MARCO:        Oh hello there. I'm Marco, and you are? Oh, lovely to meet you! Just wanted to let you know that you're looking positively stunning today. Oh yes, darling.

Now, if you wouldn't mind terribly, would you consider leaving a review for this little audio endeavour? I would so appreciate it. Oh, no, anywhere is fine. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Chop, chop!
VI:	A podcast by the Intergalactic Improv Initiative.
KAYA:	Dangerous Dangers, Episode Five: Hack First, Ask Questions Later. Featuring the voices of Alanya Campbell, Tiff Compton, Amanda Cotter, Lea Lawson, Dan Spitaliere, and creator, Kaya Renwick.

Many things are falling, or will fall, or have fallen, but temporary triumph is still triumph. I Should Roll.

Last time on Dangerous Dangers: hoping to find information on Jesse's missing ship, the crew of the Corsica's met with the Minos informant that Harkin set them up with. The meeting turned into a firefight on the Presidium; with two assailants down and two on the run, we join them in the aftermath.
VI:	January 19, 2189, Terran Universal Coordinated Calendar. The Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula. The Presidium, Presidium Commons. 
KAYA:	We left off on the Presidium after the semi-successful firefight with Minos. We've got the handful of C-Sec officers investigating the Minos corpses. The head C-Sec officer, this rather imposing tall turian with darker plates and light markings —very standard array— in his blue and—blue and steel armour doesn't look terribly pleased that he has blood to clean up off the Presidium.
ATHENA:	[unbothered by consequence] Well, they started it.
OFFICER:	Uh, sorry, who are you? Can I get your name, please?
KAYA:	He pulls up his omnitool and starts recording.
ATHENA:	Oh, I'm Athena Hellier.
OFFICER:	Nice to meet you, Miss Hellier.
ATHENA:	Thank you. Thank you. [casually name drops] I know Armando. I think he had an inkling we were coming.
KAYA:	I would like you to roll a—I'm assuming this is a Charm check…
LEA:	Thirteen… Okay, sweet. Okay, well, that'll have to do.
OFFICER:	You’re a friend of Captain Bailey's?
ATHENA:	Indeed I am.
OFFICER:	[skeptical] Gonna need a little more information here, Miss.
ATHENA:	Alright… Well, I spoke to him earlier, mentioned that we were on the trail of these certain individuals and asked if he had a lead. He didn't, unfortunately, but, here we are. Seems we've all found them—and honestly, the less of them, the better, right?
KAYA:	You have a couple of options here. You can spend a Stress and roll again.
LEA:	Yeah.
KAYA:	You can roll an Insight check to see if you can get any clues as to how else you might persuade this guy. Or you can try to get him to call Bailey? Basically you gotta up your persuasion game here, and doing so—it's like the risk is getting higher, but you do still have options—or you can just abandon the attempt and he will continue recording and reporting this to his superiors.
LEA:	Oh, she doesn't give a shit if he calls Bailey because she knows that she did speak to him before. So… was that Insight, sorry, to do that? To call Bailey?
KAYA:	Yeah, that would be Insight—
LEA:	[overlapping] Yeah.
KAYA:	—basically to see what you if you can like gauge from his—
LEA:	[overlapping] Yeah.
KAYA:	—his attitude, what would convince this guy.
LEA:	Okay.
KAYA:	To let you guys off the hook.
LEA:	Be… Sixteen.
KAYA:	Okay, yeah, that'll do. You get—so you look this guy up and down and you get the vibe that he's not quite crooked but like his palm could be greased if it needed to be. [LEA hums in understanding] Or you could—he might respond better to a little bit of a show of force and so like, calling that, “Call Bailey” right, calling his bluff sort of deal.
LEA:	Oh, yeah, we're 100% doing that. [DAN & AMANDA chuckling]
KAYA:	Okay, well, go right ahead.
ATHENA:	Alright, friend. What was your name, by the way?
KAYA:	[regretting letting LEA lead] Oh, fuck you, Athena.
[EVERYONE laughing]
KAYA:	I don't have a name for this guy!
AMANDA:	[overlapping; mischievous growl] Makin’ Kaya come up with names!
LEA:	[overlapping] Okay, okay! That’s fine, that’s fine, that’s fine. Alright, George.
KAYA:	[overlapping] Okay.
DAN:	[overlapping; unsurprised] Fifteen minutes in and the DM has cursed us.
[EVERYONE laughing]
KAYA:	[amused] I don't have a name, are you kidding me? No.
LEA:	[overlapping] Okay… [mulls it over] George?
ALANYA:	George.
LEA:	George.
ATHENA:	Alright, George, [KAYA exhales] just… call your… [LEA distracted by TIFF]
TIFF:	[overlapping; losing it] George the turian!
[DAN & AMANDA laughing]
AMANDA:	What’s your name? Doesn’t matter, it’s George now.
LEA:	[confirming the chaos] It’s George.
KAYA:	I was gonna just cut this out, but that's just funny now [AMANDA, DAN & TIFF chuckling] so he’s, yeah. You call him George [LEA chuckling] and he looks at you and—
LEA:	[overlapping] Yeah!
KAYA:	—taps his earpiece like his—
LEA:	[overlapping again] Yeah.
KAYA:	—translator is malfunctioning.
LEA:	Yeah! Translator.
GEORGE:	[bemused] …That’s not my name, but…
AMANDA:	Well, you are a very curious boy.
[LEA ascending]
KAYA:	[quietly] Oh dear.
TIFF:	[amused] Dammit.
ATHENA:	Yes. So, George, we're going with George ‘cause you didn't introduce yourself when you asked me to. So, George, call Bailey. Go, call him, I don't care. Do it.
KAYA:	Okay. He rolled real bad on his Charisma save, and so he kind of like “Oh.” You've taken him off guard, between just brazenly calling him by the most un-turian name that you could come up with and tellin’ him, “Call your boss.  Yeah, yeah, bring it!” And so he does—he taps his earpiece again and turns away and has this little mumbled conversation.
GEORGE:	Uh, yeah. Yeah. Captain, I've got this… [how to describe] this human woman here… Name’s Athena. [disbelieving] She says you, you, you knew about this, uh, this possible firefight, sir?
KAYA:	And he nods, and nods…
GEORGE:	Yeah, thank you. Thank you, sir. Understood. Yeah, of course, sir. Yes. Thank you, sir.
KAYA:	And taps it, hangs up, and looks back at you.
LEA:	She's got her arms crossed.
[KAYA & ALANYA chuckle]
GEORGE:	My apologies, ma'am. We were—the word was not handed down of this particular little undercover op. Deepest apologies and we'll get this—we'll get this cleaned up right away.
KAYA:	And he does the very human gesture of, like, tapping on the side of the nose. And turns away.
ATHENA:	Atta boy, George. ‘Cause we're on the same page now, just before ya, you know—
LEA:	She's gesturing at her nose this time,
ATHENA:	We're just going to check a little thing. [spying body] Or two. [spying bodies] Or three.
KAYA:	He nods and like “Got you. Got you,” and very, very obviously turns a blind eye. ACAB even in Mass Effect, y’all.
[DAN & LEA laughing]
AMANDA:	Atta boy, George. He's such a karma chameleon.
[TIFF cackling]
LEA:	[accepting the expanding George references] Oh—
KAYA:	[overlapping] Jesus Christ.
LEA:	—it’s happening.
AMANDA:	Clous would like to see if by any chance the escaped lead individual dropped anything behind on his way out.
KAYA:	Sure. Do you want to investigate the body—
LEA:	[overlapping] Ye—
KAYA:	—of the person you squished first, or do you want—
LEA:	[overlapping] Yeah, we want to Investigate all.
KAYA:	—to just head over there?
AMANDA:	Oh yeah, it's probably a good idea to investigate—
KAYA:	[overlapping] Are you going through pockets for loose change?
AMANDA:	—I should get the loose change, yeah. [LEA chuckling] Let's investigate the body first and then I'll go search.
LEA:	Yep.
KAYA:	Okay. [DAN chuckling] I just wanted to double check because you did squish them, so...
AMANDA:	[overlapping] If there's anything left.
LEA:	Yeah.
KAYA:	I mean—
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Ooh.
KAYA:	—there is, it’s just very flat. Alright, roll me an Investigate check.
DAN:	How do you loot people in Mass Effect? Is it just a bunch of people waving their hands around dead bodies? [LEA & ALANYA amused]
KAYA:	I guess. [DAN & ALANYA chuckling]
AMANDA:	That is an eleven.
KAYA:	Okay. Well, she's a dead pancake, [DAN cackles] so the DC was not very high.
AMANDA:	Thank god.
KAYA:	And yeah, so you go through the pockets, or, like, the little compartments of her armour because they were—they were wearing like low profile hardsuits, so not like the full-on Shepard and co. hardsuit but still some armour on them. And you find her omnitool bracelet and a key card.
AMANDA:	I would love to see if the omnitool—like is the omnitool intact? Is it busted? ‘Cause I did sit on it.
KAYA:	I think… Didn't you squish her head?
LEA:	I think.
AMANDA:	Probably?
KAYA:	I don't—I don't remember that you were very…like how specific you were about how you squished her…
AMANDA:	[amused at our great memories] I also do not recall.
KAYA:	But I feel like you were probably going, for… sorry?
AMANDA:	[repeating with amusement] I also do not recall.
KAYA:	Yeah, I feel like you were probably going for maximum lethality, and so I'm going to say that the—
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Omnitool intact.
KAYA:	—Yeah, the omnitool’s intact. Yeah, because it was on on her arm—
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Great!
LEA:	[overlapping] And there's another body as well, so.
KAYA:	Yeah?
AMANDA:	Yeah, absolutely. Well, I would love to take a look at the omnitool and see if there's any information about what this person—what this group was doing. Any plans that they were going to intercept us? And I would also like to see if there's details as to what the card is for.
KAYA:	Okay, that will definitely be—
AMANDA:	[overlapping with a silly enthusiastic voice] Yeah!
KAYA:	—a Hacking roll because that buddy is password-protected for sure.
LEA:	Yeah. Can we… 
AMANDA:	Is the password ‘12345’?
LEA:	[immediately joining play] Password’s ‘password’.
DAN:	[bypassing shenanigans, being actually helpful] I can assist.
KAYA:	Anybody who wants to assist, absolutely that would—
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Thank you!
LEA:	[overlapping] Dan’s doing it.
KAYA:	—give Amanda advantage. ‘Kay, Dan’s [AMANDA yay!] Dan’s going to assist and yeah, you're Hacking. You're playing Frogger with the omnitool.
LEA:	Can we check the other body in the meantime?
AMANDA:	[almost sinister] Yes, that's a seventeen.
LEA:	Sev… [hyping] Yeah, seventeen!
KAYA:	Yeah, you can check the other body, yep. That'll be an Investigate. Okay. On a seventeen, yeah you unlock it. It's—it was a pretty, pretty basic encryption, all things considered. Like basic good level. Not like basic kiddie level. Like we're talking medium decryption sort of deal right—
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Yeah, not 12345.  But like the use four different words XKCD style, yeah.
KAYA:	Yes. Yeah, exactly: correct horse battery staple. Yeah. Yeah. Correct pyjak eezo... I don’t know, something else.
[AMANDA & KAYA giggling]
DAN:	Whale.
KAYA:	Perfect. [TIFF cackling] I know, I was so close.
TIFF:	You were so close and it was almost perfect.
KAYA:	Ah, correct—correct pyjak eezo frigate. [LEA hums in impressed agreement]
AMANDA:	[overlapping; enthusiastic, elongated] Yes!
KAYA:	—There we go.
TIFF:	Love it.
KAYA:	Yeah.
TIFF:	There we—we got there!
KAYA:	We sure did. Okay. Yeah, you hack in, and you find: this is [pause for dramatic effect] Susana Scutari's omnitool.
AMANDA:	[gasp] Oh my god!
[LEA oohs]
TIFF:	We recognise this name!
KAYA:	Holy shit.
AMANDA:	No wonder she wasn't answering her phone.
KAYA:	[confirming her own mischief] Indeed! And as you discover this, you look over and you see her like—her cracked open skull and you're like “Oh yeah, I see the resemblance.” [AMANDA cackling] “Okay! Okay!” [TIFF cackling]
AMANDA:	Yeah, Clous is… how would Clous respond to this… Clous would would look at the omnitool, look at, uh, her busted-ass face, look back at the omnitool, look back at the busted-ass face and say,
CLOUS:	Grimly: It is a shame what you had wrought. I would have just spoken to you at home.
KAYA:	[chuckling quietly] Oh dear. Uh, okay. What else do you find on that omnitool? You find plenty. You find the home—her home address is the residence—
ALANYA:	[overlapping] Oh, okay, gotcha.
KAYA:	—address that you found. Okay, there's not a whole lot else of use to you on her omnitool. Minos is frustratingly competent in many ways, and so they don't actually, like…you're not—you haven't stumbled into a treasure trove of information from one operative’s omnitool. It's just basic stuff. But you do find that the key card is a secure method of entry to that residence.
AMANDA:	Excellent. So we can go snoop her apartment later.
KAYA:	Indeed, indeed you can. Athena, were you going to investigate the other body?
LEA:	I rolled [dramatic pause] a whole-arse nine.
[ALANYA & TIFF chuckling]
AMANDA:	Did you… Somebody else can help! Did you roll advantage?
[DAN & ALANYA amused]
KAYA:	Again, well, guys, the DC for an Investigation—
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Okay.
KAYA:	—on a corpse [ALANYA oohs] is five.
ALANYA:	Whoa.
LEA:	Oh, sick. Okay, good! Good, because she knows—
[AMANDA cackling]
KAYA:	[overlapping] So they're dead.
LEA:	[amused] Alright!
KAYA:	They're dead, y'all. If you rolled, like, above a fifteen, I’d be like, “Are you doing like a cavity search? [AMANDA & TIFF laughing] Like, how intense are we getting here?”
LEA:	[overlapping] I mean, she’s pretty thorough!
KAYA:	—really…
[ALANYA amused]
AMANDA:	‘Thena snaps that latex glove…
KAYA:	Hmm, true. You find the equivalent of loose change. You also—the other guy’s omnitool bracelet did get damaged in the fight, but you do find his credit chit and it has, you know, a few hundred credits on it.
ATHENA:	[underwhelmed by the amount] Oh look, I found three money.
KAYA:	Pretty much.
AMANDA:	I'd still like to look around for anything that the lead might have left behind.
KAYA:	Okay, that will be another—that would be another—
LEA:	[overlapping] Yeah, he was sitting down.
KAYA:	—Investigation check.
AMANDA:	Unless anyone else has higher Investigation and would like to search themselves?
KAYA:	[come again?] Higher Investigation than the detective? The galaxy’s greatest detective?
AMANDA:      	[overlapping] With the flat z—
LEA:	[overlapping; also skeptical, sarcastic] Surely not!
AMANDA:	[overlapping; louder] I’m perceptive! [DAN & TIFF laughing]
LEA:	I got a five.
DAN:	I have a plus six—
TIFF:	[through laughter] Who is lacking…
DAN:	—to both Hacking and Investigation.
KAYA:	[damn, son] Holy shit.
KAYA:	Okay!
ALANYA:	I did, I think. Yeah.
LEA:	Yeah, so you beat me by one. What do you got, Amanda?
AMANDA:	For my modifier?
LEA:	Investig—Invest—yeah.
AMANDA:	Oh, it's zero.
LEA:	[long pause; elongated incredulity] Fuck me!
[AMANDA cackling]
DAN:	I got a twenty five on an Investigation.
AMANDA:	[high-pitched singing] Hell yeah!
TIFF:	Damn, nice.
KAYA:	[overlapping] Hot damn. Okay, you… you do not find that anything was left behind. But I will say on a twenty-five you would have a pretty good idea based on where both… You said you have—that's in Hacking and Investigation?
DAN:	[far too nonchalant about this] Yeah.
KAYA:	Okay, then I am going to just make a little bit of a narrative choice here. Because the lead was cloaked when he left, and so you wouldn't have seen him go. But you're savvy enough with the various systems that you can…you do a little bit of poking around on the door panels, and you find the one that was most recently accessed. And so you know which door the lead went out of and you saw which one the engineer went out of. And I'll say that you managed to—Did you guys destroy the turret?
LEA:	Yeah. Yeah.
AMANDA:	Oh yeah.
KAYA:	That he made—yeah? 
AMANDA:	Mm-hmm.
KAYA:	Okay, Okay. Okay. I will say that with a twenty-five you manage to—you manage to find the turret’s data core. It's a little bit damaged, but you actually manage to retrieve it from the wreckage of the turret.
DAN:	Hell yeah.
AMANDA:	Well, I do have plus six to Repair.
[LEA impressed noise] 
KAYA:	Hey!
[DAN laughs]           	
LEA:	Something!
DAN:	Yeah. So I guess I'll [LEA chuckles] like come back with the turret, the data core of the turret.
AMANDA:	[overlapping giggled] ‘Something’.
JESSE:	If we can paste this back together, I can try and take a look inside of it, but I'm not really good with my hands like that. Anybody?
KAYA:	So let's hand it off to the pachyderm alien with the massive hands—
LEA: 	[overlapping slyly] Hand.
KAYA:	—who's apparently really good at this.
DAN:	It's a wild universe.
[AMANDA laughs]
KAYA:	I love this game.
[LEA laughs]
TIFF:	Can we just take a moment to realize that in—because we're not showing our faces, no one can see the look that [DAN and AMANDA giggle] Lea just gave to camera. It was pretty fantastic when she said, [skeptical] “Mm?”
LEA:	We’re acting with the whole body here, baby.
TIFF:	It’s so good. 
[AMANDA laughs]
LEA:	[overlapping] Need to record next time.
KAYA:	Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Physicality makes it into the voice, baby.
TIFF:	[overlapping] Exactly. Totally. 
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Yeah.
KAYA:	Oh, totally.
LEA:	Uh huh. Uh huh. 
TIFF:	Yeah.
AMANDA:	Yeah. So, Jesse coming up to Clous, and, you know, saying like— or I guess maybe coming up to everybody, we're all in a group. And so, Clous will say, 
CLOUS:	Triumphantly: I am quite good at using my hands for things. Please give it here.
DAN:	I'll hand it over.
AMANDA:	And I got a nineteen on my—I got a nineteen on Repair.
DAN:	Hell, yeah. 
KAYA:	Okay. Sure.
TIFF:	Damn. Okay.
KAYA:	Yeah, you—I will say that you, you dust it off, you fix it up as best as you can. It's got a crack in its data matrix, so you will need to find either like a—you'll either need to take it to a bench with special tools to… On a meta level, you'll need that to lower the DC. 
AMANDA:	[elongated] Mm.
KAYA:	And so you've fixed it up, but it's not functional yet.
AMANDA:	Great!
KAYA:	Or you would you could possibly buy like a new—
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Screen for it.
KAYA:	If you were fixing this for somebody, you could buy a new part. But seeing as you want to fix this and see what's already on there, you will actually need to fix the data matrix. Otherwise you're just getting yourself a new data core, essentially.
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Yeah, and that's— all the info is gone then.
KAYA:	Yeah.
AMANDA:	One other thing before we step to that. Out of curiosity, like there's a lot of plants and stuff up here, right?
KAYA:	Yeah, there's also a lake relatively nearby.
AMANDA:	Nice. Is—are any of these plants—
LEA:	[slyly] No fish.
TIFF:	[overlapping; mutters] Fish…
AMANDA:	Are any of these plants edible, any mint, or any sort of like?
LEA:	[overlapping; confused] Are you hungry?
[DAN laughs]
AMANDA:	[sweetly] No, I want… I want Solace to be able to start a garden on the ship.
TIFF:	[elongated] Aw!
[DAN & AMANDA laugh]
KAYA:	[amused] Roll me a Perception check.
AMANDA:	[overlapping; laughs] Something I’m good at!
[LEA laughs]
KAYA:	I know! Look, I’m being nice! 
LEA:	[overlapping] The glee on her face.
TIFF:	[overlapping; elongated] Yay!
KAYA:	I could have had you do Knowledge or something.
AMANDA:	Yeah. No, that's true. That would be a seventeen on my looking for a plant to give to Solace.
KAYA:	Ah, yes, yes, sure. There— you notice— [ALANYA giggles] and so the layout of this particular little plaza on the Presidium is they've got, there's like the benches and stuff where people can sit, and they have planters. And in these particular planters are these long sort of… they kind of have the appearance of a weeping willow, but like, coming up from the ground, these long fronds, and they're sort of like a silvery green. And you happen to know that these are a plant from Khar’shan. They're sort of like, they're like a really spicy mint.
AMANDA:	Ooh. So, cool, I'm gonna—I'm going to pull a bit from that a little—I don't remember what it's called when you prune off a little piece of a plant.
KAYA:	And take a cutting?
AMANDA:	Yeah! Yeah, yeah. Yeah, [ALANYA laughs] I take—I do a little cutting and I bring that over to Solace and— 
KAYA:	Are you attempting at all to be stealthy about this?
TIFF:	There are C-Sec officers around so… [giggles]
KAYA:	Yeah, they're still there. 
AMANDA:	Yeah, but I am an elcor.
[EVERYONE laughs]
AMANDA:	Yeah. Sure, I'll. Yeah, I'll try—[amusedly pleading] somebody cover for me.
LEA:	I'll distract the next one…
KAYA:	Okay, I'll say that you have advantage because Athena is helping you. Like you, you sort of—you're—Athena sees you eyeing up this weird plant, and you guys have worked together before. You have a little bit of know-how with each other. And I don't know, Athena, what are you doing to distract to the—
LEA:	Yeah, well, she just kind of walks herself in front of the C-Sec officer so they're facing away. And then she's just going to fiddle with the uniform just kind of straighten them up, make them look sharp.
AMANDA:	[elongated] Ooh! 
[ALANYA and DAN giggle]
KAYA:	[surprised, but also not] Oh my fucking god. Okay, I would like you to—
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Lightly graze a hand down his chest.
[TIFF cackles]
KAYA:	Oh Jesus Christ. [AMANDA giggling a lot] Are you—is this George? Have you picked George, or are you going with one of the other C-Sec officers? I think I said there was an asari, a batarian, and a human, I think.
LEA:	Yeah, no, it's George. [ALANYA giggles] It’s George. It’s George.
KAYA:	It’s George? Jesus Christ.
LEA:	[doubling down] Yep.
[AMANDA laughing]
KAYA:	I would like you to roll me… [debating] …a Performance check.
LEA:	[elongated] Ooh.
[ALANYA giggling]
TIFF:	[whispers] Compliment his fringe.
AMANDA:	Better than a flat flirt.
KAYA:	Or his waist.
TIFF:	And a supportive waist, yes.
[EVERYONE dissolves into laughter as they see the dice result]
LEA:	Oh, okay, okay. It had the plus four, thank fuck. I thought it was a one. [giggles]
AMANDA:	Yay!
LEA:	[doesn’t understand D&D yet] It’s a five. 
DAN:	[gleeful correcting] Oh, it is a one. It’s a nat one plus four. 
TIFF:	[gleefully confirming] Yes, it is.
[EVERYONE laughs]
KAYA:	Nat one’s still a nat one.
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Yeah, you can’t come back from that… [quietly] Oh no…
KAYA:	Unfortunately. Uh, so you, you—Amanda, we will resolve this for you in a moment—
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Oh, yeah. This is way more interesting.
[EVERYONE laughing]
KAYA:	—but I cannot—I cannot let this go! So you sidle around and you start flirting with George the turian. [what is my life]
LEA:	Flirting?! She’s distracting!
KAYA:	[pardon me] Distracting, distracting. You start attempting to distract George the turian. And you're— I mean, he's wearing a hardsuit. [DAN guffaws] So are you, polishing bits and like s—
LEA:	[overlapping] Yeah.
KAYA:	Yeah.
LEA:	Anything I can touch is just trying to—[KAYA noises, LEA contemplates] Yeah, maybe ruffle the hair a little.
AMANDA:	Ruffle the ‘hair’ on the turian.
KAYA:	[giggles] You're like, you're like—
LEA:	Well, the hair. You know what I mean, the spikes. Whate—? [pauses to recall] Yeah.
KAYA:	[too amused] Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're making sure there's, you know, no—
TIFF:	[overlapping] His fringe.
KAYA:	—no fluff—
LEA:	[overlapping] No fluff.
KAYA:	—or whatever. And he he looks at you and,
GEORGE:	[confused] What… are you… doing?
ATHENA:		Well you're in charge, aren't you? You gotta look the part.
KAYA:	[pause] I'm ‘onna [grinning] I'm ‘onna make a roll for him real fast.
[EVERYONE laughs]
[long pause]
AMANDA:	Oh no. Tell me George crit the other way.
TIFF:	Oh, please, please tell me… yeah. 
[TIFF, ALANYA & LEA giggling]
TIFF:	Did he crit fail?
KAYA:	[amusedly shocked] Second nat one in a row! [TIFF cackles; KAYA trying to compose self and squeaks out] He also crit failed.
AMANDA:	[elongated] Wow.
TIFF:	This is the meet-cute we didn't know we needed.
AMANDA:	Yeah!
LEA:	Oh!
KAYA:	Yeah. So… so the back of his neck just flushes dark blue. You can see it above the edge of his undersuit. And it creeps up the back of his head. And his mandibles sort of wave kind of loosely [giggles escape] And he says,
GEORGE:	Huh. Wow. I, you know, I usually go for men, but, 
[LEA dissolves into laughter] 
KAYA:	And so, despite the fact that you crit failed, so did he. So Amanda, you still get advantage—
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Amazing!
KAYA:	—on this Stealth roll.
AMANDA:	Well, my Stealth is negative two—
TIFF:	[overlapping] Oh, that’s so good.
AMANDA:	—so.
LEA:	It's enough—
KAYA:	[overlapping whisper] Jesus Christ.
LEA:	—It’s enough.
AMANDA:	I rolled a thirteen, and hopefully that's enough.
KAYA:	[God help me] Yeah, that'll be enough. Yeah, you get to—you get your cutting. This is the… [sigh]
AMANDA:	Excellent.
KAYA:	[taking stock] Athena: you blackmailed a volus, you're seducing the gay turian… like, wow! [TIFF chuckling] It's impressive. It's impressive. [To Amanda] You’ve stolen your cutting.
AMANDA:	Yeah! I would like to approach… I would like to approach Solace.
CLOUS:	Enthusiastically: Please take this gift to start your herb garden on our ship. I very much look forward to the delightful meals that you will provide us.
AMANDA:	And then I do an affectionate bump.
ALANYA:	Solace is a bit [thinks] I guess you can't tell if they're f—not flustered, but confused. They like just kind of tilt their head a little bit, and the bump confuses them a little bit more, [AMANDA laughs] but seeing Clous give them the—it was a mint, right? A herb? Mint?
AMANDA:	Uh huh. It was a spicy mint. 
ALANYA:	Yes. Ah, there you go. Yeah, they will… [LEA giggles] I dunno… Is their tentacles prehensile? 
KAYA:	Yes.
ALANYA:	Don't know if that's the right word.
KAYA:	Yeah. Yeah.
ALANYA:	Okay. gotcha.
KAYA:	Yeah, they—yeah, antennae, feelers, whatever. They do also have little tiny arms. Kind of T. rex arms.
[AMANDA cutesy noises]
ALANYA:	Yeah, and so they will take—use one of their tentacles to take the mint into their grasp and they'll say, 
SOLACE:	We thank you very much. This is very… sweet of you. 
ALANYA:	And so, using their little weird rachni hallucinogenic things, they'll, it'll be like a glitter effect kind of going into Clous’s vision like [makes trilling sound]— 
AMANDA:	[overlapping] And Clous just lets off a little like—
ALANYA:	—just as like a little thank you.
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Yeah.
KAYA:	[softly] I love that.
AMANDA:	And there's just like a little pheromonal [squeaks] ooh, yay! 
LEA:	[adorable voice] Happy baby!
KAYA:	Oh, that's adorable. I love that. Yeah. Glittery, glittery, happy gratefulness. That's so cute… [takes in the sweetness] Oh my god, you guys are adorable. Okay, what's next?
TIFF:	Vraga has kind of been looking in the lake that's there because, you know, she had her rumour about fish, [LEA giggles] but… Once Jesse finds the turret—it was a turret that he picked up, right, the core?
DAN:	And also the door that the guy left.
TIFF:	Yeah. So, yeah, she's going to walk over towards Jesse and ask,
VRAGA:	I know it's a long shot, but you didn't happen to know any of these guys, did you? [JESSE is confused] I mean, you're…you're human, so I just wasn't sure what the the pool of people—
KAYA:	Hey, you're from Canada, right? Do you know this guy from Saskatchewan? 
TIFF:	[overlapping; cackles] Do you know this guy that lives in Moose Jaw?
KAYA:	And then the awkward moments [LEA laughs] where, like, I live, like, five provinces over, but yes?
LEA:	Sure! 
TIFF:	Well, that's exactly what I'm channeling right now.
KAYA:	Sure, I knew it. I knew it.
JESSE:	Um… I just met you. So I'm gonna let that slide. 
DAN:	Do I know any of them? I mean once… I'll go check the one whose head wasn't crushed.
KAYA:	[laughs] Yeah, sure. And then I guess, roll me a, I guess, a History check?
DAN:	[laughs] Okay, plus three. That is an eleven.
KAYA:	No. No.
JESSE:	Sorry, no.
KAYA:	No.
VRAGA:	Yeah, I just wasn't sure, I mean… didn't mean anything by it. You're gonna have to forgive me. I was a shaman for years, so I didn't really talk to other people that weren't other tiring, raiding female krogan.
JESSE:	[regretting calling her out] Okay, you're good. I—I was just kidding. You could turn me into a fine mist, so I'm not gonna piss you off.
[AMANDA dissolves in laughter]
VRAGA:	And you know what? I think that's the reason we're gonna get along swimmingly.
[EVERYONE laughs]
TIFF:	And she just pats him on the shoulder as gently as she can.
[JESSE grunts]
AMANDA:	Still leaves a bruise. 
TIFF:	Yeah.
LEA:	Gently, gently… gentle.
JESSE:	By the way, the leader of them went that way.
DAN:	And I'll point to the door that I was able to detect or hack or whatever.
LEA:	Okay. Athena’s going to still play with George, I guess. [giggles] She’ll be like,
ATHENA:	Hey. Hey. Okay. Do you mind, ah, doing a little check and just seeing where our other fellows went off to? And, um… if you like, we can get a drink later too?
KAYA:	So are you asking—are you asking him to follow up on the lead that you guys found?
LEA:	Yeah. Yeah maybe check the security—
KAYA:	[overlapping] Okay. Okay.
LEA:	—to see just what direction they went.
KAYA:	He is like, enthralled by… by your… well, I mean, there's the whole, like, [suggestively] five fingers, yo! As opposed to [LEA squeaks] just being, you know, it's… [AMANDA agrees] it's very nimble.
TIFF:	[knowingly] Yeah.
KAYA:	[what have I done] Jesus Christ.
[TIFF laughs]
AMANDA:	[wonk] ‘Reach and flexibility’.
KAYA:	Oh yeah!
LEA:	[okay, I’ll commit] I'm going to flirt with you every game, Kaya.
KAYA:	Perfect! I love it. I look forward to it. [multiple people laugh] I look forward to it. I think my favorite part of this was that I had—
DAN:	[oh please; amusedly] Come on. This sprouted out of fan fiction.
[TIFF cackles]
KAYA:	Oh yeah! I have decided before you did this that he was gay, and so when he failed his check I’m like, “Oh, well, I guess it doesn't matter anymore. Surprise, buddy!” [DAN & LEA giggling, happy for George]
AMANDA:	[supportive] He's just trying a new type of wine.
KAYA:	Exactly! Exactly!
LEA:	Ah, yes, I understand that reference.
KAYA:	Yeah. So, yes, he just sort of numbly nods like, 
GEORGE:	[smitten] Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. I… I can do that. 
KAYA:	Okay [giggling, where can I take this]. Yeah, he nods. He says “I can do that” and then he says, 
GEORGE:	Where can I find you?
ATHENA:	[evasive flirty laugh] That's the question: I could be anywhere. But if you want to talk to Bailey, he can give you my number.
GEORGE:	Oh, playing hard to get. Alright, alright. I can respect that.
VRAGA:	[clears throat] Athena.
ATHENA:	Yes?
VRAGA:	[long pause] Bigger fish.
[EVERYONE wheezing with laughter. AMANDA suggestive sounds of agreement]
TIFF:	Double meaning. Hey-o!
KAYA:	[composes self] George will do some investigating once he's out of Athena's seductive gaze. And what are you guys going to do now?
TIFF:	I feel like going the direction that the Minos guy went is probably not a bad idea. So yeah, I would suggest—I would just ask Jesse,
VRAGA:	You said that way?
JESSE:	Yeah, yeah. I might be able to—like visually, I couldn't see him, but I might be able to check what doors were used? That's kind of how I discovered that passageway; that was the one most recently activated. The longer we take, though, the less reliable that's gonna be.
VRAGA:	[confidently concedes the lead] Well then I'm going to say you better lead the way.
JESSE:	Alright. 
DAN:	And so yeah, I guess I'll go through that passageway and attempt to see what I can hack from there.
KAYA:	Okay. You head through that door into one of those—so you remember in Mass Effect one when you would go through one of the doors in the Presidium and it would lead you through to a little corridor that would lead to another part of the Presidium?—
LEA:	Yeah?
KAYA:	There's like little twiddly bits? You go through a couple of those twiddly bits. There is a far too long elevator ride, which is a little bit squishy because you have an elcor, and a rachni and—
LEA:	[overlapping quickly] And a krogan.
KAYA:	—does… And a krogan. [hoping yes] Does anybody make conversation on the elevator ride?
[LEA heehees. AMANDA & DAN chuckle. DAN starts scatting the Mass Effect elevator music and LEA joins in]
VRAGA:	God, I hate this music.
JESSE:	You'd think after years they would change the music.
[KAYA cackles]
ATHENA:	[agreeing] You would have thought they would have changed it by now. Goddess. 
AMANDA:	Clous just says, 
CLOUS:	Wistfully: I've always liked The Girl from Ipanema.
[DAN laughing]
VRAGA:	I'm not familiar with that. All I know is that—
ATHENA:	[overlapping, realising what Vraga said] Neither am I.
VRAGA:	—they haven't changed it [dead pan exasperation] in hundreds of years.
KAYA:	True that, true that. I love this, that's perfect. That’s perfect. Okay. The door opens into [LEA cackles] so you are… you're still on the Presidium. You would have to head to one of the connectors to get to one of the Ward arms. So you're still on the Presidium but this is a lower level and it's—it's quite a warren down here. You have headed down into the maintenance areas. There are not many people down here, but you do see a fair few Keepers…
LEA:	[interesting!] Mm!
KAYA:	Scuttling around. And this—you appear to have come down into a hub of some sort with a whole bunch of other options. Basically, you've come down—this elevator brings you down to the maintenance room, and then you can then take another elevator up to a whole bunch of other places in the—on the Presidium. Yeah, this is—it's sort of like it's the hub where the Keepers would go to to get to other spots.
DAN:	The next thing I'm going to do is bring up my omnitool and I don't know if it's capable of doing this but as a—an extension of Hacking or Networking or something can I use it to check heat signatures or something? Since I can't see this guy?
KAYA:	I will say that your—it's likely that your gear as an N7 special ops folks you would probably have the capability of doing that and so I would say that, yeah, that would be a, I guess, that would be an Investigation check.
DAN:	Okay.
LEA:	And can George ping them if he picks up anything on his feed?
KAYA:	Yep.
LEA:	Yep.
DAN:	That's a twenty. Dirty, not nat.
KAYA:	So with twenty, with a dirty twenty, I will say that yeah, you can. You can track—there's a lot of heat signatures down here because I mean, there's a lot of Keepers down here. But you do quickly notice that the pattern of quote-unquote ‘footsteps’ is different, obviously, because you know the “human, two feet; Keepers, four feet” and they're, like, on a completely different angle. And so yeah, you can track the direction that this guy presumably took.
JESSE:	I think I got something. I don't know what's going on down here so, you know, [I should mention this to the non-soldiers] watch out for surprises, but I got his footprints. Follow me.
ATHENA:	[not my first rodeo; deadpan] Watch out for surprises.
CLOUS:	Quizzically: what kind of surprises? [innocently] I enjoy surprise parties.
JESSE:	[are you for real?] Am—ambushes.
ATHENA:	[still deadpan] Obviously.
[KAYA amused, ALANYA chuckling fondly]
JESSE:	[kindly stating the threat] Well, I mean, you know how we were ambushed by a bunch of invisible people who tried to kill us? That's more what I'm suggesting.
CLOUS:	Dismayed: Oh, no, not that kind of surprise.
[ALANYA chuckling some more]
DAN:	Alright. [KAYA & LEA softly giggling] And I'll just keep walking down. I don't know.
KAYA:	Okay, so it leads you to another one of the elevator doors. You—how closely are you following everyo—or how closely is everyone following? Are you all staying quite close together?
TIFF:	[cheekily, honestly] No? [chuckling]
AMANDA:	[gleefully curious] What are you up to?
LEA:	[bluntly] No.
DAN:	[amused] Immediately, no.
TIFF:	I'm going to be saying that Vraga is pulling up the rear [AMANDA giggling] —giggity— [LEA amused] just because she's the biggest. She wants to make sure no one’s following!
LEA:	Alright…
AMANDA:	[knowingly] She does love that booty.
LEA:	She does.
TIFF:	Exactly. It's all about that bass!
KAYA:	Where is Clous in relation to Jesse?
AMANDA:	I would say that Clous is right over Jesse’s shoulder.
KAYA:	Okay. In that case—
AMANDA:	Because Clous kind of feels like this brainless man needs a little protection. [LEA cackles at the running bit] 
KAYA:	Amazing. Okay, well, in that case the elevator door opens right as you walk up, Jesse.
DAN:	[skeptical of GM] Is there someone there? [giggles]
KAYA:	No, it's empty. It just slides open à la automatic door.
DAN:	[sure] Great.
KAYA:	And it does appear to be empty.
JESSE:	[awkwardly] This way.
DAN:	No one’s stopping me, I'm gonna go on.
ALANYA:	Yay!
KAYA:	Okay, do you all pile into the elevator or are we splitting the party and Athena is going off fuck knows where? [DAN chuckling, AMANDA laughing, LEA giggling contemplation] ‘Cause that is kind of the impression I got.
LEA:	Can she just do maybe a quick Perception check to see if anyone else is lurking before we follow each other? [TIFF amused] yeah?
KAYA:	Yeah, absolutely.
LEA:	Alright.
KAYA:	Yeah.
LEA:	Is it Perception we're gonna…?
KAYA:	Yeah, that'd be Perception. Yeah.
DAN:	Athena is going to take the stairs in the Citadel—it's like a year later.
LEA:	A—[mic cuts] —wenty!
DAN:	[elongated] Nice!
KAYA:	Sorry, what was that? Natural twenty?
LEA:	Yeah. Natural twenty.
KAYA:	Hot [elongated] damn.
[DAN whoops]
LEA:	About time!
[TIFF chuckles]
KAYA:	[whispers contemplatively] Oh what do you see back there?
TIFF:	Hell yeah!
KAYA:	You spy out of the corner of your little eye [ALANYA giggles] a very cleverly hidden small crate in a dark corner.
ATHENA:	What's this?
KAYA:	And you notice it because there's nothing else down here. This is just a place where you know the Keepers come and they move through and then they leave, so…
ATHENA:	[singsong] One of these things is not like the others. And this is unattended, let me check this. Hold up. I just gotta…
LEA:	Alright. What do I find?
KAYA:	Well, are you touching it? Are you checking it? Are you scanning it? It's a small crate. It's probably about, I don't know, shoebox sized.
LEA:	Hmm. Yeah, I guess I'll s… s—
DAN:	[Referencing Brad Pitt in Se7en] What's in the box? 
LEA:	[Echoing Se7en reference] What’s in the box?!
AMANDA:	[Dual Se7en and Ride of the Valkyrie reference] So not the size of anybody’s cranium?
LEA:	She just looks back at Vraga and kinda nods her head at the box, 
ATHENA:	You want to maybe… [I’m not doing this] touch it?
VRAGA:	Yeah, I got you.
[KAYA softly ha’s]
TIFF:	She was headin’ towards the elevator, but now she's like—walks up to the box and kind of does one of those neck rolls, and she's gonna reach out and try and open it. What kind of latch are we working with here? Or Is it just like a lid?
LEA:	Nondescript?
KAYA:	I would say it's probably a latch.
TIFF: 	Okay.
KAYA:	[whispering, working something out] Yeah, I'm trying, I’m… [contemplative GM noises]
TIFF:	Yeah, I know. Boxes, I don't know?
DAN:	[spies a sneaky GM] Oh, I am definitely summoning my omnishield.
LEA:	[cheekily] Why do you think I asked the krogan?
TIFF:	Exactly. [LEA, TIFF & AMANDA giggling]
KAYA:	Okay, Vraga, I'd like you to roll me a… either a Con save or a Dex save, whichever you would prefer.
LEA:	[whoops] Oh, fuck.
TIFF:	L’see. That's—we're going to do Constitution. Alright. And that'll be a d20 plus whatever my modifier is, right?
KAYA:	Yeah. For yeah—yeah, plus your Con modifier. And if you are proficient in Constitution saving throws, then you would add your proficiency bonus. I don't recall whether you are, so.
TIFF:	I am not. That's okay.
KAYA:	Okay.
TIFF:	That is a dirty twenty, man!
[LEA woohoos, AMANDA hypes]
KAYA:	Yeah, no problem. So the box is trapped with an Overload charge essentially—and you just tank it [VRAGA growls and shakes it off]. And it— probably imagine it does like a solid dozen damage to your shields. So, like, not a whole lot. But yeah, you just like ‘bzzt’—it's like, you know, shaking somebody's hand with the joy buzzer in it, or whatever.
TIFF:	Yeah.
KAYA:	Yeah. And then, yeah, you have opened the crate and it is full of key cards.
LEA:	Fuck yeah.
VRAGA:	I think we might have hit the motherlode here.
CLOUS:	Enthusiastically: Jackpot. [TIFF, DAN & LEA giggle]
ATHENA:	Ooh, let's have a look at these babies. Thank you for opening that, by the way.
VRAGA:	[nonplussed] Oh no problem, it’s better than, uh [searching for the word], what you humans drink in the morning? What is that… coffee? Tried it once—more disgusting than ryncol.
ATHENA:	Oh, Tequila. [figuratively offers] Tequila? [TIFF, KAYA & AMANDA laughing]
KAYA:	I feel like Vraga would like tequila.
TIFF:	Probably, yeah. Probably very much so.
KAYA:	That's up her alley, yeah. Okay, alright, you have found a crate full of keycards. Are you guys—I assume you're taking them with you and heading to the elevator.
LEA:	Yep.
AMANDA:	Is there any telling offhand what they access?
KAYA:	No, they're all—and I mean you know that the one that you found goes to the apartment because the information was in her omnitool, but without stopping and spending some time you wouldn't immediately know. They're not labeled. It's not like, you know, the floppy disk with the written sharpie’d label on. [LEA giggling]
TIFF:	Gotcha. So they all kind of—
LEA:	[overlapping; feeling old] Floppy disc.
TIFF:	—look nondescript?
KAYA:	[overlapping] Yeah.
DAN:	Do they look legit or, like—
KAYA:	[overlapping] Yeah.
DAN:	—counterfeit?
TIFF:	Yeah, okay.
KAYA:	I would say roll me a check of your choice to determine. I've— probably Perception?
DAN:	Okay.
LEA:	Is it just like a handful of them or is there like a fuck tonne?
KAYA:	I'd say probably a couple of handfuls.
DAN:	A dirty twenty.
LEA:	Yeah!
KAYA:	Okay. As far as you can tell, they look legit. It's hard to know for sure without actually trying them, but they're not obviously… they're not obviously faked. As you kind of rifle through them some of them appear to be like old old C-Sec cards, some of them—like this is a little trove of ID cards and keycards and access cards from a lot of places, looks like. And some of them are completely unmarked, so.
TIFF:	Yeah, Vraga's just going to store them away then.
LEA:	[overlapping] Alright… [thinking]
KAYA:	Okay.
LEA:	Oh, sweet. I was going to split ‘em. Easier if you do it.
TIFF:	I got the—
KAYA:	[overlapping] Okay.
TIFF:	—inventory capacity, so I might as well do it. [Amused] The carrying weight.
LEA:	Yes.
DAN:	Hi, Karlach. 
TIFF:	Right? Karlach! 
LEA:	[overlapping] Carry my bag.
ARIAKE VO:	Ariake Technology. An Earthborn manufacturer of armour, weapons and omnitools. Is the only choice for your military survival. Our high grade armour features enhanced ablative weave for extra protection. Don't trust your life to other brands. Trust in Ariake Technology.
KAYA:	We left off in the underground of the Presidium—the underground. And you guys were about to take the elevator up to wherever this person was going.
AMANDA:	[small and cute] Mm hmm!
TIFF:	Yes, we were! 
KAYA:	Are you doing anything else before you go?
AMANDA:	No.
TIFF:	I don't think so.
KAYA:	Alright. Okay, you take the elevator up. Well, do we get [hopes] do we get more elevator chatter?
[TIFF, ALANYA & AMANDA laughing in anticipation. LEA scats the Mass Effect elevator music]
JESSE:	[knows his stuff] Those cards look pretty legit.
ATHENA:	[excited] I know!
VRAGA:	And the cards… I mean the cards kind of just—it's just a mess of random alloy. [No heads, nor tails] There's not even any markings on them.
ATHENA:	That's probably the point.
VRAGA:	I guess we did find them in a crate in the warren, so…
ATHENA:	In the dark.
JESSE:	I mean that means they probably have a lot of access to the Citadel, or at least the wards.
ATHENA:	[devious plotting chuckle] I like that.
VRAGA:	And it did taze me when I opened it, so… [LEA chuckling] probably a good chance there was a reason for that.
JESSE:	Yeah, you're alright, right?
VRAGA:	[No biggie] Yeah, I'm fine. It's just a, you know… shields will... This—my shields will recover. It's totally fine.
KAYA:	Yeah. Okay. You make it up the elevator and you—it opens on yet another series of like the little corridor-y things. But then you come out into one of the residential areas of the Presidium. Which are not—so the wards, the Citadel houses somewhere on the order of like twelve million-ish people. Something like that, if I recall correctly. I may have to double check that number but I think it's right. But most of them live on the wards. The people who live on the Presidium are usually, you know, the very rich folk, typically because it's considered, you know, prime real estate, although these are the lower levels so they're not quite as prestigious. You're not living on the Presidium ring exactly. Yeah. Are you still following the heat signature, I presume?
DAN:	That is what Jesse will do. [LEA chuckles]
KAYA:	‘Kay. It well—it leads you to a door. The panel on the door is red, unsurprisingly. What will you do?
DAN:	I'm just gonna say that Jesse stopped before he's right in front of the door. So he’s not just standing in front a house unannounced. [AMANDA giggling, DAN laughing at Jesse, TIFF snorts]
AMANDA:	Does this door align with the address of—
LEA:	[overlapping, AMANDA you smart cookie] Yeah! Yeah.
AMANDA	—key card that I have access to?
LEA:	That one.
KAYA:	[pleased] As a matter of fact, it does.
LEA:	Yeah.
TIFF	[elongated] Yay! [DAN woos]
LEA:	Brilliant. 
KAYA:	What you assume to be Susana Scutari's apartment. And so I'm imagining the layout of these things. So we're still in sort of subterranean sort of style. [AMANDA mm-hmms] So think about what was called the wards in Mass Effect 1 where Chora’s Den is, where Doctor Michel’s Med Clinic is, that sort of style. And so yeah, we're on like the Presidium Commons Plaza in Mass Effect 3, where, you know, the apartment buildings are—they face onto the big open air sort of thing. It's all underground. Yeah. So yes, this is the address that where Susana Scutari lived, presumably. Or at least the address that you put down as her place of residence.
AMANDA:	Yeah, absolutely. Well, excellent. In that case, I am… Clous… is
LEA:	[grinning] You are!
[TIFF giggling]
AMANDA:	Yes, I am, and is also, we are… [giggles]
TIFF:	Words.
AMANDA:	Going to… [ALANYA & LEA giggling]. So we're going to hold up the key card to the entry point and say,
CLOUS:	Tenaciously: Here, I begin to crack this case wide open.
KAYA:	As you hold the key card up to the red panel, it flickers orange and then green, and then the door opens!
AMANDA:	Clous would like to sort of just do that neat little detective thing, where you're just sort of hiding on the side of the door, and then you kind of peek in around the corner and just—
LEA:	[overlapping, loving the visual] Oh my god. [wheezes]
AMANDA:	—look.
KAYA:	Are you…
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Do I see anything?
KAYA:	—well, are you doing a ch—
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Like a Perception check?
KAYA:	[there it is] Thank you. I’m like “Are you doing a check or are you just doing a cool thing?”
[TIFF & ALANYA cackling]
AMANDA:	Both!
[DAN & TIFF chuckling] 
LEA:	Both! Both. Both, both.
AMANDA:	Alright, [contemplating dice jail] that is unhelpful.
LEA:	Athena’s just holding onto her gun.
AMANDA:	It’s an eleven.
JESSE:	Act like we belong here, right?
AMANDA:	[with bravado] This is my house!
KAYA:	With an eleven [DAN & LEA chuckle] you do not see any traps or any indication that there might be anything trapping in the door.
AMANDA:	Great. So,
CLOUS:	With unwarranted confidence: the coast is clear. Here we go.
ATHENA:	After you.
KAYA:	There's a sound bite for you. [AMANDA giggling] I love that.
AMANDA:	So yeah, I enter.
TIFF:	Yeah, Vraga is going to be one of the ones that goes in for, yeah, afterwards—after Clous, she's going to go right in.
KAYA:	You guys go in and you find a very well styled, clearly luxurious or expensively styled apartment. Fairly open concept. You guys—so imagine, like, the fancy apartment that like Morinth had. That is sort of the level of decor that we're talking here [AMANDA hums agreement]. So quite open [LEA noise of recognition] concept like leather couches, sort of low to the ground. There's like one of those fake fireplaces in the wall. There are no windows because we're [AMANDA oohs] ‘underground’, quote unquote. But it's very posh. Very posh, very fancy and it looks entirely unlived in. There are no personal effects that really speak to you of a home. It is a very—like it could be a show home, it's so perfectly set up. And that is all I will tell you on your first look.
TIFF:	I'm remembering something from—I think it was 2—where the omnitool can detect DNA if it's calibrated properly? But I don't know that I, I mean, Vraga would not be able to do that because she doesn't have… [sheepishly admits] She has a minus one in Intelligence, so… [TIFF, LEA, ALANYA & KAYA laugh]
AMANDA:	Well, we also have her omnitool, so I wonder if that would give us any special access.
LEA:	Yeah.
TIFF:	Who has her omnitool right now?
AMANDA:	I have her omnitool right now.
LEA:	Clous? Clous.
KAYA:	Clous has the omnitool, yes.
AMANDA:	So yeah, I would love to—I would love to open up her omnitool and see what…
LEA:	What it will activate? 
AMANDA:	What might show up?
TIFF:	Yeah, some, maybe, maybe something will ping.
AMANDA:	Yeah, try to— try to control.
KAYA:	Yeah. So you turn on her omnitool and the interface shows up at a sort of a weird angle because you're not wearing it like most people do, although [ponders] I'm curious—I suppose elcor arms still work the same way. I feel like as they stand like this most of the time the omnitool would project up here or something [AMANDA ponders] Anyway, [LEA giggles] thinking about this way too much [LEA & AMANDA chuckle at our Mass Effect walking encyclopedia]. So yes, there's a sort of awkwardly projected omnitool interface as you turn on—
DAN:	[overlapping] Elcor Google Glass.
KAYA:	—Oh my god, yes. I love it.
LEA:	It like beams from her hat. [DAN giggles]
KAYA:	Chef’s kiss. I love this so much. So yes, you turn on Susana's omnitool and the interface pops up. And as you do, a VI's voice quietly pipes out of the ceiling speakers,
VI:	Welcome home.
[Silence]
ATHENA:	…Thank you.
AMANDA:	Yeah [AMANDA & TIFF giggle]
CLOUS:	Suspiciously: Thank you. It is a delight to be here. [KAYA snickering]. How will you serve me today? [LEA laughing]
VI:	Did your assignment go well?
ATHENA:	[whispering aggressively through gritted teeth] Yes. Say yes!
CLOUS:	Lying through my teeth:—
[DAN loses it]
ATHENA:	[overlapping; elongated incomplete swear] F…
CLOUS:	It went exactly to plan.
[ALANYA chuckling]
ATHENA:	[kindly whispering but with frustration] God…dammit… Clous! 
VI:	That's wonderful. Do you want some supper?
CLOUS:	Delightedly: Why yes, I could eat a horse.
VI:	Error. No “horse” detected in food stores. Would you like to order “horse”?
[LEA ascending, TIFF & DAN chuckling]
LEA:	Amazing!
CLOUS:	Intrigued: I would, yes.
ATHENA:	[miffed] No, no… we don't want horse.
VRAGA:	Clous, we're getting a little off track here.
[AMANDA gleeful, ALANYA amused]
VI:	Order for ‘horse’ accepted. [AMANDA ascending] It will be delivered in three to ten Citadel business days. [LEA quietly dying]
CLOUS:	Gleefully: I have always wondered what horses are like.
ATHENA:	[do I have to point this out?] Not for eating!
VRAGA:	If we had the time, we might be able to give Solace some horse meat to cook, but [pointedly] we have not the time right now.
ATHENA:	[trying to spin this] I guess on the upside it will look like someone’s home still if they get a delivery.
KAYA:	Of a horse!
CLOUS:	Somewhat regretfully: I'm sorry, I have taken this ‘A bridge too far’.
[ATHENA groans]
VI:	I'm sorry, do you have companions? Should I play music?
LEA:	Play ‘Despacito’.
AMANDA:	Y—no! No, no, no, no, no [DAN giggling, AMANDA laughing] 
CLOUS:	With overwhelming excitement: Yes, please play ‘The Girl from Ipanema’. My friends have not heard it yet.
VI:	Accessing. [scats The Girl from Ipanema]
KAYA:	The strains of ‘The Girl from Ipanema’—
[CLOUS continues the melody in monotone scatting and KAYA dissolves into laughter]
KAYA:	[gathers her composure] And she— the VI lets this play for a little bit and then,
VI:	Would you like to file a mission report?
ATHENA:	[frantic whisper] No!
LEA:	Athena’s, like, doing the cut-off neck thing,
[AMANDA laughing] 
ATHENA:	Not you!
CLOUS:	Slyly, like a fox: No. No mission report yet. However, I would like to read my previous mission reports.
LEA:	Athena gives a vigorous thumbs up.
[DAN giggles]
TIFF:	[addendum] Ath—[stops to laugh] Athena and also Vraga are both like—
LEA:	[overlapping] Thank fuck.
TIFF:	—[elongated] Yeah! Big thumbs up.
VI:	Of course, please provide identity verification.
CLOUS:	Plainly stumped: I am… who I am.
[KAYA snorts, LEA laughs]
VI:	This virtual intelligence is not equipped with voice recognition. Please continue to the workstation and provide identity verification.
LEA:	Can Jesse do a hack or something?
VRAGA:	Jesse, you think you could crack this thing?
JESSE:	[sure thing, ladies] Alright, I can work with that.
CLOUS:	Effusively: Jesse, you have got this.
DAN:	I will walk over and attempt to hack this console.
LEA:	[90’s male hacker voice] I'm in.
DAN:	Oh man. Yeah, someone casting Guidance? 
TIFF	Bardic inspiration from Clous.
AMANDA:	[elongated decreasing] Yes!
CLOUS:		[almost singing] I am what I am!
TIFF:	Yeah, exactly.
LEA:	Yeah!
DAN:	Oh that's a nat twenty!
KAYA:	[supportive elongated] Oh!
[EVERYONE fanfares]
TIFF:	Yeah, Dan.
DAN:	[pleased as heck] A total of twenty-six.
KAYA:	Okay. [TIFF, ALANYA & LEA quiet happy noises] Yeah, you, you sit down at the console and your fingers fly and you—the green text flies across the screen or I suppose—no, it's like the weird blocks of—there's the white text with the purple text and then the yellow and the blue and you [sing song typing noises]
AMANDA:	It’s a Unix system, I know this. [DAN & KAYA laugh in Jurassic Park meme recognition]
KAYA:	You are in! You have full access [AMANDA quietly yasses] to all of the files. There are quite a few files here. It's also appears to be a link—there's an uplink to like a network drive sort of dealio. An extranet connection— an encrypted extranet connection to a network drive. And there are also local files. What do you want to look at first? There are also, like, controls for the apartment security and stuff like that. This is the console that controls everything in the apartment.
DAN:	Oh, okay. Well then the first thing I'd like to do is make sure that we're not getting like—we're we're not setting off any alarms or tipping off.
AMANDA:	Stop any recordings, lock the door.
LEA:	Yeah, recorded.
DAN:	Yeah. Like prevent any exterior messages from being sent.
KAYA:	You immediately notice that, yes, [LEA growls] upon entry you did trip an alarm and you see that it sent a distress signal. You are—it would take another Hacking check to decode who it sent it to, but basically it was just—it was an SOS.
DAN:	So yeah, I'll turn around, and as I'm flying around in this console, say
JESSE:	Yeah, we're—we don't have a lot of time: message got sent out. I don't know to who—need some more time to figure out who—but I think the files are more important right now if you want to cover me?
CLOUS:	Assertively: Download them onto your omnitool.
DAN:	Yeah, I'll take whatever I can get from the local files first.
ATHENA:	Yes. Can you also check if you can open any compartments that have been sealed and, Solace?
SOLACE:	Yes?
ATHENA:  	Do you mind standing in front of the door? Thanks, dear. [TIFF laughs]
KAYA:	Big fuck-off rachni at the door.
ALANYA:	We will comply, yeah.
KAYA:	Awesome. Yeah. Go for it. Jesse, I will say with a—with a nat twenty, you are able to do as Athena asks, and you start unlocking compartments. And you start downloading the local files to your omnitool - that's totally fine. You see they are encrypted, but you will almost certainly be able to break it. So there's the connection—the extranet connection to the network drive. And you could also try to hack into the apartment systems or anything like that if you wanted to. You would also have access to the VI from this console.
DAN:	I really want this extranet connection. Does anybody see anybody as I'm gonna quickly see if there's any home security measures I can activate.
LEA:	[now Dan’s the smart cookie!] Mm-hmm!
KAYA:	[good job] There are! You totally can. There are a couple of mounted guns—a couple of turret—and you also find a button for the armoury.
DAN:	[delicious] Ooh, yep. Press that!
KAYA:	Okay, so I'm going to say, Athena like one of the cupboard slides open—
ATHENA:	[overlapping; through teeth] Yes!
KAYA:	—to reveal probably like at least a dozen really well kept, really lethal guns.
[ATHENA whoops]
KAYA:	We're talking like high end [AMANDA gleeful] of very various types.
ATHENA:	Oh, come to mama! Anyone want some? We've got plenty!
KAYA:	And like ammo and grenades and all sorts of shit.
[ALANYA chuckling]
TIFF:	Vraga is very interested and she walks over. [laughs]
VRAGA:	What have you found here?
KAYA:	Jesse, you also find that it has—there's a kinetic barrier that you can shove up over the door.
DAN:	Oh yeah, definitely.
LEA:	[chuckling quietly] Great. Noice.
AMANDA:	Clous is also going to—‘cause Clous sees Athena start looking at this stuff and says,
CLOUS:	Teasingly: Athena, be sure to check her underwear drawer. Earth movies have taught me this is where valuables are stored. [ATHENA chuckles] And this seems like something, you know, that you would do.
[TIFF stifling a laugh]
ATHENA:	That I—
VRAGA:	What are underwear?
[DAN laughing]
ATHENA:	Do you—Wait. Wait! Hold up. Hold up. [incredulously] You don't wear any?
VRAGA:	[genuinely] Why would I wear anything under my suit?
[ATHENA is confusion]
KAYA:	I mean, there's an undersuit, like hardsuits come with underarmour, guys.
VRAGA:	But under that—
KAYA:	[overlapping] Well, yeah!
VRAGA:	—why would I wear anything under my undersuit?
ATHENA:	Colour me intrigued.
JESSE:	[overlapping; loudly] Y'all are keeping a lookout, right?
[EVERYONE laughing]
VRAGA:	[casually regarding the question] Yeah, we got it. Don't worry. [quietly interested] I'm getting back to this underwear thing…
KAYA:	[wheezing] As Vraga hefts this massive shotgun—
TIFF:	[cackles] Yeah, exactly!
KAYA:	—around like, [dismissively] “Oh, we got this. We got this.”—
LEA:	[overlapping] Yeah! Absolutely.
KAYA:	“Now back to the underwear drawer.”
TIFF:	[overlapping] Yeah, exactly! [gleeful chuckling]
[DAN hooting]
ATHENA:	[slightly slighted] Alright, I'll check the drawer.
KAYA:	[squeaks out] Okay.
ATHENA:	Might be something else in there.
KAYA:	[overlapping] Roll me an Investigation check.
AMANDA:	Can I give Athena the help action because I suggested this?
KAYA:	Absolutely! Yeah! You get advantage on it there, Lea. So you can roll twice and take the higher one.
TIFF:	I love that we're doing an Investigation check on an underwear drawer. Pretty great.
AMANDA:	Yeah.
[LEA & ALANYA giggling]
TIFF:	It's very apropos for this group.
LEA:	Right?!
DAN:	Personally, I love that I'm the only one not doing it.
AMANDA:	[overlapping] Not looking!
TIFF:	[overlapping; hella amused] I know!
[ALANYA chuckling]
LEA:	A seventeen.
[AMANDA hyping woo]
KAYA:	Okay. You find a stash of credit chits.
TIFF:	[elongated] Hell yeah, bud!
ATHENA:	Oh look, I've found three more money.
[DAN & ALANYA enjoying callback humour]
CLOUS:	Very self-satisfied: Nailed it.
[SOMEONE wheezing, probably Kaya?]
ATHENA:        	[still looking] So these appear to have some tags still on—oh! This one's in purple. [unabashed pilfering] Grabbing that.
KAYA:	[snorting] Love it. [AMANDA ascending] Love. It. Okay, Jesse, what else are you doing on this computer while the girls are ransacking.
[SOMEONE chuckling]
DAN:	I'm definitely gonna move on to—trying to hack the extranet, but I also wanna know does Solace know if I'm trying to speak to them like in my—
LEA:	[overlapping] Mm! Good question!
DAN:	—can Solace read minds from another room.
KAYA:	No. No. [ALANYA chuckles] Not unless—there are certain situations where that might be more like—if you are a rachni, yes.
DAN:	[overlapping] Alright.
KAYA:	—But you're not. So if you yelled at them to get their attention and then you like you could in theory sort of create this bridge, but humans aren't immediately set up with the capability to communicate on the same level that rachni are.
DAN:	Okay—
LEA:	[overlapping] Cool.
DAN:	—Jesse's gonna try anyway, ‘cause he doesn't know. He's just gonna be like— there's like five percent of his brain that's hard thinking Solace. Solace. Solace… [amused at self] while the rest of it is going on the computer.
[AMANDA & LEA laughing]
SOLACE:	Yes? What is it?
JESSE:	[startled] Oh, god! 
[LEA trying to hold in laughter, DAN & TIFF laughing]
KAYA:	Actually, Solace, I'm going to get you to do a Perception check first—
ALANYA:	[overlapping] Oh, okay, gotcha.
KAYA:	—Just to see if this actually works.
ALANYA:	Alright. Gotcha.
KAYA:	And if you could not—
ALANYA:	[overlapping] [unintelligible] Okay.
KAYA:	—tell the—if you could DM me the response.
ALANYA:	Oh!
KAYA:	That would be great.
ALANYA:        	Okay.
ATHENA:        	Vraga?
VRAGA:	Yes, Athena.
ATHENA:	This is underwear.
LEA:	And she holds them up.
VRAGA:	It doesn't look like it would cover anything.
[AMANDA cackling]
ATHENA:	[chuckles; then with a little deadpan sass] That's kind of the point.
[AMANDA reduced to squeaking]
VRAGA:	[nonchalantly recalling] Oh yeah, I think I've—I think I've seen this in Fornax, actually.
[KAYA & LEA snicker]
[TIFF cackling]
ATHENA:	[baffled] Was that a paid subscription? [LEA tries not to laugh]
VRAGA:	One time when we have one of the males over to where [LEA wheezing] the shamans live, they left one. And yeah, it was just a interesting read.
CLOUS:	Sarcastically: Yes, I've heard the articles are most preferable to many.
ATHENA:	[doesn’t pay for her entertainment, deadpan] I bet.
[KAYA deflates in sarcastic laughter]
VRAGA:	It's not really… it's not really marketed for the… articles, Clous, but yeah.
KAYA:	Okay, we have resolved with Jesse and Solace, so go ahead, Solace.
SOLACE:	Yes? What do you need?
JESSE:	[surprised] Oh? Awesome, that worked! Uh, if you see anybody approaching threateningly, you want to let me know? I've got some home defense stuff I can activate to help you out the door.
SOLACE:	Of course. That would be most helpful.
JESSE:	Alright. Let— [uncomfortable] let me know.
KAYA:	Alright. What else are you—are you going to try to access this network drive, Jesse?
DAN:	Oh yeah, I cannot ignore my curiosity!
KAYA:	Okay, well, it's a pre— it's essentially like you're remoting into like a VPN [DAN hmms] sort of deal, and so you're just—you're double clicking on the icon. And it connects you and you are presented with yet another password prompt.
DAN:	Alright, I'm gonna try and Hack again I guess [DAN & ALANYA chuckle]
KAYA:	Okie dokie!
LEA:	Try ‘Minos’.
[DAN & ALANYA giggling]
KAYA:	‘Minos123’.
[TIFF laughing]
DAN:	‘MinosNumber1’.
KAYA:	[overlapping] ‘AliensSuck’.
AMANDA:	[overlapping] That’s the combination for my luggage!
LEA:	[overlapping; laughing] AliensSu…
[KAYA amused noise]
TIFF:	Try ‘Boobs’.
KAYA:	‘WeHateShepard’. [TIFF laughs]
DAN:	It’s a dirty twenty!
AMANDA:      	[qa’pla’!] Hey!
KAYA:	[reigning amusement in] Okay, yeah, that's—that'll do it. You manage to hack your way in and it's a little bit more skin of your teeth this time, but you manage it and you have now accessed a network database that, at a quick scan, informs you that this is one node of a safe house network for Minos. And this is also—you know this because that is the header on this file that you—on this folder that you have opened that contains a shit tonne of mission reports.
LEA:	Fuck yeah!
AMANDA:	[whispers] Download these too.
TIFF:	Juicy. Let's get into it.
KAYA:	How closely are you reading this list?
DAN:	I—the first thing I'm gonna do is just do a search for Marathon and then try and download everything I can.
KAYA:	Are you looking or are you like control+F searching?
DAN:	Control+F searching, yeah.
KAYA:	[like a success noise] Bing!
TIFF:	Hell yes.
KAYA:	There is a listing for it. It shows up in the list and you can download just that file, or you can download all other files.
DAN:	Okay, because I'm a little bit concerned for time I want to download this file on the Marathon. I would do another control+F for recent safehouses or like currently active safehouses. And the last thing I try and do is make a backdoor account into it, so that I can access it later.
[AMANDA whistles]
LEA:	Good.
KAYA:	Okay. So you were going to copy the Marathon file, look for recently used safehouses and then do the back door count, or was there another one in there?
DAN:	Yeah. No, that's it.
KAYA:	‘Kay. You can download the file with Marathon no problem. That's easy peasy. Control+C, control+V. I will say that you can attempt to do both if you spend a Stress. If you are not willing to spend a Stress, then I will say that you only can do one of them.
LEA:	[slowly egging on] Do it, do it, do it.
DAN:	I will spend the Stress. This is pretty important for the character.
KAYA:	Then I will say roll with advantage. One last Hacking check.
DAN:	Okay. Do I just mark a Stress? Is it or is that Effort or?
KAYA:	Yeah—
LEA:	[overlapping] Effort.
KAYA:	—Sorry, it’s Effort now.
DAN:	Okay. It's a twenty-three.
AMANDA:      Twenty-three?!
[TIFF pleased laughter]
LEA:	[laughing] Don’t jinx it.
AMANDA:	[elongated] Yes.
DAN:	Yeah, I literally rolled a one, and a seventeen [relieved laughter]
KAYA:	Christ!
[LEA caws]
KAYA:	Okay, that is good enough. You manage it, you manage them both. And I will say not a moment too soon because Solace hears boots coming down the hallway.
VI:                   You have been listening to I Should Roll: Dangerous Dangers, Episode Five: Hack First, Ask Questions Later, featuring the voices of Alanya Campbell as Solace-Within-Clay, Tiff Compton as Ravanor Vraga, Amanda Cotter as Clous, Lea Lawson as Athena Hellier, Dan Spitaliere as Jesse Westcott, and Kaya Renwick as everyone and everything else.

Music and sound effects are used under Creative Commons or royalty-free licenses. For the extended credits, please see the show notes, and for more information, please visit ishouldroll.com. Find us everywhere on social media at ishouldroll, and don’t forget to leave us a review.

I Should Roll is an Intergalactic Improv Initiative production. This fan podcast is a transformative work and is not affiliated with Electronic Arts or BioWare.

Thank you for listening. Have a pleasant day.
MARCO:         	Welcome back! So good to see you again. Marco here, just in case you've forgotten. Did you enjoy the show? Mm, fabulous. What was your favourite part? Oh, I liked that bit too. Did you by any chance squeeze that review in yet? Yes? Oh, precious. Much obliged. Yes, I’ll unlock the door now. Same time next week?