Random thought of the day… is it possible to engineer a situation where Chaney successfully defends himself and actually kills Max in Fallbrook? If you disarm Max, give him a low DT outfit, don’t take a second companion and don’t join in combat yourself, does Chaney stand a chance? Or does Max have fists of fury?
I’m just curious if the writers had written anything specific for that scenario, as they’ve allowed for so much player freedom in the game. Or is Chaney’s death scripted if that’s the dialogue option you choose.
I've lost a considerable amount of money in Fallbrook. Not by gambling, but by throwing small bits of gold I bought into the water and then watching Reginald Chaney lose his mind whenever he finds one. The plan is to keep a steady supply going for a few days so he thinks its worth staying there for ages, and then not throw a single one ever again
Ah, thank you for the ask! It's a bit long, so I'll put it under a cut.
Reggie
He was hot and sweaty and filthy and there was nothing in his pan to show for his aching hands but a thin dusting of common sand. Nothing, void blast it. His fingers were shriveled by the water, stinking of sulfur, and his stomach rumbled. When was the last time I ate? He couldn’t remember.
He supposed he’d have to go find some tourist and figure out a creative way to debase himself to earn enough bits to buy some vittles. But it was the off-season for tourists, so pickings would be slim — those who were in town were apt to know him, which meant he wouldn’t be able to use his usual methods of wheedling or desperation on them.
He was just trying to figure out what other, more awful options he had, when he saw someone walking up the river towards him. Whoever it was, they were in armor, which reminded him abruptly of the last time someone approached up the river in armor, and a shudder ran through him at the memory. But no, this person wasn’t them. It was just one person, for a start: a dark-skinned woman with bright pink dreadlocks and her helmet tucked under her arm. The armor looked clean and solid, which meant bits. This is good. And the color and style of her hair meant she probably wasn’t Official Corporate waltzing bold as you please through Fallbrook to make him answer for something he’d done in the past. Even better. The best thing of all, though, was that he had absolutely no idea who she was, which meant that she probably didn’t know him, either. He repressed a desire to rub his hands together in anticipation and stood up, wincing slightly at the pain in his back. A shift in the breeze made him wish he’d had a bath. Oh well, you gotta work with what you got, sometimes.
“Reginald Chaney?” The woman said before he could hail her. She sounded distressingly authoritative. Oh no. She knows my name.
“Uh, who’s askin’?” He said reflexively.
“Look, I don’t got the time,” she said, coming to a halt before him. “Name’s Nyoka. I need information, and word is you got it. I’ll pay you 2,000 bits if you come with me to the Broker and tell us what you know.”
“The Broker?” Reggie asked, bewildered. “You mean that fella what’s up on Devil’s Peak?” His rational understanding of the dangers of going out beyond the walls of the town were warring with the delightful prickling feeling associated with bits — especially that quantity of bits. Two thousand! He thought he might be drooling, and awkwardly ran the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Uh-huh. If you’re worrying about the trip up there, don’t. I’ve done it a hundred times. I know this country like the back of my hand.”
This statement triggered the memory of tourists talking about hunting. And about the hunter they’d hired. He thought they’d called their hunter “Nyoka”. No, he was sure of it. A guide like her? Entirely believable that she’d have the bits, and he wanted those bits so badly he could taste them and it almost — almost — eased the pinching of his belly. But it wouldn’t do to seem too eager. “How will I get back here?”
She sighed impatiently. “We’ll bring you back. It’ll be part of the deal.”
“We?” He asked suspiciously, squinting at her.
“Me and my team. Do you want this job or not?”
Something felt off, something in his gut twisting at the haste and scanty details. But his gut was also twisting in hunger. Right on cue, his stomach betrayed him, letting out a loud growl.
She heard it, blast it all to the void. “And we’ve got food,” she said. “We’ll see you’re well fed.”
Something in Reggie broke and he gave up. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll do it.” He looked back at his campsite and realized that there was really nothing there worth taking or hiding. Any thief who came along would probably just feel pity for him — he would know, as thievery was one of the many rackets he’d tried and failed over the years. But he had his pride: he defiantly packed his pan and hand shovel into his satchel and slung the bag over his shoulder. It took a distressingly negligible amount of time. “Okay, lead the way,
boss.”
They made their way through Fallbrook proper and passed through the gate, to the Outside. Even though they were on the road, it was still the wild, and Reggie couldn’t help but glance around nervously. So he was well aware when two armored people, their identities hidden inside helmets, pushed themselves away from the town’s wall and fell into step beside them. Her team. One of them was wearing armor with an unusual and striking paint scheme — black and tan and grey in zig-zags at odd angles — and he suddenly realized that he recognized them — no, her — from the way she moved.
Reggie came to a complete stop, feeling an awful drop in the pit of his achingly empty stomach. “Oh no,” he said. “No no no no no. Not you. If you're involved, this can't be good.” He waved his hands in the universal criss-crossing sign of negation. “You tricked me. No thank you, I'd rather starve."
Nyoka rounded on him, suddenly looming, scowling. She looked as if she were about to pound his head in with the helmet she still hadn’t donned. The other person was wearing bulky repurposed heavy armor and was just as intimidating when they turned on him too. He suddenly felt like he was surrounded by clenched fists. He winced and tried to huddle inside his own skin.
The Captain held out her hand and the other two stopped mid-surge, settling back. Like Max, Reggie thought. Just like how she stopped Vicar Max. And just like Vicar Max, they waited patiently, radiating hostility and impatience.
The Captain took off her helmet. There was something different about her, he saw. Something haunted. Something has happened. Something terrible.
He was right. “The Board took Max, Reginald,” she told him. “We think they took him to Tartarus. We—" and she swallowed, hard. "We don't know if he's alive. We need to know about the facility to find him.” Or his body went unspoken, but her agony was writ plain on her face.
Reggie was taken aback, not so much by the fact that she used his full given name as by her desolate expression, and he felt a welling of conflicting emotion. “Max?” He said. Why would anyone want to save him? “But — I — look, I haven't forgotten — I mean, you saved me — I, I want to help you because, well, because I owe you. But…”
He trailed off, his stammering stopped by the look in her eyes. She took a deep breath. “We're going there to find him, whether you help us or not,” she said quietly. “All we need is information. If you really mean it that you owe me, you’ll make sure we go in there prepared. That's all I’m asking.”
And then she looked him in the eye and simply said, “please.”
This terrifying woman, full of so much power, she looked lost. And she's asking me for help — me.
He remembered the last time he’d seen her, when he’d thanked her for saving his life.
“What are you going to do with it?” She’d asked him.
“Uh, with what?” He’d been confused.
“Your life,” she’d said.
“Uh, live it?”
Much later, once his fear had faded and his heart had started beating normally again and he could think straight, he'd been disappointed in his reply. Only he’d never been sure what the answer should have been. Now, though, he thought he might have it: that to do something with one's life was to stand in a moment like this and make a decision, an actual decision, instead of running away.
“I'll help you,” he said in a giddy rush of elation and terror. May be this is a bad choice, he thought. But it's the right one.
