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3,496 checks

Pathetic. Vulnerable. Malleable.

Like a bird's nest after the snake ate its fill.

In another life, you are both earnestly selling your cotton wares, far beyond the shadows of international intelligence.

Like your heartbeat adjusts to the pulse of a drum, the device attempts to calibrate something in your brain.

The lid will never come off again.

This is the last good look it will get at you.

All the same you feel there's a two-way mirror, and on the other side, a row of blank faces sitting in judgement.

At your back, the howl of the ventilation shaft. If you wanted, you could... just...

A hornet-flight vibration emanating from a spot just between your eyes, an insect trying to escape from the centre of your brain.

An offering, the boy trussed and gagged upon a bed of flowers.

Weirdly stiff, and yet too lax to be easily posed, like a rubbery puppet lacking a hand inside.

A diffuse, bruise-coloured glow.

The world shrinks.

Careful, you need a working camera for Ignatz's gig. No batteries, no gig.

Fück that guy, and fück his creep gig.

There's your 'brief', operant.

Thousands of miles away, his mother flinches in her sleep.

AND LOOK HOW WELL THAT WORKED OUT FOR HIM. YOU REMAIN UNGOVERNABLE.

THE PARTY EXPANDS ITS INFLUENCE ONE EXPOSED HEEL AT A TIME.

PSEUDOPOD's obligations are now yours. Never show this to Carmuna. You'll owe her five pairs of socks.

PSEUDOPOD's obligations are now yours. You owe this woman five pairs of socks.

THE PARTY EXPANDS ITS INFLUENCE ONE EXPOSED HEEL AT A TIME.

The discoloured wrapper depicts a red-cheeked child with a charming sledge. You haven’t seen this brand in years.

Don't touch. Could be poison.

AVERAGE RESPONSE TIME: SIXTEEN YEARS.

We must imagine PSEUDOPOD happy.

HE APPEARS COMMITTED TO HIS REACTIONARY WAYS. UNFORTUNATE.

Breathing gently on his chair, he could be a sleeping child, but for the wide-open, lightless eyes.

A bald spot so pristine simply cannot go unrubbed.

White spindles of leg hit your vision like a pair of flashbangs.

The prey animal's final defence: Playing dead.

This detail strikes you as very sad.

There's a procedure your controllers taught you for situations like this, but all you can focus on is his face.

You wonder briefly how much, or how little, you owe him.

The graze of an invisible hand.

The first casualty of an undeclared war.

If it is self-annihilation, it's nothing to do with you. Probably.

The film is monochrome and silent. The only soundtrack is the low hum of the projector as the celluloid rushes from its spool.

Not wanting to stain it with his soiled fingers.

CLASSIC LIBERAL DENY AND DEFLECT. OUR PROMISSORY NOTE READS: 'TOTAL REVOLUTION'.

The Opera is losing the shadow contest... to this?

Human for human.

A phone line from five years ago connects:

A flash of lucidity as he takes you in.

A tremendous feat of endurance.

Any slight movement would've spelled agony.

He cannot quite meet your eye.

This little locomotive sounds inherently leverageable. On both sides of the fulcrum.

A small mound inside, about three inches across. Vaguely circlular.

3,496 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 30 of 70