CR Arcadum S2E1: New Beginnings

New Beginnings
Episode Statistics
Season	2
Episode	1/29
Playlist(s)
Episode Cast
DM(s)	Arcadum, SciFri, Qyr, Gigabits
Director	Arcadum
Actors	Callous Row Season 2 Characters
Episode guide
Previous	S1E22: Necrosis and Finale
Next	S2E2: A shadow on the wall

Chapter 1 - New Beginnings

Corporate Intel and Upper City movement

Rook opens up The Grindstone Bar as usual and greets the old robot J.I.M who appears to have lost his memories again. Rook opens up the synthetic's console and reprograms him to act as a bartender in his place. Doing his rounds he proceeds to warn and inform his trusted people about the current intel, leaked from Sonitii thanks to Faye's wiretapping, on the ongoings in the Upper City. The stock trade market had gone quiet, and a void in the powers that be hinted at an imminent potential power struggle by the mega-corporations vying to fill that void. A capital ship had also entered the solar system with a salvage order traveling through the Sonitii warp-gate.

Verlassene returns guidebots ID

Doing his rounds, Rook encounters Guidebot yelling at Verlassene, a robot catgirl who is accused by Guidebot of stealing his ID card. When confronted about it she explains that she was just toying with him and returns his posessions. Engaging Guidebot's war mode, Rook sends him searching Sonitii's network looking for missiles and their salvage order.

He meets with Kee'ra and warns her about the intel, advising her to listen if any Upper City folks stop by the brothel. He also asks her out to join her in the newly opened Red Garden area. Proceeding, he meets with Loch, Warren, and Charles, updating them on the intel and the spaceship salvage order. Loch remarks that the destroyed Retribution battle-cruiser had discharged its weapons and cargo before it was destroyed. Agreeing that if the corps go to war the people will be the ones likely to suffer and learning from past events, Rook recommends keeping tabs on everyone, as the last time something like this was going on people started disappearing. The intel from Faye also reported that WOTO is aiming to market and sell their artificial fun cubes, a questionable mass-produced food product.

Continuing his rounds Rook pays out credits to Duncyn for the late Jack's service.

"Rebecca - Professional"

Meeting Becky he learns that she has reinvented herself as "Rebecca - Professional". She was going to go to Talaris to learn more about her magical powers, not valuing the limited training that she got from The Undercity. Rook advises against it and reminds her of the "mage slaying bullets" they had recovered from the corps last year. She asks for his help about acquiring fire crystals to help keep the embers for her fire magic going to which he agreed. As he let spill about his date with Kee'ra, Becky tells him that the brothel worker might be thinking that his date would be the "paid" kind and possibly was offering "the girlfriend experience", which is popular - but very costly. Rook is stumped by this realization and is suddenly very worried about his upcoming date.

Checking back in his bar he meets two corporate-aligned young men from the Upper City looking for fighters for an arena fighting event over at the Mars compound and offering 10K credits per fighter. Seeing this as a chance to find out more, Rook introduces them to Loch, Warren, Charles Rask, and Desmond, tasking them to use this opportunity to spy on the corporates. Somehow Guidebot gets assigned as a fighter as well, with the mission to plant as many bugs as possible. The combatants accept the offer and will get back in touch another day.

DM: The flustered Jimothy

As a DM, Arcadum calls Jimmy Young as a superior officer of Sonitii while the young lad is visiting a strip club. Faking that someone had called the wrong number, Jimmy hangs up on his supposed superior, on which Arcadum remarks: "Oh boy, he is in trouble now." Superior chief Nostrum of Sonitii sennds a soldier to the Row, ordering him to return with Jimmy back to HQ immediately with the warning, as quoted: "Nobody hangs up on me." When the order was delivered, a confused Jimmy rebuts that he is with Union and not with Sonitii, showing his ID. Arcadum, recovering from his mistake, then tells him as the Sonitii underling some good and some bad news. The good news is that Jimmy seemed to have a brother, who apparently was his clone. The bad news is that this supposed brother is now, unfortunately, dead.

Meeting with Kak-to and Mayor Rico Suave

A visit to the wastes

Stopping by the Undercity, Rook passes by the Grove, greeting Leilani who has "grown up" quicker than any human would, and meets with Nia and Bethany in their junkyard shop. He warns them about the same intel, and he wants to make sure they know to look out for any suspicious scrap gatherers showing up with salvage orders.

Taking the rope elevator down to the Wasteland, Rook meets with the Mayor of Scrap Town, Rico Suave, asking him how to acquire more fire crystals. He also asks for some new cologne, that he had gotten from him before, for his date with Kee'ra. There he is introduced to the mayor's strange gangster lackeys, Kak-to and Sean Ward. Before meeting the mayor at his "palace", they are intercepted by a "dragon lady" named Sheila who speaks of her spirits while spitting pink liquid at them. Gangster Kak-to decided to literally pull her leg to distract her so that the mayor and Rook could get away from her ramblings.

Meeting up at the mayor's "palace", the mayor immediately jumped into his personal pool filled with water, a very rare and seemingly wasteful commodity in the Wasteland, not to mention that it was placed right next to some electrical wiring. Both wasteful and a recipe for disaster. The mayor agrees to find him some fire crystals and resupplies him with his cologne, that just happens to be... the mayor's bodily fluids, his octopus ink.

Sheila ranting about "the spirits" as she is held down by Kak-to

DM: Sheila's visions

As a DM Arcadum whispers to Sheila as her spirits, telling her to go out into the sands and follow a large scorpion-like monster. Together with Wit they head out into the wastes. Out in the desert it suddenly starts to rain, and a spirit speaks through the giant scorpoion creature. It speaks:

"I am the rain. I am the storm. Listen well. My warning: the mountain watches, its fire grows, its rage grows beyond counting. Fire, pain, death to all. Seek thee that live in metal. Seek thee that care for those below. Face the guardian. Silence the mountain's fury before all things are lost."

As the scorpion returns to the wilds of the wastes, a vision enters Sheila's mind: a mountain spraying death and destruction down on the sands. Is a volcano about to erupt, threatening the safety of Scrap Town?

DM: THE CUBES ARE PEOPLE!

At the Upper City, Arcadum portrays a panicking WOTO employee calling John Goldman. They seem to be having some troubling issues with the WOTO food cubes moving on their own accord. John warns his WOTO colleagues and brings along Rikky Raclette, Manyu All, and the worried employee to investigate. When they enter the production facility, one of the cubes infects the employee by crawling into their skin. He dies before their eyes, immediately coming back as a zombie, but he's quickly disposed of by Manyu. This is not all their ire though as they notice that they were being observed by a hacked webcamera. Someone saw what happened. Suspecting Sonitii to be behind the spying, they try to break into the computer.

Kee'ra makes Rook flustered

The Sensitive Orc

Rook waits patiently for Kee'ra to turn up for their scheduled date, but he starts worrying that she might have forgotten about it, or that she possibly thinks it is a professional affair and not a genuine one. His worries prove to be unwarranted as she appears and they speak together while he awkwardly tries to be charming but stutters nervously. She calms him down and they talk about her true alien form. She offers to reveal it to him someday if he wanted. Before parting they schedule another date to explore the Undercity together and go for a swim. After Rook walked her home and kissed her goodnight, his nerves go haywire, and he runs off to throw up in an alleyway.

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