.

The guards will be humanoid ServiSynth firing high speed dry ice bullets designed to not damage property.

Getting into the lock will be a Critical roll that can happen after either the guards are evaded or after they are beaten in a combat. With a combat, more guards will be dispatched after 3 additional turns.

Combat: 2xCrit/Crit/6.

In a mood shift for this one, will be using a different sort of soundtrack. This one will have Proleter's new album — Temperamental Cats — which was just released the day I am playing out the scene.

Scene Played: March 14, 2025.

In the Scurry.

Date: Monday, June 3, 1996.

Time: 11:41pm.

Place: Inside of ADO.

The water kicks up as the pair are running in front of an elaborate building marked as ADO Management. A large, shallow pool was easier to run through rather than around. In the distance — and not much of said distance — a strange "WumpWhumWumpwum" sound can be heard as the ServiSynth guard's are communicating in a strange frequency code low enough down that it is very nearly sub-sonic. You can feel it in your chest. Eustace pulls Hitomi close to him as they hide behind a tree that is older than the GLOW and so was transplanted as a fully mature tree to this spot. Where very few people might ever set foot. Fancy building. Fancy sidewalk. Only seen by ServiSynths not even given human speech because the average population of the area has to reach in the low decimals.

"Why in Dr. Hell's glorious earth do they have such a nice pool?," Eustace asks Hitomi.

"Money talks, wealth whispers, massive wealth fucking screams. Look, you want to sell a bunch of business folk on spending thousands and thousands of Creds just to host a few bricks here, you need some nice photos."

It's her turn to pull Eustace back as that "WhumpWumWooooo" sound passes nearby the pool. The ServiSynths look like humans in livery, only with dark blue heads with only a hint of eyes and nose and mouth. They are scanning using some internal organ — or maybe echolocation — but do not spot the couple behind the tree. [8]

After the ServiSynths pass, they are running down the side of the ADO offices and passing by a storage shed marked Nakatomi Trading Corp. Behind that, Wilson Mechanics inhabits a plot of land consisting mostly of a fence and a mailbox currently crammed full of mailers.

As automatic sprinklers come on, Hitomi lets out a slight gasp before diving over the fence. If the ServiSynth security has eyes, it would be hard to miss her but she is banking on them tracking by sound. Sure enough, the WumWum sound comes around the corner and seems to scan the area. Eustace, for his part, is on top of the Nakatomi shed, holding still. Once again, the ServiSynths are moving on. [9]

Hitomi approaches Eustace, crawling down from the shed. "They use sound. We need to be extra quiet even if that means we are moving slowly." [10]

"Makes sense, people who pay for a spot here are probably the kind of people that wouldn't want a guard to see any definite details," Eustace agrees. With this new knowledge, he moves a bit slower but quieter. Hitomi moves nearly silently in front of him. Right as Eustace comes to close to stepping on a metal grate she slaps back to stop his foot. [11]

After this they keep close by each other for a bit and keep an eye out trying to find the terminal form. They see dozens of business — Channel ZA (South African Broadcaster that dabbles in war reports and small military arms), Barnabas Infotech (out of the Caribbean), and Niet Exports (Slovenian front for Greek Business that traffics in Middle Eastern properties) — but no Hasan. At least they keep quiet enough that they have not heard the guards for a minute. [12]

Hitomi is craving a smoke but the sound of her lighter would no doubt ring out like a gunshot in this quiet place. Plus, she can't be absolutely sure they don't have some sort of chemical detectors. Smelling smoke would seem to be a useful function to have. Glancing around, she realizes she is getting her bearings and recalls the address that Zombie gave her. She motions to Eustace to move slow and runs off quietly and circles back in a moment. She has found it. [13]

On the outside, you would think something like a post office. Thick brick walks, a few perfunctory windows. A metal door with a glass pane in the middle frosted enough to not be able to see inside. HASAN in clear letters on the front. A building not to impress but to protect. A few wards glow in the brick to try and stop any sort of exterior mystical attack. The door has a intricate electronic lock but Hitomi brings out her aether-board and types a complex series of symbols. After a few seconds the door releases with a hiss and the two are disappearing inside into the artificial light as the WumWump starts moving in their direction. [14]

Commentary: After a Few Days' Break

March 18, 2025

It's been about four days since I last got to play.

A bit of that was a few rounds of storms passing through the area.

Some of that was my family returning from an out-of-country Spring Break trip. They got back and so we spent the weekend in our makeshift storm cave and also just hanging out a bit.

Finally, I have moved up to an even stronger dose of my meds and while they is doing wonders to help my health and to improve mobility overall, the first day or so after I start just wipes me out pretty badly.

Figured it would be good time to go ahead and play out at least one more of the projected two scenes left in this week's play, one of which I've known since more or less the start of this episode, and then from there figure out what next week might look like since it should wrap up the middle third of the campaign arc.

Now that I am treating this not as 4-5 quick-scenes over 1-2 sessions but 1 big+ scene (at least in development, worldbuilding, and such) per shorter session it makes sense to maybe throw in a few intermediate commentaries to sum up some things and thoughts.

The previous two scenes were full of lots of references without any real common sense as to what got reference where. ADO Security was simply because I was listening to albums by Ado while playing through the first part of it before switching to Proleter. Nakatomi would be the sort of the same but not the same company from the first Die Hard movie. The idea in The GLOW is that the entire reality of the planet is shifting around the effects of Soulburn so people and events are purposefully given in the wrong order. I forget when it was but the Moon Landing happened several years earlier, for instance. People's ages don't line up.

The ServiSynth guards that hunt by sound were, in my head, a sort of stockpile "baddie" based on the weenie/minions from various Super Sentai series. A lot have a kind of repetitive sound phrase they use now that we have mostly moved past them being various paramilitary fascist organization troops. Super Sentai and other tokusatsu flavor a bit of the action sequences already — Yori and Ambra are kind of a tribute act to various Kamen Rider baddies — so expect more such silliness.

Setting the Scene. Said the Spider to the Fly.

Date: Tuesday, June 4, 1996.

Time: 12:26am.

Place: Hasan's Terminal Farm.

Expected Scene: Eustace and Hitomi have to fight past Hasan Security.

Scene Test: [c23] 5. 2d10 = 3 + 1. That's two expected scenes in a row. Strange.

Actual Scene: As expected.

The plan here is to have a single, tough enemy. Literally tough. A tank. I'm going to be picturing, essentially, the spider tank from 1995's The Ghost in the Shell. Feel free to do the same. However, this is going to be a spider ServiSynth designed to protect a server farm. Blaster guns or tank shells wouldn't make sense. Six arms for mobility, two that have stun-gun type arms.

It definitely will get the Titan Feat (each hit does only one Grit). And tough armor: Extreme defense. Attack will be on the slightly lower side: 2xCritical. Non-Lethal. If you get knocked out you are trapped more than killed. Right now three Grit. It also has (for its other two Feat points) Exoskeleton. -1 to ranged attacks. I'll do my best to actually remember this. For Special Actions I think Tackle (Critical Dangerous Brawn + Force or get knocked down) and Clamp Down (Brawn + Stealth Basic roll or get trapped and fail Reaction automatically, Critical Brawn + Force to break free).

For the hacking, I am going to use Chase rules. Hitomi starts out with a Speed of 1. A Need of 12. Most rolls will require Critical. Note: Once she gets into the mainframe, she will get + 2 Help to "fight" the ServiSynth Spider. She'll also get + 1 to "fight" since she has an experience of making friends with ServiSynths.

Date played: March 18, 2025.

Said the Spider to the Fly.

Date: Tuesday, June 4, 1996.

Time: 12:26am.

Place: Hasan's Terminal Farm.

In the style of the whole Security Zone, Hasan's Information Service's Data Center is strikingly clean. Massive banks of both aether- and digital-servers line the walls and aisles. The air smells of ozone while the dimly lit space is kept at a chilly 10C. As soon as Eustace and Hitomi enter into the space through a UV-charged airlock, dehumidifiers click on and start cleaning the space of any possible human infestation: dead skin, hair, or other unwanted materials. Standing still for a moment, the lights start to brighten slightly. No doubt there are switches and controls somewhere to actually increase the light but the off chance of a on-site human is low enough that they are not given a priority.

Hitomi glances around for any terminal input spot. "There's a lot of shit to sift through. Look at the size of it!"

At least a hundred displays show a variety of blinking lights with a number of short screens showing various codes and symbols. No wonder this building dwarfs many of the other false fronts. Hasan is no doubt trafficking in terabytes of data. Exactly what the data is is unknown. Eustace asks Hitomi about it. She shrugs.

"A lot of family photos," she quips. She gets around 3 meters into the place before a loud voice shouts at them both.

"PLEASE. PROVIDE. IDENTIFICATION."

It repeats the command in Japanese, Arabic, and Spanish.

The voice comes from a large, human-sized spider-shaped ServiSynth. The eight-eyes — glowing faintly glow in the half-light — are currently split between tracking Hitomi and Eustace. Despite the appearance, high-volume, and size: it does not seem threatening. Yet.

"We were sent by Hasan Breach Insurance Services to validate data against potential code loss," Hitomi tries. She smiles and holds up a laptop. The Spider scans her and then its eyes flag from green to amber. It repeats its request for ID in multiple languages, the eyes growing redder with each syllable. Its front pair of legs lifting up and showing voltage flowing across them. [15]

"Eustace!," she shouts as she runs to keep searching for a way to plug into the terminal. He steps forward with his blades extending and tries to chop through one of the shock-pads in its forearms. The Spider slams Eustace's blades up before they can cut too deeply and then turns to face him down. [16]

Eustace tries to step back as the double shock pads crash down around him but sparks fly up as the Spider gets a solid zap. Eustace grunts as his feet buckle. [17]

As the Spider turns to press its advantage, Eustace pushes off with his powerful legs and leaps on top of the Spider and with a heavy kick cracks into its "head" while also flinging himself up to the top of one of the server banks. Sending out a silent prayer to the Witches Three that this isn't the one that has the data they need, he shoves his blades down in-between it and the support structure and pulls the bank from the shelving to collapse it on the Spider, trapping it underneath. The Spider's shock pads turn off as it tries to hold the server up and prevent damage to the data. [18]

Hitomi asks if everything is ok as she is trying to get into the system. She has plugged her laptop into a terminal port near the back of the room and is starting to get through to the data but it is a long process forward, still. The shallow security layer — aether-program designed to unwrite random memories of the person doing the hack — gets caught up in her laptop's defense matrix but it suggests that Hasan is not playing around. [19]

Eustace slaps at one of the back leg's of the Spider as it struggles to set the server back into place. His blades cut through its exoskeleton. In response, one of its shock pads retracts as a pincer claw comes out of its left front leg. It reaches for Eustace who steps back from it, right into the right leg's shock pad which punches him in the side. He finds his nerves starting to shred from the heavy shock. A weaker man might have already collapsed. [20]

Trying to ignore Eustace's grunts or the sound of shock pads connecting with flesh, Hitomi brings one of her favorite particular hacks out of her grimoire. She acts the triplets. Three aether-synth programs which act like her and look very much like her own self-representing avatar as they dive off in different direction through the aether-space. The only difference is hair color and personality. Green, Blue, and Red hair with aggressive, playful, and dominant personalities. Each a bit of Hitomi. The effect works well as the majority of the middle security functions chase after them. Unfortunately, a simple nerve shredder gets through the ruse and Hitomi feels her fingers tingle as it very nearly punches through the laptop's net. [21]

Back up front, the Spider lunges for Eustace and then swipes as Eustace backs up and manages to duck his head. Looking around for anything to use, Eustace takes a gamble and dives forward to roll under the legs of the Spider. Lifting it up, ramming blades into its underside, he pushes well past reasonable limits as he pulls the blades further and further apart. Sparks and ServiSynth oil pour down on him as the Spider twitches heavily. Eustace's knees buckle as his feet slip on the floor and the entire weight comes crashing down on him. Trying to extract himself from the wreckage he hears whirring muscle motors as the ServiSynth prepares for one last death-throe-leap and flings itself back on top of Eustace to finish crushing him, which Eustace just barely manages to avoid by rolling hard against another server bank. [22]

"Fuck...," he croaks, barely able to move after that fight.

Hitomi resists the urge to go and check on Eustace — the sudden silence slightly more worrying than the loud smashing sounds that proceeded it — since all of her concentration has to focus on navigating through the back-end of Hasan's security. Soon enough she, and her three duplicates, are through and into the major file structure. Flying across an avatar of the city itself. She retools the duplicates to start sorting data and look for keywords that might match "Dave Akari" and "hover boat." What did Mother_Bored call it? The "Moonblink." As the data processes, the various buildings shift and resort until the entire simulacrum of the city is just a single building of data. She flies down into it and soon enough has the data needed. She begins setting up her own hooks in the system so that her laptop can continue to track the hover boat. At least until the data breach is found. They won't have forever, but she has hopefully bought them about a day. [23]

Eustace limps back to where she is. She lets out a small grunt at how bloodied he is — mixed with the blue oil that runs a ServiSynth's internal organs — as she is wrapping up.

"Now we have to get out," he says in a voice that is half a groan.

"Let me see if the guards outside are controlled at all from here or if I can at least get to any kind of control interface for them." She redirects her duplicates to search for any kind of interface into the ADO Security Zone's internal system and they bring it up. With a few more symbols sent into the system, she conjures up a large non-existent goose to flap a lot of wings in the pool. It will buy them some time for the guards to be distracted and then to report an animal. [24]

"Come on. Let's get you patched up, again, and see if we can get a way to get on a hover boat."

Setting the Scene. The Crow Takes Flight.

Eustace got completely walloped in that last one. Narratively appropriately so. It was a rough fight for a number of reasons. This does mean that all things equal they are not going to rush into another fight or dangerous situation until he's had a decent chance of being patched up. Now, the "You look SHOCKED" condition would likely heal up on its own over time (being the direct result of being SHOCKED). He still is going to have his other condition "You look SMASHED" until a Time Out.

Expected Scene: E+H have to find a helicopter to get on board the Moonblink.

Scene Test: [c60] 3. 2d10 = 4 + 8. A major twist. In this case, the fact that the card has the catalyst of "New tech changes the game..." makes me think this twist is actually somewhat positive. You know what, let's put it to the test. (Even) → [c66] Yes. So there will be something else that gets Eustace and Hitomi on-board the Moonblink. Flight based? (Even) → [c33] Yes. Magic based (Bad) → [c95] Yes. What the hell. Let's go....

Actual Scene: As Hitomi is trying to find a way to intercept the Moonblink, the Witches Three make a deep alteration in Eustace.

Date: Tuesday, June 4, 1996.

Time: 3:42am.

Place: PS Nontooth Fillup.

This is going to hurt. The way I understand it, it doesn't matter how much excessive Grit he takes, it's going to trigger a death roulette. In this case, if he dies I'll play it out in one way and if he does not I'll play it out in another.

He will need to resist Extreme Brawn + Endure. Good luck to us all.

Date(s) played: March 20-21, 2025.

The Crow Takes Flight.

Date: Tuesday, June 4, 1996.

Time: 3:42am.

Place: PS Nontooth Fillup.

Despite the obvious flaw in her behavior, Hitomi has walked towards the gas pumps to smoke. And to shout into her Scrying Glass. She's talking to Genny. Maybe Genny's wife, again. About helicopters and needing to rent one in eight hours. Based on her shouts and scoffs, the conversation is not going greatly.

After fleeing ADO they made it back into terra firma GLOW and then drove north until property values dropped enough that the chance of anyone caring about a large, very smashed up looking man on the bike of a red motorbike dropped considerably. They found PS Nontooth Fillup, a gas station with a distinctly clashing retro motif mixed with Tourist-level New Orleans Voodoo. Actual gas, not Soulburn. Economic realities mean the lower your yearly pay the more likely you stick to unleaded petrol power.

Plus, for those who might be looking to flee north out of The GLOW, having a car that can keep driving past the Soulburn barrier is a pretty big deal. At least right now, when there is some place on this planet that has not been devoured by The GLOW.

The station is in automated mode right now. The storefront dark. Sounds of Dr. John's Gris-Gris are currently playing. Early it was Scientist ridding the world of the evil vampire curses. A few pumps are lit up and watched over by ServiSynths made to look like tall skeletal humans in top hats. It says something about the place that all the graffiti on display is purposeful kitsch. Skulls and spray paint totems. Looks like for all the shallow charm — pun not intended — the place has some real power. Locals fear the curse. Eustace wonders what Soulburn version of loa might look like.

At any rate, Hitomi took over driving duty after they got of ADO — Eustace's injuries being notable enough that he was not sure he could drive, even holding on felt like a challenge — and pulled in and then called some folks. Then some other folks. Then she called Genny. A few seconds into that Genny's wife snatched the phone and demanded to know what young woman was bothering her husband at 3am. After that shouting match went on for a moment, Genny got the phone back and they talked logistics and why Hitomi did not have any.

Eustace, after filling up the bike, pushed it over to the side and has been licking his wounds. Some of his blood has mixed with blue ServiSynth fluid and he is wondering about toxicology reports.

It actually takes him a moment to realize that he can no longer hear Hitomi talking. Or anything, really. No cars on the highway behind him. No more Dr. John. The world has fallen into silence. What's more, glancing at Hitomi, the first thing he notices is her cigarette smoke has stopped moving. The fog around her has turned into a still life. The second thing he notices is that a few meters behind her is a woman. Well, a person. Dressed head to toe in a black cowl that obscures any details.

Even a school kid in The GLOW would know exactly what he is looking at.

His heart drops, trying to race and give up at the same time. All the moisture in his mouth is gone. A scent much like what he would imagine a world made of cockroaches slams into his nostrils. Eustace is more afraid than any previous time in his life.

He contemplates running. Surely they are after him. If he leaves, they would not stay to pick the flesh from the reality around this gas station, right? Only has he turns to look behind him, another one is there. Closer. He does not look around to confirm the third one. Of course the third one is here. Somewhere.

And no sooner has he thought this that he sees the third one right there. Right in front of him, like she has always been there. For the first time in two decades, he sees something that no one else in The GLOW has. The Witches Three.

The one closest to him pulls a hand out from under the cowl but it is not a hand. It is a crow's claw. Talons long and sharp and bloody. That terrible scent intensifies. As she reaches out and starts to traces lines on his chest, the one behind him is whispering in his ear. The one near Hitomi is now on his left side. They not so much move but cease to exist at one point and then exist elsewhere. Maybe everywhere. And all three are speaking words now. Words that have never in the history of the universe been uttered by any human lips. Words that are shapes and symbols and realities and death and chaos and life and birth and fire and ash and freezing bright light.

Those crow talons tear through his flesh. This time, his heart stops for real. [25]

He feels himself falling into darkness. Down. A forever space wider than a life is long. Centuries pass. His flesh withers into dry dust and falls apart. His bones become brittle sand. The centuries stretch into eons. Epochs. Large shapes in the darkness break down into dead matter. Universal forces give way between their atoms. Existence shatters again and again. Reality becomes once more just a long sigh of a dreaming god. The beat of Skarl's drums threaten to cease and the great mad eye of Mana-Yood-Sushai threatens to open.

Only it is Eustace's eyes opening and he is not falling down but up. Up through the sky above a primal world. Down below, great behemoths and leviathans toil through an environment rich in warmth and food. Beasts the size of cars and houses feeding upon the great plenty that is everywhere while small mammals and early birds scurry about madly. Other living forms, not present in the fossil record, are also there. Aquatic humanoids. Great star spawn. Strange extra-dimensional beasts slithering into the higher dimensions between cracks and shadows. Odd bulbous beings built like the trunks of trees waving three arms into the air in their esoteric science.

Into the sky a great shape falls. The Chicxulub impactor. It catches fire as slowly — to Eustace's eyes — slams into the atmosphere. Mere moments in reality, it falls for a decade as Eustace continues to rise up and gives witness to the destruction of an entire planet. The spirits bound to the impactor also extinguish. The massive city of star spawn sinks beneath the waves. Those strange plant-like beings find themselves trapped by the plummeting temperature as odd black blob-like beings rise up and overthrow. The fish men dive deeper and deeper to wait. And all those leviathans and behemoths find themselves scurrying as the mammals realize that the tables have turned.

From this great scene of destruction and death, Eustace continues to fall up and up. Only not towards empty space but towards an ocean that has swallowed the world. And as he speeds up to slam into the waters at a speed that would eradicate most any other matter in known existence he glances himself in its reflections. Behind him, large black wings spread out. His body covered in scars that are an ancient language dead before Sol was cool enough for the planets to properly condense. His arms have become blades and he is writing upon himself.

And the words say...

Hitomi turns around at the sound of the crash and sees Eustace falling back over the bike and staying prone. His blades have been extended and by all appearances he has either been carving deep gashes into his own chest or somehow fending off a nearly silent foe. Still holding the phone she runs in his direction and and stops short. She doesn't even realize she is crying until the voice of Genny cuts through, asking what is wrong.

"Eustace.....he's dead."

DOUG'S COMMENTARY

March 21, 2025

That is the classic Doug ending, eh? I think in most of my main solo-play — excepting Shadowdark — someone dies and goes through vision space to learn new powers and abilities. Maybe I should play a bit more cautiously but ehhhhh...

Anyhow, it is very nearly time to hit post on this for the week so it won't be a huge amount of commentary at this point. I'll likely have to do some editing in post. I'm liking to what degree that the story feels properly emergent. My only idea initially was to get the disk out, avoid Patel goons long enough to have a story, and then fall back into patel goons. Only now we are dealing with primal truths of the world, have some fun bad guys, and all that.

PS Nontooth Fillup is a reference to "Paul Simon Nontooth". No clue why I wanted something with kind of a hokey but maybe authentically magic gas station. Just made sense at the time. There was a bit about abandoned cars as people get out and flee The GLOW and like, maybe that is still true but also I wanted to dial it back.

Also, we mash in Dunsany and Lovecraft mythos pretty distinctly into this one. The Deep Ones first showed up near the end of Jani's arc. There have been a couple of Lovecraftian moments under Eustace's tenure — the Patel masterplan involves channeling energy to bring up R'yleh — but again this is the most concentrated it has been. Or maybe not. The vision sequence is just that: visionary.

Alright, time to do a few last edits and click submit. I'll try and get next week's finished early enough that I have time to ponder more.

MECHANICAL AND STORY NOTES

1. We'll give Hitomi a single chance to haggle. Crime + Speech. She gets a Critical. Drops it by $1.
2. Spends an Adrenaline to search for two weak spots. First: 1,6 (Enemy is Afraid of You, gain 2 Adrenaline). Second: 6,2 (Situation is Right for a Crazy Stunt to work, Gamble for +2). Will go for the first. Makes sense since Eustace did a lot of damage last time they fought. Second, IS a psychic tracking them? (Bad) → [c2] Yes? Like with the Knives, not very good ones. Focus + Fix nets Eustace a Critical. More than enough to sever it.
3. Spends an Adrenaline and goes all In. Ends up with 2xCritical which is maximum damage per hit. Hitomi spends an Adrenaline to get +1 and rolls 6 dice. Humorously, she gets a full straight. With a reroll she gets to a Crit and we'll hold there.
4. Will security ServiSynths be here soon? (Good) → [c28] Yes. We'll say 3 more combat rounds. They will spend the Adrenaline to try and disarm Hitomi. Hitomi fails her Reaction and drops it. For avoiding damage: Hitomi versus Gun is Brawn + Stunt. We'll spend another Adrenaline. Hey, she gets it, plus a Basic. She'll use that to jump behind a power box and get back to her main task. Eustace spends an Adrenaline to Counter. He also manages the Extreme + Basic but can't really dodge out of fighting.
5. Needing to conserve ADR, Eustace just uses his Blades + Brawn + Fight. Will give + 1 Help for countering her hit last turn. Gets Critical + 2xBasic. This takes them to the second hotbox. With the double basic we'll say he puts her off footing. Will reduce her attack by 1 tier to Double Critical.
6. Hitomi will spend one of her Spotlights to get an Extreme. Enough to hack into the computer and to pull a quick one. Just for the sheer cinematic nature of it, the other two 'successes' will be to direct the trolley to hit Yori. She loses the Spotlight on the coinflip.
7. Brawn + Stunt Gamble. He gets it but takes one Grit.
8. Hitomi gets Extreme which is enough for two clicks on the track AND to cover Eustace. We won't give a click on the track, but that means he doesn't have to roll which is maybe for the best.
9. Both make a Crit doing another two 'damage'. 8 successes remain.
10. Since Hitomi is good at this, I will ask with (GOOD), do the ServiSynth guards track by sound? → [c65] Yes! Entirely by sound then, perhaps to stop from having a visual record. Makes sense.
11. Eustace only rolls 2xBasic but Hitomi gets 2xCritical and uses hers to prevent his loss. 7 remain.
12. Business names come from three cards: 62, 64, and 25 with minor changes. Eustace gets Critical. Hitomi the same. 5 remain. They will get +1 Help for this.
13. Hitomi gets Extreme + Critical. Eustace gets Critical. They have found their way.
14. She gets +1 Help and gets 3xBasic for a single Critical to open the lock.
15. Why not, let's give Hitomi a chance at Extreme Criminal + Speech to see if she can wing it. She gets a Crit + Basic, enough to gain a second of confusion so they can attack first but not enough to convince it.
16. Preserving ADR for now. Eustace gets a Critical and does no damage.
17. Only gets 2xBasic trying to resist so takes 4 Grit!
18. On second thought, we will not preserve ADR. Spends one for +2 to Fight. Actually manages a Jackpot. Only one damage can be done so the other two 'Impossibles' will be used as such. We'll give Eustace a freebie weakness gauge + a dodge. Weakness will be either 6,1 (Enemy is under a precarious structure, +1 to shoot out the ceiling) or 3,5 (enemy is trapped, free attack for 1 Grit). I like number 2.
19. She gets a Critical + Basic for both the hacking roll and the resisting security roll. Speed of 2 and Need of 2.
20. Eustace gets a free hit on the armor. Eustace dodges the clamp down pretty easily. Only gets a Critical + Basic to resist the attack and takes 2 more Grit. This refills the Bad Spot which gives him a condition: We'll call it Shocked and is -1 to Nerves.
21. Hitomi gets Impossible on her Crime + Dexterity. Speed is up by 3 to 5. We'll play exactly by Chase rules so this puts her React at -1. 2xBasic but takes 1 Grit. And yes, it's the Powerpuff Girls. Need = 7.
22. All in with ADR to make it a full 9 dice. Unfortunately his Extreme needed is all 1s. That's 4 Grit lost filling up the rest of his Grit track. He gets double basic which will be kind and apply to his avoiding the tackle. He gets an additional Basic which all three equals the needed Critical.
23. Hitomi wraps up the 12 Need without needing to make a roll. However, will have her do one last hacking roll to see how well she hides her tracks. She gets an Extreme. This will give them about 24 hours or so. For the visual, thanks to Kamen Rider W and the 'library' scenes...with an added mix of Gridman.
24. Can she control the guards from in here? (Even) → [c5] Yes? Kind of. Will take an extreme roll. It takes going All-In but she actually manages it.
25. Eustace gets nada. And fails his death save. Plan B it is.

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've had the photo for Dave saved up for a good minute now. It's base is this photo by Wilmer Martinez on Unsplash.

ADO's exterior is photo by Robert Tjalondo on Unsplash. Originall of the Netherlands.

Yori and Ambra are once again Nick Fancher's awesome looking models.

The interior scene of ADO: Photo by Arvin Mantilla on Unsplash.

Hasan's Terminal Farm is a composition of this 3D render with a photo by Christine Trewer from Pixabay.

PS Nontooth is Photo by Thomas Thompson on Unsplash. With some color shifting to make it more purple. And some tweaks to the graphic to hide that it's actually a Quebec gas station.

Taxonomy and Technical Data

• World: The GLOW
• Campaign: The GLOW
• Arc: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont
• Post: Episode 10 - Tracking Dave Akari

← Previous Arc Session |[ ↑ Arc/Campaign Page ]| Next Arc Session →

Hide Prep Phases

• "Previously..." and Campaign/Arc Summary
• The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont Episode 9 — Worse Angels
• Worse Angels
• In Between
• Stalling for Time
• How to Make Friends, Badly
• Doug's Commentary
• Mechanical and Story Notes
• Credits
• Taxonomy and Technical Data

Previously, on The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

After pushing into the heart of the Knives of the Fallen Star compound, Eustace + Hitomi + Genny have managed to find and kill Magnus Odinson while gathering up data on his anti-Order activities.

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 9 — Worse Angels

Setting the Scene. Worse Angels.

This is a dream sequence where Eustace will be given a chance to realize what is up but it might not be a hard one. He'll also see upcoming calamity (which was a mechanic from the very first session of this but has been dropped). This will help to give some flavor to the next session or two outside of simply (1) Get Dave Akari, (2) Get Roman Patel, (3) Profit.

To generate elements of the dream I'll draw three cards and build up some things: [c100], [c20], [c48].

• c100 has meteorites falling. That seems useful to use. Also a skeleton.
• c48 has Confuse Arcane Container.
• c20 has "the reek of vomit," "flames in the distance," and "hover-carrier..."

I think all three bits can make for some interesting screws tightening. This Anti-Order league is pulling a new asteroid towards the Earth to recreate The Chicxulub Event. They are on a hover carrier somewhere. Flames and vomit and other terrible scenes.

Date Scene Played: March 10, 2025.

Worse Angels.

He walks across kilometers of dry grass under the heat of the sun. Large birds overhead. Three and sometimes four. Though always feeling like more. He thought they were vultures until he stopped and risked sun-blindness to stare at them. No, they have black wings like crows. Beak faced. Black-eyed. But their bodies are human. Pale skin. Dark skin. Covered in scars. Covered in stench. Some ancient furies looking for a battle ground to feed.

Behind them, in the sky, a new moon is visible. Misshapen. Broken. Falling towards the Earth. An asteroid untethered from millennia of gravitational stability. Falling into the gravitational well of the sun. Quick stop on planet Earth on the way down. Steadily getting larger as it approaches. In the distance, screams from an unknown host of people carry past the horizon.

Underneath it all, he keeps walking. Kilometer after kilometer. The day that will not end. Towards something.

As the forever sun is finally setting, he comes to a small white building on the edge of the scrubland plain. Mountains in the distance. The sounds of people screaming seem closer or the number of people has increased. Up ahead, the crow-angels move in a complicated spiral but now there are definitely three. Maybe there was always just three. The newborn moon is triple the size of its older sibling. Like some perspective trick, always directly above.

He takes three steps towards the building and then finds it suddenly in front of him on the fourth, the door swinging open with a crunch like he just kicked it. He walks into the black hole past the door and finds a building interior very much in tune with the external carapace but also defiantly different. Too long, too narrow. Cramped yet large like the fear of dark is large. Full of emptiness. Shattered into obscene order. Stone floor where the building would clearly have wooden slats. Plain glass windows are now a cacophony of stained glass spirals gone dark with time. The pulpit is an ornate nonsense edifice. The crucifix a complex design made of carved yet living branches and vines behind it. Perched upon it, three crows. With a spot for a fourth.

In the floor, in the middle of this place is a pit carved into the stone like some ancient dhole has dug up from underneath. The edges are rough with rubble but the pit itself is smooth like eaten clear by millennia of water erosion. Walking towards it, he hears the pit breathe and sigh and the smell is not unlike a cat's breath. Carnivorous and sharp toothed. The death of rats and dry food. He blinks and it is a green door set into an old castle wall. Blinks again and it is a still pool in a forest floor. Blinks again and it is a throat.

He walks forward and falls.

Outside the people scream and burn and fires erupt as the newborn moon grows to fill the sky. The three angel crows are just one, now, the size of mountain, as emerald threads fall out of it and cover the landscape.

He falls for as long as he walked. Longer. Shorter. Hours and days and months and years. Just a few minutes. Eventually he finds himself again walking though this time through a city street. Overfull. Stuffed to the brim with signs and glass and debris. Graffiti marks every wall. Some in languages approximating human tongue. Others in wild letters that could only be spoken by star-spawn. All empty of people. A great edifice. A great orifice. Devouring until it had consumed its only food source. The air is empty of Soulburn.

No more souls to harrow.

Eventually, he comes to a small fruit stand. The apples and oranges upon it gone to ash. The sign curled and twisted by some  great heat. Past it, a small electronics store. The pieces inside impossibly antiquated. Some past eras concept of modern progress. Wires and cables like blood vessels and nerves. Machinery in the shape of hearts and livers. Old screens with green text burned into them. All of them saying just one word. Over over.

The sky, ahead, if he looked up, is a cavern roof. The newborn moon so wide there are no horizons that are not it. Gravity inverts, falls up into the sky. Dust and debris. The tops of buildings begin the crack. Glass shards spiral up into the newborn. Great pipes and tubes. Yellowed and oxygen burned paper. Old desks eaten by time and termite. All into the newborn's hungry mouth. Babies mouth the world. Tasting. Discovering. Finding it all lacking.

He is resolute down below. Walks into the shop as though gravity is the direction he chooses. He walks until he finds a door. Just a plain white door and on it is a sign that says "Employees Only." He pushes upon it and once again time distorts and he is already through and in front of him is a spider web of green lines and threads. Emerald yarn. Spider silk verdant and shimmering. In the middle of it, there is a woman. He knows her name like he knows his own name.

A taste rather than a word.

As he looks closer, he sees the green threads are lines drawn in the air. Sentences scribbled in crayon. And again, they over and over just say one word.

He looks down and arms end in two long blades. Like mantis arms. He is suddenly deeply aware that all these words threads strings silk ropes lines are his own work. He has been trapping her inside. He suddenly remembers what the word is. [1]

As the city outside breaks apart and falls up into the sky which is actually the new ground, as the planet is consumed into a newborn moon now older and more ancient the continents, inside this little shop that remains like a skull in a desert there is a man reaching up and pulling the woman from the threads. And he says the word:

"Foxteeth."

Setting the Scene. In Between.

Date: Sunday, June 2, 1996.

Time: 9:22pm.

Place: An apartment in downtown Pensacola.

Actual Scene: This is the Time Out scene where we wrap up things from last time before starting a new sub-arc.

This one will be blending in character actions and interactions with most Time Out mechanics. The characters will actually get around 24-hours of downtime while working on to their next step.

Eustace has two conditions to heal up. We also need to find out things like how many credits the team has gotten. Genny is kind of done as a side character for the moment. This next step will likely use Libby instead.

Normally I would play this out more quickly but since I just spent the last eight or so hours of playing going through constant combat and action scenes, I need one where the action is less about bloodshed and more of the broad sweep of the cyberpunk experience.

Heat has definitely gone up to 6 at this point. It just feels appropriate. At 6 Heat, they go up to 3 Lethal Bullets.

Date Scene Played: March 10, 2025.

In Between.

Date: Sunday, June 2, 1996.

Time: 9:22pm.

Place: An apartment in downtown Pensacola.

Eustace awakes from his dream with a dry mouth and a headache. For the first time in several days he finds himself craving a moment alone with his pipe and so gets up and starts searching through his old pockets to see if he can find it. Despite the beating the pants have taken over the past seventy-two-hours, the small briar pipe has has taken the abuse. Using his thumb to push the burley shag into place, he glances around for a light and finds nothing. At this point, where he is starts pushing its way to the forefront of his consciousness. An apartment. Pink sheets with white flowers. Corporate-level art on the wall. Knick-knacks on department store furniture. A mirror over the dresser showing his bruised body. A small crack in the corner to give it just enough verity. A place barely lived in but one that feels well-worn like a comfortable pair of shoes.

The apartment is owned by Juan and run very low down on the books. Accounted for as a storage space on the other side of The GLOW according to Juan's files and owned, by the building's files, by some woman named Mary Stewart. That particular Mary has been dead for a decade. Common enough name there are at least three other Mary Stewart's in GLOW at this point in time. A couple of soft lies to hide a bigger one. A hiding spot for jobbers that Juan rarely uses for only those he completely trusts. Hitomi has made the list. Eustace has no illusions how far he would get if he was on his own. He moves with a groan as he starts to pull on a shirt and then abandons it until a few more bruises heal. The whole time keeps his pipe clenched in his teeth. Myranda helped patch him up in the early morning hours but they only got so far before Hitomi decided that Eustace had been pampered enough. [2]

Speaking of Hitomi — he tries to not recall the dream and the word "foxteeth" — he pushes through the door and enters into a hallway decorated with old pictures of some family he does not know. The whole place smells of baked goods, mothballs, and stale cigarette smoke masked by lemon-scented candles. It smells of old photos and grandchildren playing. Synthetic scents. A gentle misting of Fractal Apocalypse-brand Contentment™ blended with a complex milieu of industrial grade esters. If MUNI somehow got wind and raided the place, their own brains would lie to them and convince them to take off their shoes.

Eustace finds Hitomi in a second bedroom (of three, Bee currently occupying the third) refitted to be a minor office space. She is asleep with a cigarette burned down in the ashtray beside her. Some dried blood on her shirt sleeve. He has no idea if it is hers. The green lines, such a steady companion for her these past couple of days, now mostly gone. A single line pulses between them, connecting their thread together. He realizes that aspect of his dream was true. Somehow he was embedding these lines into her, weaving them. He reaches out and pulls down a thin-as-spider-silk line moving faintly through the air and it actually catches in his grasp. He pulls it near his nose and smells. It smells like...fights and long nights. It smells like bleach and bed sores. A small TV playing the same meaningless commercial television on loop. A person barely able to stand because of exhaustion but so much requiring them to stand tall. Siblings? Lovers? Young lovers. Trapped by youthful love and long expectations. Never a marriage. A prison sentence. What attraction and hope was there is now gone. Eustace takes this thread so thin and light and he twists and turns a portion into a sigil he knows represents a way out, a removal from a trap. A dangerous game he could be playing. Leading to murder. To early death. But he feels deep down he has made the right call. [3]

After this he turns back to Hitomi and lifts her up. She weighs so little in his arms. She pushes a bit back but he ignores her protests and soon she is in bed, her soiled clothing removed. She'll need a shower but now is not the time. He re-enters into the office and glances at the screens processing data. After a few minutes of reading the output he grits his teeth. Another element from his dream come to life. Asteroid 27B-6. Spectroscopy results suggest Earth-like levels of carbon and organic materials. High likelihood of exposure to extra-terrestrial life. Complicated math suggest patterns that can be used to pull it out of its solar orbit and plummet it to Earth. Self-contained Soulburn Vessels. One map identifies the Indian Ocean as a likely target. Human casualties approaching half a billion or more. Massive fuel for a second Harrowing center, one built up with a different social structure. A particular spot in the Pacific ocean to act as an artificial atoll. Code named R'lyeh. Launching pad for a series of bespoke islands to store and harness concentrated doses of Harrowed energy. 

A group business leaders who got rich playing by the rules looking to create a world where there are no rules but their own currency and power. Enough evidence already collected that Eustace could walk out with these computers right now and be considered a hero to the entire Order. Would be able to coast for the rest of his life. [4]

And in exchange, he would never see Hitomi, again. A return to Antioch. Or, based on his new-found abilities, perhaps whatever hidden dimension the Witches Three have been hiding in. Assuming they are still alive. He thinks back to those "Worse Angels," those crow angels. Watching him. He pushes down into himself and tries to find other threads being attached to himself, ones that he might not recognize. There, around his arms, he catches the glimpse of something new, a magenta thread. He reaches out to grab it but it slithers out of his fingers. He's not yet strong enough to grasp it and soon it fades from his sight. [5]

As he is struggling with that, he hears a sound at the door as someone enters. He rushes outside and sees Bee and BrokenRecord breaking out of their long kiss and turning, looking shocked and worried. "Is that your dad, is that your dad, is that your dad?," Broken says in her signature repetition vocal tick. Eustace realizes that to most people he — with no shirt and covered in bruises and cuts — would likely be a shock. To two young people on the slight and frazzled side of life's coin he might look like a complete threat. He knew that Bee had gone with someone to visit Mrs. Yuuki in the hospital but is a little surprised to see BrokenRecord. More threads tightening and interlinking people. Still, they should make a nice pair.

"You know me, Darya. How is Mrs. Yuuki, Bee?"

Darya, aka BrokenRecord, looks up and realizes who is in front of her. "Oh you! You! Nice! Nice!" All smiles now. Bee slaps up against her shoulder, seemingly not so sure. Bee has been saved twice by Eustace, both times thanks to Eustace chewing through an entire group of people who were threatening them. Bee has strongly mixed emotions about a man who will cut off another man's face — quite literally — even if the outcome is a good thing. They shrug. "She's out of intensive care but has a long way to go before anything like hitting safety. Looters took out the rest of her store. Maybe some of the food went to helping people." [6]

"She'd probably rather they paid."

"Definitely."

"Um, um, um..."

Eustace waves at BrokenRecord's interruption and turns to leave the two young adults alone. Then turns back, "Do either of you have a lighter?"

Half an hour later, he is finishing his first bowl of strong burley tobacco — the office air thick and swirling with tobacco smoke and Soulburn — and going over some of the files from Dave Akari's computer. Tech to store and make new Soulburn. Miniature Harrowing born directly out of torturing sentient beings. Trapping them. A space station design. Several places around the globe where tests are being carried out right now. Often with various false religious cults to cover for them. No mention on where Akari might be right now, or how to get closer to the Patels. Other people involved. At least not obvious mentions. Account names by way of numbers. A few codewords. Basilisk. Bloodhound. OpTimeL0. People? Organizations? Unknown. [7]

On the desk in front him, 4 blue Creds. His and Hitomi's share. Combined with what they already have, enough to get started. To fight back. Assuming she is in. And if she is out, will he turn against the world for this brief moment? He truly has no idea. [8]

Down the hall, he hears more giggles from Bee's room. He has tried to ignore the sounds as much as possible but they are quite loud. Only, it's not really the sounds he was expecting to be ignoring. Either the two of them are having the world's most ticklish sex or they have opted instead for a late session with a joke book. Frankly, flip of the coin between the two. Still, it reminds him that he should also be resting up. The future looks stark and steep.

He crawls back into the grandmotherly bed that Hitomi and he is sharing. She is snoring lightly. At his initial disturbance she makes a face like a person trying lemon for the first time. After a moment, though, she rolls over and gathers herself against him. He holds her tight and looks up to see that magenta thread twisting and waving over him. Looks at the ceiling and pictures, up there, plans for a space station that will create a man-made disaster to destroy a half-billion people. He reaches up and plucks at the thread he cannot hold, and along it he hears a laughter that is older than dirt and darker than the bottom of the ocean. A terrible crone's laughter.

His heart is racing when Hitomi makes a sort of shushing sound with her mouth. He had not even realized he had been talking out loud. No idea what he had been saying. Instead, he grabs her and pulls her warmth into his and holds her there. Remembering her saying no L-words and no-not-L-words. But he has trouble keeping it to himself. "I love you, Hitomi Meyer."

She smiles and then presses her face into his chest and starts snoring again.

Setting the Scene. Stalling for Time.

Date: Monday, June 3, 1996.

Time: 7:17pm

Place: The Palafox Street Market in Pensacola.

Before we roll the scene to test it for expectation, we are going to do something a little different. I'd like a bit of a street market scene which could be an interrogation (Expected), a chase (Minor), or a fight (Major). Basically, they are trying to find a confidant who can help them locate Dave Akari's base of operations [which we know from the initial dream sequence, or well, stuff on the back end, involves a hover-carrier].

Creating this person we'll do some of the standard things. { male | female | non } = Female. { younger | same | older } = younger. (from Augmented Reality // Hackers & Slicers) 70 Mother_Bored 96 Drug-addicted net regulator, knows system's weak points 27 Malnourished, pastey, dank. Real name (from Dicegeek's Cyberpunk 3 // Phillipine Names) 42 Eleanor 36 Clemente. Another hacker from the days when Hitomi and Dave ran together, only Eleanor/Mother_Bored stayed with Dave — at least, he stayed with her. MB's drug habits makes her a weak link in the chain but her knowledge of The GLOW aethersecurity and day job of doing legit business keeps her an asset.

Expected Scene: Hitomi and Eustace try to find Mother_Bored at the Palafox Street Market.

Scene Test: [c53] 8. 2d10 = 9 + 8. Minor complications are like...taxes. Inevitable. It's a chase then.

Actual Scene: H+E are having to chase Mother_Bored through the street market.

Need will be 10. Hotboxes on 3 and 7 just to add some more shenanigans. Starting speed will be 0. Once they catch her, we'll figure it out based on whims, dice, and cards.

Date Scene Played: March 12, 2025.

Stalling for Time.

Date: Monday, June 3, 1996.

Time: 7:17pm

Place: The Palafox Street Market in Pensacola.

There are moments like this when Hitomi very nearly loves The GLOW. The crowd on Palafox Street. Families. Couples. A few old men and women with canvas bags full of sandwiches and juice. A couple of guys playing chess on a table. The scent of good cigar smoke. Laughter. A kid eating funnel cake. Very few MUNI officers or private security. The general density and flow of the crowd increasing as they approach the market. The night version which is much the same as the day version:  just a swap from grown goods to crafted ones. Late night it swings to more esoteric things. Early morning more baked goods and meal prep and medicinal. Some folks timesharing stalls, equipped with anti-humidity devices and bug-repelling light sources. During the day all the tomatoes you can eat for a few quarter creds. At night, all the tomato shaped necklaces. Drones fly overhead, giving live updates on foot-traffic flow and sales patterns. Palafox regulars tracking haggling and stock so they can better play at being farmer market's browsers.

Similar to the Citadel, there are layers upon layers of unspoken rules. Some quite loud. Enough of the old grandpas and young wives running the stalls — day or night variations — have ties to various street gangs that any assault upon the market would likely trigger an all out war. In fact, backed by folks like Juan Uno, the market is broadly under 24/7 Pax. Doesn't mean there aren't plenty of petty thefts and occasional violence, it is just understood that it will involve as little damaged merchandise as possible. Tourists meander through the street. No doubt some will claim that hanging out here has shown them the real GLOW.

"Mother_Bored was an early recruit to several security firms. By age of seventeen, she had mastered a complex series of wards unique to her own grimoire. By age of nineteen, she fell in Dave Akari and myself. A few weeks later, I was out and she was the new second-in-command. The trick to getting good at wards is that you are generally good at cracking them. Hooked up on various souldrugs. Became a liability to Dave and got kicked out of inner circle herself but too valuable to push far and much too valuable to kill. If anyone knows how to find Dave and his current troupe, she'll be it."

Hitomi has been bringing Eustace up to speed. Mr. Psychic likely can know all these details with a quick thought but it's nice to talk out loud. She can feel that their relationship has shifted. Become the kind of one where just talking to one another counts for something, and it worries her. Eustace has a non-zero chance of being able to slaughter every person on this street and while that could be downright sexy in some situations, it remains a bother. Not that Eustace seems the type but The GLOW is full of people who seem like they wouldn't backstab an entire swath of the population until they do. She read the reports snagged from Magnus and Dave: a second impact event calculated to extinct just enough people to make folks poised to capitalize on it richer than the word "rich" can convey.

Eustace, listening to Hitomi, is worried about coincidences. Palafox Street. Foxteeth. Crow-winged, scarred angels. Newborn moons. The dream/vision running amok in his brain. And the fact that many of the terrible things circling around Hitomi are directly related to him not so much reading the psychic threads matrix and rewriting it.

The two of them hit the main crowd and once again the general effect of Eustace's size does wonders as tourists and regulars part silently, doing their best to not be seen looking. The stall in question sells tat made of reclaimed computer parts. On the surface. Motherboards turned into wall art. Hard drives and disks turned into outsized jewelry. People in the know might be sold a CD on a kitschy chain. The CD just so happening to contain backdoor ward breakers into a credit union. Or a list of names and dates for expected souldrug drop offs. A rotating series of codewords and catalog numbers. The kind of place you have to very nearly not need to use in order to navigate its services.

Approaching it, Eustace gets his first glance of Mother_Bored. A woman a couple years younger than Hitomi but whose small stature and thin frame makes her look an anorexic teenager going on late-forties. Drug of choice is synthetic sleep blended with soul-speed. Manages a roughly twenty-two work day between aethernet security, this booth from 5pm to midnight, and various unsavory acts in the early morning. Brain always somewhere between deeply dreaming and wide awake. Eyes twitch as aether-goggles convert realtime talk to dreamlike sequences at x10 fast forward. Hence the nickname. Normie speed is a sin to her. She'll likely be dead before she hits thirty but will have lived a longer life than most.

Hitomi approaches while lighting a cigarette and asks for "Whole Wheat Flour, Ground Tuesday" which triggers Mother_Bored to start automatically reaching under the counter before she whips her twitching head to stare about a half-meter over Hitomi's head as the dreamland versions of events alerts her to just who made the request. Eustace is braced for a scene but instead he hears the shutters on the stall activated as MB bolts out the back while he and Hitomi are inside a security pen that would, in normal circumstances, require bioprint ID to unlock. Eustace has blades out between the sliding chain-link fence before it can close and arm and Hitomi is out past the gates and giving chase. Eustace shoves back against the gate long enough to get out himself and hears the shutters click behind him, powering on the electrofence grid. He does not look back as he catches up to Hitomi and they see Mother_Bored dive behind another stall. [9]

MB reaches into the neighboring stall — filled full of blown glass icons and religious trinkets — and snags out a big handful of ornate candle holders and slams them down into the ground in front of Hitomi's feet. The old Asian woman behind the counter let's out a curse in Vietnamese as her grandson — or paid thug — steps out to face Eustace. Hitomi leaps over the broken glass and keeps moving at full speed. Eustace turns to the man and points a bladed arm in his direction with a single shake of his head. The man holds his hands up and steps back long enough for Eustace to get past. [10]

Hitomi swings out further behind the stalls where the crowd is a bit thinner — even though the crowd is more likely to be sitting on the sidewalk and munching on street food — and runs through a group of college kids playing at some card game. Eustace leaps up on top of the stalls — the synthetic canvas actually a complicated aetherlaced metal meant to give the appearance of cloth — and leaps from stall to stall as some of the commerce drones start following and tracking him to put on a show for all the subscribers. [11]

MB hits some buttons on a large watch she is wearing and Eustace sees the drones blink as their blue light flashes red and they swerve down to strike at the two chasers. Then Mother_Bored abruptly turns and changes course to dive into the crowd and start crossing the street. Shoving against people larger than her. Several folks start cursing. As the drones dive down, more curses. People losing their entertainment. Eustace leaps through the air to strike the drones down before they can get to him and Hitomi. He uses this momentum to fling himself into the crowd. The crowd parts as he lands. Several people have camcorders and scrying glasses filming the action. Some tourists seem unsure if this is a planned show or just the natural entertainment that erupts in The GLOW. Hitomi reaches out and grabs hold off the supports holding up a stand of homemade jellies — spiked with tiny glimmering beads that glow with Soulburn — and swings out, using her momentum to turn to follow. [12]

Eustace powers through the crowd while trying to not trample anyone. A young mother with a small kid is giving a lecture about allowance and steps out in front of him. He pivots into the side, bounding off a ServiSynth made to look like a cartoon character — selling bootleg animation cels from a popular robot series — but keeps his pace up as best he can. Hitomi, too, is struggling to shove though the people, many focused on Eustace and closing the gap to try and get as much good video as possible. She grabs a middle-aged Japanese man in a suit and shouts, "ありがとう!," as he trips and falls back. No doubt he will have a fun story to tell his wife and kids back home. [13]

A bike trolley carring several tourists on a "pedal and sip" tour of Pensacola pulls blocking Eustace's view for a moment before he spots MB dodging down an alley. He lets the tourists go past before chasing down after her. Hitomi, further back, nearly misses this but catches the back of Eustace as it goes around the corner. She takes off after. Eustace is heading for the end of the alley when Mother_Bored's fletchette launcher fires off a few sharp blades. He smacks them down and then closes the gap and kicks her legs out from under her. [14]

A few moments later, Hitomi comes up as well, breathing hard. Almost regretting the pack of cigs she has smoked today. Almost. As soon as she catches her breath she is going to start on her second.

"What the hell, Ell?," Hitomi asks. Then, to Eustace, "Get her, we'll find some place we can talk."

Setting the Scene. How to Make Friends, Badly.

Date: Monday, June 3, 1996.

Time: 8:47pm.

Place: 8th Floor Auditorium of Pensacola Polytechnic.

Expected Scene: Eustace and Hitomi bring Mother_Bored to a location to talk to her about Dave Akari.

Scene Test: [c52] 6. 2d10 = 8 + 5. Minor twist. "Your net traffic is leaked.

Actual Scene: Private security is converging to liquidate Mother_Bored.

For the attackers, we'll go for 2xCrit/Crit/6. Won't worry about special actions so no hotboxes but they have a couple of feats: Tactics (need to flip a coin to get close), Piercing Bullets (ignore partial cover).

Date Scene Played: March 12, 2025.

How to Make Friends, Badly.

Date: Monday, June 3, 1996.

Time: 8:47pm.

Place: 8th Floor Auditorium of Pensacola Polytechnic.

"You just happen to have a key to a classroom?," Eustace asks, looking around as the lights flicker on. They are a fair sized auditorium, eight floors up in a single-building "university" called Pensacola Polytechnic. Corpo salary slave pipeline. The smiling PP board photos on the first floor were a who's who of mid- to very-nearly-large GLOW corp CEOs and CFOs. Roman Patel was one of the many on display, near the center with a slightly bigger portrait than the others. From students in suits to office drones in suits in four short years. If you have a particular knack of taking orders well and ignoring questionable lines on a spreadsheet, all expenses paid. Not the sort of place that Eustace would have considered Hitomi to have any connections. Surely she wasn't a student.

"I dated a professor. Well, still...dating. Maybe. It's complicated."

"Ah. Nice?"

"Skip. Next question! Like, where the fuck is Dave, Ell?" [15]

Mother_Bored scoffs at the old nickname for Eleanor and then stares back into space. Been nearly an hour since last fix after she bolted and left her stash back in her stall. In six hours time the stall becomes a fruit stand specializing in GLOW-harvested apples with purple skin. Of course, all her shit will be there which will rankle Tomas. Reality is starting to bleed in. She had been having such a lovely dream of falling through infinite space while multi-colored planets...

"ELL!"

Mother_Bored whips her head back up, coasting somewhere over a planet full of red hexagons for clouds. Hitomi and her new man talk. so. slow. The ever present fear of coasting back into fleshtime starts crawling up her spine.

"How about I slap her?," Hitomi asks.

Eustace stares down at this poor pitiful woman. DTs causing her to sweat. Body odor suggesting a lack of basic hygiene for going on a week, punching through any perfume. Candle burning from both ends, twice as fast. His first thought was she wouldn't make until thirty. Now getting a read he feels like she might not make it until 1997. Multiple organs on the cusp of failure. He slows down time around him, pulls forth the threads weaving through this room. So many colors. Not just the emerald ones to which he is attuned, but thousands and thousands of shades. He finds a gray, thin, dying line that represents the remainder of Mother_Board's life. Grabs and twists it into shapes. There's no rulebook for what he is doing. No grimoire. He can only go on the patterns that his own soul are trying to solve. He ties the thread off into a knot and let's go. A relatively minor miracle, one with immediate effect. [16]

Mother_Bored gasps and falls over, whipping off her glasses as the dream state she was in crashes into dull colors like an after effect of staring at fireworks. The sweat dries up. The need dries up. Her brain no longer overclocked she is cruising at 1:1 time. She's starving. Her back hurts. She desperate needs water. What the fuck just happened?

Eustace looks down at the panic in her face and tells her plainly, "I removed five years worth of addiction. Can't stop you from getting back on but your body has a chance to fight back against it."

"You did...fu...wha..." Mother_Bored — now just Eleanor Clemente — stops when she realizes Hitomi is just as shocked as she is. She wants to be furious but her body is now nearly too weak to sustain any emotion besides all the basic needs. Shit. Does this mean she is going to have normal dreams?

"Hitomi asked you a question, where is Dave Akari?"

Hitomi's hands are shaking as she is trying to light a cigarette and she gives up. She's had a sense that something is happening with Eustace but she realizes she has been undershooting the mark. She has a sudden unbidden thought of three figures in cowls. No people. Something much, much worse.

For now, though, she sees that Ell is resisting talking despite whatever the opposite of body shock might be so it falls on Hitomi to take on the good cop to Eustace's absolutely terrifying reality altering cop. "Dave is involved in some terrible fucking shit, Ell. Like, killing millions and millions of people. Maybe billions. Women. Children. Puppies, for fuck sake. We are trying to stop him before it's too late." [17]

Eleanor "Ell" "Mother_Bored" Clemente looks at Hitomi for a second and starts crying. "I don't know, Hitomi. He left me behind. I still have to keep getting him stuff or he said he'll cut me off from my supply. Well, I guess I don't have to worry about that any more. He's taken to The Moonblink. All I know."

"The Moonblink?," Hitomi asks.

"His hoverboat. Using Patel tech. Flying somewhere over The GLOW."

"Do you know where?," Eustace cuts in and Hitomi slaps him on the arm.

"Um, no, dipshit. Hover. Boat. It moves around."

"Ok," says Hitomi, "How can we possibly track it. Do you know?"

"Now that Mischa has pulled her mutiny, only likely terminal is Hasan's Terminal Farm." [18]

"Mischa? Hasan? Who are..."

Blood explodes as Eleanor's head explodes and Hitomi and Eustace whip around to see a pair of men in dark suits holding silence pistols aimed at the late Ms. Clemente. Without saying anything Eustace starts running towards the men as they split and run in opposite directions. After a second, Eustace has to turn and tracks the guy on his left. Hitomi whips out her gun and fires at the guy on the right before diving behind the lecturer's podium. [19]

Large chunks tear through the podium as the one gunman pins her down but none of the bullets find their mark. She hears the sounds of bullets ricocheting off of Eustace's blades as he cuts some of them out of the air but also hears him grunt as he doesn't cut through the entire barrage. [20]

From her spot she hears the sound of someone cutting through flesh and then the dull wet thwack as a man screams. Glancing out from behind the podium she sees the gunman she was targeting splattered with blood as the other man's head is still bouncing off of him. She takes advantage of the moment to open fire and the second gunman drops. [21]

Eustace jogs back up to her. She asks him, "Did you just cut one man's head off and use it to hit another man?"

"Seemed expedient."

"Ok, and now what the fuck are you doing?"

Eustace is wrapping one of the dead man's coats around Ell's body and picking her up. "We just chased this woman in front of a large crowd of people. They find her dead now, it won't take MUNI long to track us. Come on, security has to be coming."

Hitomi hesitates only a moment before following after him. She has to figure out who or what a Hasan Terminal Farm might be.

DOUG'S COMMENTARY

March 10, 2025

Worse Angels is a reference to a Laird Barron novel of the same name. One about experiments gone awry and state secrets. Outside of that, it does not really have any presence or impact — no pun intended — on the rest of the session. The dream sequence, at least bits of it, were somewhat inspired by Laird's writing style. But also just dream logic of a sort.

The church and its image at the start was picked by just scrolling through recent stock art and finding something that would make sense in that dream. Another picture would have flavored elements of it differently. The bit about the pit smelling like cat's breath was actually the first element I came up with while giving one of my cat's medicine. Giving him medicine requires getting him to open up his mouth and then getting the pill to the back of his throat. I get to smell cat's breath fairly often, thanks to it.

It does not help my mood that I've been reading over the past couple of nights the new-to-English book The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica. Post apocalyptic nightmare state BDSM nuns with post-modernist feminist lesbian romance inside of its terrible logic. None of its imagery really figured in the dream sequence but that sort of mood of things not fitting besides how they fit were inspired a bit by it. The book cost me a couple of nights of sleep and so take that as the high praise it is, even if the book sort of ends up in exactly the place you might figure it would.

27B-6 is definitely a reference to Brazil. The plot to destroy a country to get rich is...you know...also a reference...to something.

March 12, 2025

The Palafox Street Market is a real thing though something completely different. I figured if I was setting some sort of street market scene in The GLOW's Pensacola I should at least give a shoutout to a real one. It seems awesome.

There is no Pensacola Polytechnic. That originated out of a prompt from Augmented Reality. On page 48 I got "School Stack" and then realized that something that was a bit southern but also a bit cyberpunk would make sense. I didn't want to use a real location since I was going to be a tad unflattering, but I like the PP alliteration.

After the bang-bang constant rush of the previous few episodes, having a slightly "slower" and somewhat "smaller" one was nice. This one is a bit more standard Doug I would say, good or bad. A lot lore baked in. Each scene played on its own with some time in between to think. I would generally prefer more scenes like these, even if they take twice as long. Where each scene is its own puzzle. Figuring out the dream sequence. Figuring out the truth of the data they stole. Figuring out how the relationships are going. The street market and making that feel like a place. Even just the oddity of having the quick shoot out in the classroom.

Some of this was me watching Johnny Mnemonic earlier today. There are several "definitely 'punk" moments but there is also several scenes where reality is mostly just life in the XXI. A good percentage of the cyberpunk vibe is trash piled up in large spaces while extras playing homeless folk struggle to not look at the camera. Or people spazz out on the least convincing hospital set of cinematic history. While that is no doubt thanks in part to the budget and the 90s struggle to figure out what cyberpunk might look like if it was box office profitable, it is interesting to think about how Sprawl vs Top is sometimes not so clear cut. Most societies with extreme stratification of economic realities have a large middle class left behind by the true Top and those middle class people smear the lines between the other two extremes as they form bubbles of secondary and tertiary Tops. Hence the market which was contrasted to the mall. A place where violence and high tech and squalor can exist but also a place where people need to shop and buy trinkets. The school where people sell their souls to corps to get a middlin' education. I wanted to find those places where the 'punk is restrained behind the scenes. In an actual cyberpunk universe, a large number of people would just be living. Same as it ever was.

And some of it was this campaign changing one of its side benefits. Initially I had been playing it here to get the hang of playing the system as written with the plan of demo'ing at the 2025 Huntsville Pop Culture Expo. After some consideration — a bit between some financial concerns and between having issues running games at big cons now due to my disability — I am actually going to give running games a pass this year. It makes me sad but it can be really hard to spend something like fifteen hours running games and it just takes it out of me.

On the positive side, this means that I can swing back to playing Outgunned more like I tend to play games without having to worry too much about nitpicking the rules. It will still be Outgunned but it will also be a bit softer, with less focus on sticking to all of its mantras of action and pacing.

The next session — and I am sticking to one post per week combining 2-3 different sessions — will most likely be a Turning Point. We are starting to see WHY the campaign exists. I love the threat of these businessmen plotting to create a second impact. It feels proper outsized and dangerous. Still, next week will almost definitely have the showdown with Dave Akari on his hoverboat and build up to the final sub-arc of confronting Roman Patel.

MECHANICAL AND STORY NOTES

1. Focus + Fight to tear out his own accidental psychic hooks that have been increasingly trapping Hitomi. Dream Eustace gets a Crit + Basic. Good enough for me!
2. Did Eustace's pipe survive the last several days? (Even) → [c87] Yes. With Myranda giving + 1 vs Eustaces Focus + Healing checks, he gets Critical on his first and fails his second. He removes his Hurt but still has his Smashed. He will be at -1 Brawn to this session.
3. Eustace is gaining an Experience: aware of his ability to move threads (aka, witchery). For this test, Focus + Fix + 1 Help from said experience. He gets an Impossible. Boy has jacked the system. Let's pull two cards: [c45] + [c35]. A tense relationship is strained. Your heart breaking. Heavy tobacco smoke. Does this pair want to be together? (Even) → [c43] No. Why are they together? → [c109] A tripwire. They feel trapped due to one being injured.
4. Criminal + Fix + 1 Help (Libby) + 1 Help (Laptop). Even with all the dice she only gets Critical + Basic. Enough to find the data, not enough to snag extra money/etc from it.
5. Are the Witches weaving Eustace's threads? (Even) → [c80] Yes. This will require something big, like Extreme or Impossible, but all he gets is Crit + Basic using Focus + Fix. He is aware of it but not good enough to untangle himself from it.
6. Is Mrs. Yuuki recovering? (Even) → [c4] Yes.
7. Generated by drawing three cards - [c95], [c93], [c55] - and just riffing off a piece of information on each. I have no idea what these will be, if anything. Future fodder.
8. I rolled 3d6. 1-3 = 1. 4-5 = 2. 6 = 3. Got a 1+4+6 = 6. Split three ways gives 4. Hitomi had promised her share to Genny but he did not take it.
9. Brawn + Fight -1 (Smashed) +1 (Blades) nets him double Critical. He moves speed up to and gives them both a chance to get out. Hitomi goes for Brawn + Stunt to get out the opening and also keep up. Gets a Critical + Basic and also goes to Speed 1. Need = 1 for both at the end of the first round.
10. Hitomi with Nerves + Stunt manages to get an Extreme. We'll give her a boost of another Speed to 2. Eustace with Smooth + Speech gets a Critical with his free reroll.
11. Hitomi manages a Critical Brawn + Stunt to go up to Speed 3. Eustace, with adrenaline spent, gets a Extreme and goes up to Speed 3 as well. Both are at Need 4 and we get an adrenaline for a thing.
12. Brawn + Fight nets Eustace an Extreme. Enough to guard both himself and Hitomi and to increase his Speed to 4. Hitomi using Nerves + Stunt manages to corner the turn and keep moving.
13. Both using Brawn + Stunt. Both end up with just a Basic and maintain Speed. Eustace is up to 8 Need. Hitomi is up to 7. This triggers the next hotbox event.
14. Focus + Awareness to find her after losing sight. Both amazingly make it. She then takes a shot but he dodges that with Brawn + Stunt. Next Action turn will have him finishing it up so he has caught up to her.
15. Just in case it ever comes up, which it might, the professor's name is Dr. Mariya Kazuo. Just snagged that from c86.
16. Going to make him spend a Spotlight for this (he does not win the coinflip to get it back). He then goes for Focus + Fix. Gets Extreme + Basic.
17. Is Eleanor willing to talk? (Even) → [c108] No? Smooth + Speech + 1 Help for all the stuff happening. Crit + Basic.
18. Would Ell know about Mischa and the Apostates? (Good) → [c10] Yes. Hasan was just a name on the card.
19. In a move that surprises no one, Eustace does not detect the men. They kill Ell. Eustace loses his coin flip to approach so has to spend his full action to get there next turn. Hitomi gets Crit + Basic and so notches 1/6 Grit and takes full cover.
20. She's in full cover so takes no hits. Eustace rolls Brawn + Fight to get Crit + Basic to absorb 4 of the 6 grit's damage.
21. Eustace spends an Adrenaline to get +2. He gets a Extreme + Crit and does 4 Grit damage to them. They have 1 Grit left. Hitomi, even with the penalty, manages to roll a Crit without even rerolling. Good for her.

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 27B-6 above Earth shot is from a computer rendering by Planet Volumes on Unsplash. I wanted a photo of an asteroid above the earth and viola! Not exactly a photo but I'll take it.

The Dream Chapel: Photo by nathan gordon on Unsplash.

The exterior of the apartment is this photo by Giulia Squillace. She has others that will be excellent for the mood of this current session so at least one will likely show up.

In fact, the very next photo was a street market shot from her collection.

Pensacola Polytechnic is from this photo of a classroom auditorium.

Taxonomy and Technical Data

• World: The GLOW
• Campaign: The GLOW
• Arc: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont
• Post: Episode 9 - Worse Angels

Dates Played: March 10 & 12, 2025. With editing and additional touch ups on March 13, 2025.