Episode 4: “The Great Escape”

Gather 'Round the Trashfires

The cohort puts their plan into action and attempts their escape before Camille can take them somewhere never to be seen again.

Now including music and SFX from Ovani Sound.

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Episode Transcript:

Get your snack and beverage of choice ready. It’s time to “Gather ‘Round the Trashfires” for a tabletop roleplaying story! I’m your host, Bek Andrew Evans.

My current and main running story for this podcast is the misadventures of the cohort from the Deviant: the Renegades chronicle I’ve been playing in since early 2021. And I play Geri.

For those of you unfamiliar with Deviant, it’s a TTRPG about people who were formerly human but were irreparably changed in traumatic ways to the point their very Souls broke and they became something Other. They seek vengeance on those who made them, those who hunt them, those who seek to exploit them for what they are and will never leave them be.

As such, this podcast will feature heavy themes and content throughout. There’s an overall content warning for language, violence, criminality, homelessness, substance use, human experimentation, cults and religious extremism, mentioned torture, kidnapping, implied incest and incest-related comments, and abusive relationships. On episodes where there is a new content warning or a particularly notable instance of one of these, I’ll call it out.

I hope y’all enjoy hearing about my cohort’s antics and stumbling headfirst into the mysteries of the world as much as I have.

[Music Intro: "_violence" by Avantist]

Episode 4: The Great Escape

It was lunchtime on Saint Patrick’s Day of 2021. The ward staff had decided to be festive for the patients by making some concerningly-green-dyed food - including green buns for hamburgers that they had to assure over and over again were not moldy and definitely not from whatever was growing on AJ’s neck. Despite the attempts at a little celebration, the staff’s tension was palpable. As soon as they cleared all the lunch things away and let the patients have their limited free time, the staff got to busying themselves in preparation for Ms. Mason’s impending arrival.

They all seemed terrified of her, afraid to even be seen if it was possible to avoid it.

Geri had linked the cohort in her telepathic network, that she nicknamed the “MINDcraft server,” the last the group was in range of each other for lunch. And then they separated to get into positions.

AJ and Robert use a side door to go down a corridor around the offices toward the main doors. AJ’s wearing his scrubs plus a purple baseball cap and a backpack. Robert’s got his scrubs and, as usual, is barefoot and has his huge blanket wrapped around him.

Madison gets ready to activate her electrokinesis, but it fluctuates wildly on any given day. Today, it fluctuates so powerfully, it flickers all the power in the hospital off for a moment just from her attempt to wrangle it and makes the backup generators kick on. Sparks fly over her skin from where she’s hiding with Geri near the elevators.

AJ and Robert were good at sneaking, but the surprise from the sudden light flickering (even though this is a fairly common occurrence on this ward) distracts the guards just long enough to not see AJ and Robert right away. But the guards get on alert that something is afoot. Four guards in the common area glance to each other, two at the door stand straighter and one whispers over a radio.

Out of his backpack, AJ pulls the shittiest-looking, most McGuyvered RC car with clockwork for wheels to exist and sets it on its rickety path toward the main doors. He silently signals Robert to put his face mask on.

AJ whispers to Robert to keep the guards busy once the smoke starts until he gets the signal.

Meanwhile, the guards notice the approaching little RC contraption. When one goes to investigate it after calling in the disturbance over the radio, it starts sparking and spraying smoke everywhere. The guards yell to lock the ward down. Two of the common area guards head for the main door and the other two head back toward the fire exit.

Robert ambles through the smoke and pretends to be a bumbling, confused patient. He loudly asks the guards what’s going on, what’s happening to the electricity, why is there smoke?

Over the mindcraft, he gives Madi and Geri the green light to head to Zuse’s room.

Two guards pull tasers on Robert and tell him to return to his room. There’s a potential breach in security. As if on cue, a robotic voice begins announcing a similar command over the loudspeaker to the entire ward. Steel grates slam down to seal the wide, sunny windows and blanket the ward in darkness other than the eerie, flickering fluorescent lights.

AJ, in the chaos and smoke, sneaks over to a janitor’s cart in the common room. Robert continues to stall, raising his hands and innocently claiming the elevator was taken and he was looking for personnel to help him.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ward, Madison makes lightbulbs explode behind the guards near the back door for their own distraction and the two girls run as fast as they can to Zuse’s room. Geri readies her Lash in case, singeing bits of the walls and Madison’s clothes in the process as she passes by. Madison uses Electrokinesis on the door panel, sparks crackling from her fingertips.

The guards at the front ask Robert to come with them, tasers still drawn. AJ lets Robert know over the mindcraft link that the girls pushed the deadline up as he tosses another smoke bomb into the hall from where he came as a distraction. He pushes the mop bucket closer, carefully.

Madison ruses through the door and makes a bee-line for the grate, whispering frantic apologies to Zuse as she tugs and tears open the panel. She gets no answer this time, only silently blinking lights.

Geri stays watch, near the door. Over the link, she threatens to start a grease fire if the guards get any closer.

No one tells her no. No one responds to the comment at all.

Instead of going quietly with the guards, Robert throws open the blanket he was wrapped in. Under it this time, nothing but his birthday suit. Before the guards can react to the sudden nakedness, he starts transforming, growing to the size of a moose, taking on a sandstone-like form with leathery skin and bulging muscles.

AJ sets his plan into motion while all hell’s breaking loose around him. He puts the vacuum cleaner part device from his backpack onto the mop bucket. It has a lid and hose of a canister-style vacuum rigged together with duct tape and dubiously sealed wires. He sticks a small pack on the side of the bucket and the pipe end into the soapy water.

A guard near Robert begs for backup on his radio. The guards close around the sandstone creature, tasers drawn. The guards from the fire exit run down the hall to aid them. One of the closest soldiers opens fire but misses wildly in his panic.

Robert starts a monster brawl. 1 v lots. He tries to fling the one who shot at him into a wall.

Madison places her hands on the server beyond the grate and gasps, sucking in the electricity like air. Her veins bulge and crackle with electricity flowing throught them. Her pupils dilate into saucers. The air gets denser, becoming Ozone.

Geri moves away from the action and heads to the kitchen door nearby down the hall, looking for something appropriately ludicrously flammable.

The elevator’s now locked down. Everything’s locking down as the ward’s security’s going into full panic mode trying to stop Robert’s giant rampage. Plaster’s flying. Smoke’s still everywhere. Screams and shouts echo through the halls as they try to avoid the attack in the confusion and scramble to contain him. They aren’t used to having to deal with Remade on the ward who haven’t been taking the suppressant drugs. AJ calls for the others to hurry up over the link, he doesn’t think Robert can take them all for long.

Unbeknownst to security, the electricity in the server room is totally fucked. The lights are flickering and giant arcs surround Madison as she slurps up every last drop of the energy she can from the server, more than she ever has and can hardly comprehend. A huge arc blasts the door off its hinges and narrowly misses Geri. Lights all over the ward explode.

The loudspeaker makes one last desperate cry of “WARNING! SECURITY ALER-” Before it, too sputters out and dies.

It’s not over yet. The struggle’s still going on. There’s still more to drain, but the tide’s turned. It’s becoming clear the little cheerleader’s winning.

Geri catches her breath from nearly getting crushed and tells the others over the link it’s time to go. She ducks into the kitchen and makes a far more pressing problem than Robert for the ward to deal with – she uses her Lash to ignite the oil in the deep fryer. It flashes and quickly starts spreading.

AJ urges Robert to come with him to the back exit, still holding the cleaning cart device, unnoticed in the chaos and smoke.

Robert immediately stops his brawling and just starts shoving guards out of his way as he makes the path of least resistance to the exit. His huge, naked form shocks AJ, who pauses for just a moment to gawk before throwing the switch on his device.

It quickly starts making and spewing foam everywhere, bubbling over and making a slippery, obscuring, mess. Bubbles stack up to the ceiling and flow down the main hall.

By now, smoke alarms are going off not just in the ward but distantly in the main hospital as evacuation procedures commence. Thick, black smoke billows out of the kitchen and down all the halls. Geri coughs, heading for the fire exit as fast as she can but not exiting, yet.

Madison slurps down the very last of the energy from the server and as she does, the glass brain pushes out from the grate, protruding and transforming. It looks like mechanical gears in very dimly glowing glass. As it extrudes itself, it becomes a person, a slender young man who looks not that much older than herself. The glowing stops and his skin and hair reverts to a normal look once fully removed from the server.

He’s platinum blond with unkempt hair, very pale, and very naked.

And he’s not moving.

Madi worriedly, whispering a prayer, begging to not have killed again, leans down to check his pulse and breathing. To her relief, he’s just unconscious, as if in deep sleep. But then she notices the smoke.

She scoops up his limp body without another thought and hurries for the exit. She asks, as she runs, what they should do with him. Her voice is wild with all the energy, like she had five espressos.

Geri replies to just bring Zuse if Madi already has him. And that was that.

AJ scrambles in front of his bubbly creation toward the exit with Robert close behind and then passing him. When Robert catches up, he takes over carrying the unconscious Zuse to let Madison hack the door panel code.

Because of course, even in a building fire, lockdown procedures had already been initiated. The fire exit was locked tight. The cohort chokes on smoke and there’s a zap of arced electricity before the door swings open. Smoke billows out and the cohort soon follows.

Robert collapses to his knees in searing pain when the unfiltered sunlight hits his leathery-stone skin.

The guards are still lost in the maze of the ward but gradually getting closer. Madison shouts down the hall for them to stay back and unleashes an electrical storm indoors, blocking the way between the guards and the cohort. They can’t approach that exit without getting fried.

Robert scrambles to his feet and forces himself to run anyway through the pain. AJ runs alongside Geri and exclaims he thought she was just joking about the greasefire! He also calls her Gerrbear, one of his many nicknames for her.

She responds that she doesn’t joke like that, confused that anyone thought she wasn’t entirely serious.

Madison catches up with the others after creating her mini storm. Already being an athlete helps, but running on all the stolen energy of Zuse and the server sure doesn’t hurt.

Sirens are in the distance. The ward, and the hospital at large, are in chaos.

Robert freezes in agony again. But this time, his body involuntarily transforms back to his normal self. He’s barely able to keep hold of Zuse.

Who should round the corner at that moment but Camille, with her armed backup. She has an arm outstretched toward Robert and looks the cohort over like they’re something good to eat.

She’s not upset at their attempted escape, oh no, she’s perversely delighted at the confirmation of how useful they’ll be. They’re beyond her expectations.

Geri doesn’t take her monologuing well and throws Lash at her. Which does… nothing but piss Camille off for Geri’s insolence.

Camille accuses Gabriel of helping the cohort, calling him a bleeding heart, before ordering the soldiers with her to take the cohort.

Alive, she specifies. At least the girls. She cares a bit less if they have to kill the guys. But it would still be a waste.

AJ gets indignantly offended, not that Camille’s just gave an order to get the cohort detained, and some of them possibly killed, but because Camille called Geri and Madi “Girls” instead of “Women.” He tries to monologue right back at her until Madison shouts at the cohort to RUN.

Geri, AJ, and Robert start booking it, with Geri throwing Lash behind her at the guards for good measure. She ignites one of them through their armor, severely burning him and putting the other soldier off balance from the confusion and near-miss.

Madison summons another storm above the guards, Camille, and herself. The storm’s massive and threatens to be violent as it begins. Camile’s eyes flash golden, trying to dispel it. She’s nearly struck by lightning but it vanishes the instant before it hits her.

Madison puts more into the storm, beefing it up. Putting her blood, sweat, and electric tears into it. The young cheerleader stands unmoved.

Camille strains to dispel the strengthened storm. The effort’s visible on her face with bulging veins and glowing, burning eyes like small suns. She screams and the light reaches a crescendo; a flash. The burst of a miniature supernova.

When the light fades, so has the storm.

Madison is still screaming in frustration and rage at Camille and God himself for forsaking her. But then, before Camille or the still upright soldier can compose themselves, Madi’s running for her life into the woods behind the hospital.

When AJ hears Madi scream, he looks back in a panic and takes water out of his backpack. He splashes it on his face begging something to-

There’s a strange, inhuman screech in the mindcraft and then he’s flung as if by an invisible hand further away from Madison and deeper into the forest. AJ screams in confused terror.

Camille turns her attention to Geri, the next threat. Who is still eager and willing to throw wisps-of-spontaneous-combustion-energy at Camile and the guards.

Madison still has tricks up her sleeve as she escapes. Electricity arcs around her hand into a ball and she throws it directly at Camille.

Camille redirects the strike into the side of the hospital wall, sending brick shrapnel flying. But finally, reinforcements are arriving.

None of the cohort stop to fight any of the new soldiers or Camile, they just keep running. The soldiers are quickly too busy aiding their severely burnt and still burning comrade and Camille, who issues an order to bring her Gabriel.

The cohort make it deep into the woods. AJ is able to lead them to the cache of secret items that was left for them. It’s a box with a note scribbled on it - ‘Doc said you needed this.’ The box contains assorted discount store and second-hand clothes. The cohort gets to work getting changed and working together to put unconscious Zuse in some clothes.

There’s also a set of keys. Car keys, to be exact. And another note attached from Gabe telling AJ it was going to be a birthday present and to stay safe and hidden, and don’t let him find them either. On the back is directions to the car, a maroon 2015 Toyota Camry.

The cohort pile in with Geri and Madison finally powering down fully, and Madison gives AJ directions to a spot at the State Park near Lake Hudson.

Geri adds Zuse to the mindcraft to keep tabs on him, and try to make sure he’s alright. He’s faint in the mindcraft from the deep sleep, and any thoughts are in binary anyway.

They stop at a convenience store for some cheap food and essentials – Gabe had left some cash in the glove box.

After their long day, they drive up to the biggest, fanciest, “little old Summer lake cabin” most of the cohort had ever seen. They’d momentarily forgotten how wealthy Madison’s family is.

[Music Outro: "Time Will Fail Us" by Troigo]

Thanks for listening, This has been Gather ‘Round The Trashfires with Bek Andrew Evans. Please subscribe to this podcast for future updates and leave a review or comment, I’d love to hear what you think. You can follow me on a few different social platforms with the username "bekandrew." That's [spells username] on tumblr and bluesky, mainly.

If you'd like to support me, subscribe to my Patreon at Patreon.com/BekAndrewTTRPG and purchase my art prints and tabletop products, including my Deviant: the Renegades community content novella related to this chronicle via my linktree in the description.

AJ is played by Roen,

Geri is played by me,

Madison is played by Syn,

Robert is played by Pandito,

And our Storyteller is Casey Grant.

The intro theme is "_violence by Avantist" from the Free Music Archive, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0.

The end theme is "Time Will Fail Us" by Troigo from the Free Music Archive, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0.

If you like the songs, I encourage you to check out more of their work. I've linked their Bandcamps in the description.

Until next time.

Follow my Patreon at Patreon.com/BekAndrewTTRPG Check out my other work at linktr.ee/bekandrew Check out the Intro and Outro artists' Bandcamps! https://theavantist.bandcamp.com/music https://troigo.bandcamp.com/ Remember to subscribe and see y'all next week!
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