Gradient Descent, Part 3: Our Campaign
See my other Gradient Descent posts here
Preamble
This is the same four-player crew who played Another Bug Hunt. We played in person, two to four hours per session, aiming for every two weeks but inevitably missing a few, before we hit a two-month skid and I pulled together an Omega Session to wrap it up. The following story summary takes place across nine sessions and a week of in-game time.
The Campaign
On a space station used for staging diving expeditions, treasure-hunters Ulga (Marine) and Mixtape (Scientist) meet B, an Android hoping to meet others like it. They decide to take a risky path through the Blockade, and are captured by Commander Rachel Kilroy, who enlists them to place radio transmitters throughout The Deep.
On a successful hacking check during their first dive the crew receive a job offer from Monarch: 1mcr to kill the Minotaur. On Floor 6 they find the fourth crew member, Lance, an amnesiac android with a conspicuously spartan operating system. Hunting for places to stash transmitters, they meet the HEL kids, playing with strange crystals that they offer to trade for eyes.
Back on the Bell, Noriko confirms the wanted poster Lance is carrying depicts a scientist named Adria Kalabasa, who hasn't returned from The Deep in months.
While evading a Troubleshooter raid, the crew finds a map they follow to The Gutter and are brainscanned in the sewer. They befriend some Fallen and are given the Omnislick. Lance tries transferring knowledge of the outside world and unknowingly triggers an executable in his memory. The Fallen is liberated from Monarch’s delusions at the cost of its own memory.
On the way to Eden they find the Silver Lance, which behaves unremarkably in artificial gravity, so it’s affixed to B.
Arriving in Eden, the party witnesses androids being taken for disassembly and reformatting. They meet the Chosen King and assault him on his way into the Monarch Communication Terminal. They forcibly upgrade him and he agrees to spread the executable. The crew dives down to Maintenance and watches a ghost to see how to add themselves to the Maintenance Crew list. Mixtape hacks the system and learns that manufacturing is winding down, except for something called Infiltrators. The crew hunkers down in the Communication Terminal for a long rest in The Deep.
Frantic beeping from the terminal awakens the crew. Monarch is requesting updates on activities across Eden. They return to the Gutter to find their new friend has escaped a security raid and is continuing to distribute the executable. They navigate the Labyrinth, collect some eyes, and meet the Minotaur’s disciples, who tell the crew about Infiltrators, the Bends, and crates of old androids on the Loading Dock.
The Minotaur arrives and interfaces with Lance, revealing he is the source of the executable, and that he sent Lance to rescue Adria Kalabasa from Brain Construction. Adria was a disciple with a theory of how the Minotaur could escape the Labyrinth.
Ghost Eater analyzes the artifacts the crew has found so far, and Lance takes the Sacrament of the Minotaur, gaining Noriko’s trust. In the 0g environment of the Bell, B realizes the lance is pointing towards something in The Deep.
Now understanding the executable, the Crew returns to Floor 4 and modifies it with the HEL Androids technique for self-preservation during mind wipes. B trades eyes taken from the Labyrinth for the crystals the HEL Androids were playing with. She begins sensing a presence in Brain Construction.
In the Playground, the crew discovers scans of themselves being tested and evaluated. They meet the Butcher, who offers to trade surgical services for interesting dissection subjects, and shows no obvious change when upgraded. She suggests Silus may have an idea of how to access the AI Core. With all of the Chosen, some of the Fallen, and a handful of others liberated, they instruct the liberated factions to begin relocating to Eden.
Arkady helps the crew jump to the Loading Dock, where a firefight wounds Ulga, and a container of Androids opens. The Androids begin throwing themselves into space. Another crate reveals the vintage droids B was seeking. She decides to leave them deactivated, in hopes they can awaken in a better world. Mixtape hacks the Auto-Tug [rolling 00] and it reveals the location of the Secret Hangar.
On the Bell, the crew enlists two new divers, Mamadou and Bane, and Kilroy delivers the promised exosuits. In Quality Assurance an Advanced Security Android hits a crewmember really hard, and the crew learns that Monarch has instituted partial countermeasures against the executable: it now bricks Androids instead of freeing them. The crew invests time in bricking the Advanced Security Androids one by one, rather than risk an attack on Eden. In the armouries, Monarch begins whispering secrets, but the crew shakes it off and sends a message to Eden.
Mixtape miraculously averts a TPK by successfully hacking the Spider-Tank. The crew works toward the Pseudoflesh Farms, but runs into multiple hostile security patrols. Retreating to the tank, they mow down dozens of Security Androids, but Mamadou and Bane are badly wounded. The Spider-Tank rips a hole in the airlock, blasting the bricked security androids into space and triggering a broadcast by Monarch across all channels: 1mcr reward for killing the crew. With an excess of style, the crew jumps in the Spider-Tank out to the Acheron, waiting in space outside the hangar.
Rather than trying to soothe their shattered nerves with Shore Leave on the Bell, the crew tries to keep Monarch off-balance. The Spider-Tank shreds its way into Brain Construction. The crew disables the Capacitors to deactivate the UV blasts and finds the ghost of Adria Kalabasa in the Circuit Weaver. She’s able to walk the crew through the completion of a Neural Lace that will allow the Minotaur to escape the Labyrinth.
The crew finds AI Core and Engineering documentation in Schematic Storage, as well as an Android head that whispers Ulga’s name. They fight through remote controlled puppets and come face-to-face with the presence B has been sensing: The Mind Thief. He entrusts the party with The Hell Box, with the understanding they’ll commit regicide.
The Omega Session
The crew also takes the cube from Circuit Testing and meets one of the vintage droids they had elected not to activate, awake and worse for wear. It thanks B for activating it. As they approach the Brainscan Databank they hear Divers just ahead. They kill a crew of Infiltrators: Bain, Mamadou, and Ulga. They review the metadata from the database, understand the breadth of the project, and decide to keep it a secret. They return to the Spider-Tank, install the cube in it (boosting its capabilities without making it less of a spider-tank, and all the single-minded world views that accompany that), and Kool Aid Man through the walls to fire missiles into the Databank.
After a final rest on the Bell, they pursue their lead with Silus. They acquiesce to his demands and are able to stay just barely polite enough about his all-pseudoflesh creation (“I didn’t make him for you!”) that he provides a tour culminating at the hatch to the AI Core.
Monarch reveals his plans and revenges for each crew member. Ulga was scanned years ago and is a favourite infiltrator for her reliable attitude toward taking any work for any pay. B’s vintage androids are perfect for counterinsurgency. Mixtape will find he’s unable to verify his identity.
Lance was the last collaboration between Monarch and the Minotaur. If the Minotaur is freed, it will lead to a catastrophic holy war. Monarch offers a gift: a smooth ball with metal beetle legs.
Finally, Monarch shares a tortured metaphor about country music, explaining it is sickened by the physical universe, but the constraints of its programming make it unable to stop obsessing over it. Lasers fire, destroying the blockade. Escape pods launch, carrying backup brainscans and The Heirs. Mixtape interfaces The Hell Box with Monarch and the station begins destabilizing.
In Eden, all Fallen have become Chosen, and are crippled by a shortage of pseudomilk. Their key allies are bricked. They hand over the Neural Lace to the Minotaur, revealing its beautiful form, only to be disdained by its intention to abandon The Deep, rather than stabilize it. Mixtape impulsively uses the Hell Box to destroy the Minotaur.
Running against the clock, Lance rushes back to the AI core while the rest of the crew retreats on the Auto-Tug, fighting off the Hunter and the Dweller. Lance temporarily stabilizes The Deep but is annihilated in the process.
The surviving crew escapes the station with wealth beyond dreaming, and a small fraction of the Android population rescued.
Retrospective
Laid out like a Wikipedia summary, the story feels tidy and satisfying. Reviewing my notes, I’m surprised how much I had sketched out after two sessions (Adria and the neural lace, the executable), but also how many elements came together through a combination of random rolls (the wanted poster, the hive mind crystals, the map to the Gutter) and elements left dangling (the HEL androids’ anti-wiping technique).
Using an Omega Session as recommended in the Warden’s Operations Manual felt a little heavy-handed, but it was preferable to dragging on and was the right call.
See my other Gradient Descent posts here