by Kris Schnee
Indeed, this alien game was closely based on the Fate rules that Eva liked, and on some tinkering she'd done with them. A one-page blank character sheet sat on the table along with a sketchy, ghostly pencil, inviting him to describe himself for an alien gamemaster. Whatever these creatures had done to him, it seemed that there was no choice but to play along, literally.
He said, "If you want to play a game and 'examine' me, then tell me more about the setting you've chosen. I see a Magic skill, so it's fantasy...? Can I give myself an aspect like 'Archmage of the Sun King' to conjure up a magic kingdom and a horde of apprentices as my allies?" That was a basic feature of Fate: describing yourself with a few phrases that linked you to the setting and helped define it. If he was stuck in some kind of game, he needed to get whatever advantages he could.
The alien words said, [This game takes place in an area with few people and little established technology. The locals are what you would call lizardfolk. Setting aspects include "Scattered Settlements", "Monsters Roam the Land", and "Build It Yourself".]
A low-tech setting with aspects like this would be a dangerous one, where the gamemaster would always have an excuse to throw in monsters. On the other hand, "Build It Yourself" would give an advantage to anyone wanting to make things -- and maybe a disadvantage to people wanting to use a ready-made magic sword.
"Okay then. I want Craft for my top skill. Below that, Magic and Survival. Then... Shoot, Mind and Athletics." He wrote down these options on the blank sheet. "Aspects? Um. Are you giving me a quest, a mission of some kind? If you can understand humans well enough to know my language, you know I need information."
The gamemasters obliged, saying, [You are assigned no quest but survival.]
A dangerous situation was ahead, then, and in the spirit of the game he'd have to give himself aspects that could be turned against him sometimes, especially a "trouble" aspect. The more often he let the GM use aspects to hurt him, the more power he'd get. He had to think about this carefully.
"Based on what you've told me... let's say I'm a Master Artificer, Pledged To the Light, and Need To Learn Why I'm Here." He was pleased with himself; this trio would give him an advantage at making things and finding out what was going on. The "trouble" would obligate him to be a good guy, which he'd want to do anyway. If he'd had his fellow crew along, he could have defined his aspects based on his relationship to them.
The darkness around him was silent and barren. After a long delay, his captors wrote, [Acceptable.] The table faded out, leaving him with just the character sheet. Its pencil marks became golden ink, saying:
Miles
Fate Points: 3 (Refresh 3)
Master Artificer
Pledged To the Light
Need To Learn Why I'm Here
Skills:
3: Craft
2: Magic, Survival
1: Shoot, Mind, Athletics
Stunts: (None)
Stress: Body [][], Mind [][][]
Consequences:
2:
4:
6:
He was suspicious that they'd agreed so quickly. Then a fourth aspect wrote itself onto the sheet: "Chosen Wielder". He said, "Wielder of what?"
But the sheet faded, too, and all went dark.
* * *
Miles awoke in a cave, face-down, watching a pile of bones whirling upward in a dusty wind. He stood, looked up, and got dazzled by a beam of light that pierced the ceiling and shined through the gloom. Shading his eyes, he noticed that the bones were not just rattling around, but assembling themselves into a misshapen, oversized rat. The creature hissed and shambled toward him. Miles yelped and instinctively seized a rock from the floor.
He felt paralyzed. He could still move, yet only as though moving through thick mud. His attempt to raise his arm and throw the rock did nothing; his muscles wouldn't respond.
A purple gem appeared in one corner of his vision. Beside it was a bar showing four icons: an arrow leaping over a wall, an upward arrow, a punch and a shield. "Overcome Obstacle, Create Advantage, Attack, Defend," he recited. The "Defend" action was normally passive, not something he'd pick. The purple thing slowly lost its color as though ink inside were draining. A timer? Miles tried reaching out for the icons in his vision, but they didn't react like buttons, or at all. What was he supposed to do? If there was a timer, then maybe...
Miles tried again to chuck his rock at the rat. He still couldn't move except in slow motion, but then the gem faded out and four dice appeared in front of him like another digital interface. They rolled themselves, and announced: [1/000+]. More dice appeared in red above the enemy's head: [0/+-00]. Then as if by a puppeteer moving his arm, his rock sailed through the air and collided with the bony creature, making a red numeral 2 pop out above its body.
Before he could contemplate that, the rat surged forward and sank its teeth into his leg. Miles yelped. A red 3 appeared in the middle of his vision, along with a portion of his character sheet. Damage notation filled itself in:
Fate Points: 3
Stress: Body [X][], Mind [][][]
Consequences:
2: Gashed Leg*
4:
6:
He was too concerned with getting the monster off of him to care about the statistics crowding his vision. He shouted and cursed, shaking his leg, until the rat fell free and crumbled into dust at his feet. He stood there breathing hard, staring at the dead critter, and trying to make sense of what just happened.
"Okay. I attacked, and I was using a ranged attack, so it counted as my Shoot skill, which is a 1. Then I rolled three blanks and a plus on the attack dice, which added to the 1, for a total of 2. The rat had zero defensive skill and rolled a plus and a minus, which canceled out for a 0 defense. So I did 2 minus 0 equals 2 damage. Which was enough to kill it. But at the same time, it got a turn anyway. I didn't get to see the dice on that, but its attack minus my defense was 3, so I took 3 damage. The game handled that automatically and gave me a wound. Aliens, is that the right interpretation?"
A message appeared in his vision: [Yes.]
The "stress" boxes were there to absorb damage and prevent wounds. His first stress box could absorb 1 damage and the second, 2, and he could only use one box per hit. So to handle a 3-damage hit, the game had given him a 2-point injury and filled in his 1-point stress box.
He looked down at what had really happened to him. His spacesuit was gone. Instead, he was wearing the jumpsuit that went under it, red with a name-patch and an emblem of the Silver Hart. The whole right leg of his suit was torn, but his flesh had only a red toothy divot in it as though he'd been burned and scarred without blood. He supposed he should count himself lucky. Injury seemed to work pretty much the way it did in Fate, as another "aspect" attached to him that the gamemaster could use to make his life harder. The star on it meant that since the GM created that aspect, they could use it once for free to get a +2 bonus to a roll.
Miles shook his head. The mix of game "physics" and reality was going to take some getting used to. He was glad he'd gotten to play Eva's game before being pulled into this one.
The cave had just two exits: the hole in the ceiling and a passage leading into darkness. There was no way to get up and out... but hey, if game logic applied, he had a chance. He said, "I want to use Craft to build a ramp leading up out of here."
Another message: [Demonstrate.]
So, he had to show what he was doing before the virtual dice could roll? He looked around for some more loose stones and began piling them up, but he was skeptical of his own work. There just wasn't enough to make much of a ramp, unless he knocked a lot more material loose to stack it up.
Seconds later the game confirmed his suspicion. [Difficulty 7. Roll?]
The GMs were telling him it was nigh-impossible, at least by this method. He had a 3 for his skill, and in theory he could roll [++++] on the dice. He supposed he could "create an advantage" for a +2 bonus to the roll, or even try to stack several advantages unt
il it was a sure thing, but it'd be tough to arrange and justify. "Never mind," he said, and hefted a rock in each hand in case he got attacked again. He moved on to the dark passage.
A dashed outline marked the ground at the tunnel's beginning. Miles figured it was a "zone" border, used for combat movement instead of a grid. He felt his way carefully along. Just when he was about to turn back and look for some way to make a torch, there was light up ahead. He turned a corner and found a subterranean shrine.
"Wait. My stress clears out when I have a few moments to rest, right? Like right now?"
The GM wrote, [Yes. It represents being winded, armor straps coming loose, emotional strain and so on. A pause undoes this harm.]
He nodded, then walked ahead.
His feet echoed on shiny glazed bricks as he approached an altar with a bright orb on it. A statue stood behind it with its arms aloft. Its features were hidden behind a marble mask with only a long horizontal slit for eyes and a shorter one for a mouth. The body was tall, with no visible ears and three-fingered hands. Miles walked carefully around the room, seeing a zone boundary between the front and back halves of the shrine. The statue stood there impassively, but if these aliens had any knowledge at all of human culture then the thing was meant to come to life and pound him.
He grinned. "Okay then." He set down the rocks he held, atop the statue's feet. Then he followed the tunnel back to the entry room and fetched several armfuls more. He piled these, too, on and around where the thing would have to walk to attack him. "Create an advantage, using Craft."
A die roll came up: [3/00+0. Success!] So he'd used a base skill of 3 plus a roll of 1, against a default difficulty of 1. A second message popped up: [This is a "success with style" (by 3 or more).] A glowing notice appeared above the rock pile, adding, [Rocky Floor**], to mean he had two free uses of it. Now he was relatively prepared for combat. He fetched another few rocks for ammo, then tapped the orb with one finger, making it ring.
Sure enough, the statue's eye-slit glowed green and its stone body rumbled. The combat interface came up again along with the purple timer gem. Miles tried to throw one of his rocks, felt the strange moving-through-molasses sensation, and saw the dice for his attack. [1/0-00]. A zero total. The enemy's defense roll came up 2. No good. He said, "Uh... I hang back and wait for a better chance?" The rock flew from his hand and missed.
The statue lurched forward. Miles went wide-eyed and shouted, "I use the rocks!" A red 1 appeared to show the damage he was going to take from its attack, then became a -1 and vanished with a buzzing noise. One of the marks next to [Rocky Floor] winked out too; he'd used it up to get a +2 to his defense. In weirdly delayed motion the enemy staggered closer to him and threw a punch. The move was so slow and mis-aimed that Miles barely had to dodge.
The timer gem reset. Miles was starting to see the picture, here. He was about to swing his other rock at the nearby golem when he recalled he didn't have Melee on his skill list. That was a liability for both offense and defense! He hopped backward and threw the rock instead, hoping that it counted as Shoot. The dice interrupted the movement and showed him his 3 total, a solid hit. "I use the Rocky Floor aspect again," he announced.
[The rocky floor is not in this combat zone], wrote the aliens. Indeed, the rocks were mainly on the other side of the room.
Then the phrase [Stone Hide] appeared, knocking his attack's 3 damage down to a 1.
Miles stared at the killer statue, which was paused in mid-brawl. He said, "The golem has aspects?" He thought of the rules again. "Oh, right. Everything does. But I can use its aspect in my favor too. If it's stony, it's slow, so that should help my attack."
[You can claim a +2 that way, but using aspects that you didn't create costs you one of your fate points.]
His fate point counter appeared, dropping from 3 to 2, and his outgoing damage rose back to 3. Finally the rock actually flew, striking the statue so hard that its chest cracked and the whole thing toppled. Miles watched it fall and raise a cloud of dust.
He hung back until the thing was completely still. "You're spending fate points of your own to power things like 'Stone Hide', right?"
[Yes. Per standard rules, the GM gets 1 fate point per scene per player, to grant bonuses and penalties based on the scene's aspects. We may also pay you points from an endless supply to use your aspects against you, where it would make sense.]
And Miles had 3 per "game session", whatever that meant in this context, either to power his own aspects or to get extra use out of something like the Rocky Floor.
Now that he was relatively safe, he touched the orb again. It swirled around him and trumpets sounded. His alien captors announced, [You have been granted a special ability! Choose a word of power.]
Miles said, "I've played your game; you know something about us now. Can we talk openly?" There was no answer. "I need to know what you want. We come in peace. How about you people show yourselves and tell me the goal of this game, so I can make a smart decision?"
He sighed. They were playing aloof. Maybe they'd been reading something in Eva's game notes about how mysterious precursor races ought to act. Miles paced, mindful of the glowing ball that still whirled nearby. "A word, you say. Can you at least tell me how this works in game terms?"
[The word will be used to inspire what you call an 'extra' with its own special rules for you. Its exact form will depend on our interpretation and what seems interesting to us.]
He was dealing with the dangerous sort of genie, then, who might twist what he said. He thought about words that might make him better at whatever quests he was pushed into, then picked something matching the bizarre meta-gaming experience he'd been put into so far. "How about... Fate itself as a word?"
[Considering.] There was a long pause. [The associations interest us, yes. So be it. You shall have the power of a legendary weaver of fate.]
That sounded promising.
[Specifically, Clotho.]
"What?"
[Rules for an Extra: "Fateweaver".
Create and control cloth.
Works with any action. Upgradeable.
Uses the Magic skill. Must defend vs. your own Magic roll as a mental attack, for the first use of a new spell each scene.]
"Cloth?!" said Miles. "That isn't what I said!" He'd imagined some way to manipulate the dice or otherwise rewrite this reality.
He looked at his character sheet again. This new gift was attached, as an aspect called "Fateweaver" replacing "Chosen Wielder". He said, "Cloth. Okay, maybe I can work with this." Since he didn't see any sign of another way out, he returned to the cave where he'd failed to create an exit. "Then how do I use this?"
A glowing icon appeared in midair, showing a pinched-fingers hand gesture. Miles imitated it. Then a whole menu sprang into being like a holographic interface, showing him several types and shapes of cloth, along with some icons hinting at what he could do with it. And a color wheel. It looked like he could "create an advantage" by conjuring fabric from nothing. He gestured and poked at interface buttons, then waved to show where he wanted the result. A ghostly image of a knotted rope appeared. He adjusted the thing with a flick of one hand, then made a fist. A chime sounded, and the rope literally wove itself into existence. Threads appeared from nowhere and swam into place, connecting to each other and becoming a thick, knotted white cotton cord. It hung perfectly along the edge of the cave, started to tumble down, then anchored itself around some rocks and roots that hadn't been there before.
[Magic roll: 3/-+++ = 5. Your defense with Mind: 1/0+0- = 1.] That was a good roll, but what did it mean to defend against his own spell and take "mental stress"?
Colors rippled around Miles. They flitted like butterflies, battering against his legs and flapping in his face. He realized they were just scraps of cloth, like being assaulted by living handkerchiefs or very small bedsheet ghosts. He swatted at them but they continued to harass him. Meanwhile, his character sheet updated to show:
Fate Points: 2<
br />
Stress: Body [][], Mind [][][]
Consequences:
2: Gashed Leg*
4: Weaver Ghosts*
6:
He cursed. His physical stress had cleared now that he wasn't in immediate danger anymore. But he'd taken 4 points of "mental" harm. The game would've handled that in the least-harmful way by using his 2-point mental stress box and a 2-point injury, but he still had the Gashed Leg. So instead he'd gone right to a 4-point consequence, harder to cure.
Miles looked down at his leg. It didn't actually hurt much, just a dull ache, but the bloodless wound mark was still there. "How do I heal, again?"
[Take an action to start recovering.]
"Then I need to bandage it. I can make a bandage by magic, but wouldn't that risk me taking yet more mental damage?"
[Correct. Penalties for self-treatment are being waived. Difficulty to treat your two wounds is at 2 and 4 respectively.]
What to do? He'd gotten some training in general astronaut operations, not just engineering. The emphasis there was on working the problem of survival by asking, "what could kill me first?" and dealing with each emergency in turn. He was currently trapped in a cave and sporting multiple "consequences". These couldn't directly kill him, only clog up his character sheet and give him no wiggle room to withstand more harm. (Plus, the GM was reserving free bonuses against him for each injury.) Before climbing up and getting attacked by tigers or something, he needed to get rid of the lesser injury to make the bigger one easier to solve.
He gestured and the magic interface came back. This time he called for a simple cloth square.
[2/0+00 = 3. Applying "Weaver Ghosts" against you; your new total = 1.] The cloth ghosts whirled annoyingly and flapped in Miles' face.
Miles was failing the roll now versus difficulty 2. "But I'm a Fateweaver, right? This should be easy. Spending a point to use that aspect for a bonus."
His fate point counter ticked down to 1, and his roll became a 3 again. A chime sounded, for success.
[Mind defense of 4; no damage from this new spell.]
A cloth bandage appeared in his hand. "Good, so this should start me recovering from the leg wound." He tried to tie it on.
