Chapter 4: The Strange One - Talking To Gad

Village of Kernelle - South Entrance

You find Gad in the Init tower.

(Show that Gad is actually competent at helping Orphans find where they belong).

He is shocked when you tell him Blizz is missing. He immediately rushes off to go rescue her...then sheepishly comes back when he realizes he has no clue where she is.

Jerrod returned to the I/O district to see what Gad might have to say. He emerged from the elevator to see Gad, back turned towards him, still sitting in a pile of fluff where Jerrod had left him.

Jerrod sneered.

What a brat, he thought. He turned to head back down. I doubt he'd have seen Ephraim and Blizz anyway.

Roll a 6-sided die. If you roll a 6, re-roll. Otherwise, read the passage below that’s associated with the number you rolled.

1) If Gad Joined the Farmers Clan

Jerrod passed by a field as he approached Gad. Apparently, it's harvest season in Kernelle, Jerrod thought.

As he turned the corner, a familiar blue mohawk poked up over a messier-than-average haybale a dozen or so yards away.

Jerrod called out. "Hey Gad!"

The mohawk sprang up to reveal a flustered robot. Gad flung his arms forward over the haybale, then flopped over it. After a few grunts, he mounted it, dangling his legs over the side, kicking them back and forth.

"Hey Jerrod! Where's Blizz?"

Jerrod frowned. "That’s what I’m wondering! One minute she and Ephraim were right in front of me, the next they ran off and ended up missing!"

Gad's eyes widened. "Oh, no! That's terrible! I gotta go save her!" He stood up on the haybale, then immediately started to roll forwards. As he tried to correct his center of balance, the bale fell apart, leaving Gad face first covered in hay. "Darn it! That's the sixth time today!"

Jerrod looked relieved. "So you know where she went?"

Gad stood back up and dusted himself off. "Hmm...well, no, not really. The city's a real big place."

Jerrod's relief turned to annoyance. "So you were just going to rush off into Grand Cluster thinking you'd make a dramatic rescue without actually knowing where to go?"

"...when you say it like that..."

Genius, Jerrod thought.

"We can't just stand around waiting here, though! You gotta go figure out where Blizz went so I can save her!"

Jerrod walked away. "By the way, have you tried tying the haybale together?"

Gad raised a hand to object, then turned back around to the pile of hay he'd once been sitting on. He scratched his head. "Huh, I hadn't thought of that."

2) If Gad Joined the Breeder Clan

"Jerrod! Jerrod! Come look! I can't believe they kept him!"

Jerrod was still looking around for Blizz and Ephraim. He looked around back at the Breeder's managerie, where they keep all the engineered creatures for selective breeding. Gad was standing next to that genuinely bizarre yellow beast he'd encountered when he first walked through the village.

"Jerrod, this is Gluteus Rex! He's the creature I made back when I tried to be part of the engineering clan!"

"I think we've already met."

* Happy Gluteus noises *

"Gad, you haven't seen Blizz around, have you? She's been missing all day, and I'm getting worried."

"Blizz is missing? Say it ain't so! We gotta go rescue her!"

* Determined Gluteus noises *

"And Ephraim's missing, too," Jerrod pointed out.

"Eh, well too bad for him. Come on Gluteus, let's go get Blizz!"

"No, no, that's really okay!"

* Sad Gluteus noises *

"I just needed to know if you saw them--" Jerrod backed up and pointed a thumb behind him, "--I'll be going now!" He turned around and quickly made his way back out of the managerie.

"Alright, well if you need me, I'll be discussing backup rescue plans with my main man Glutes."

* Gluteus bro-fist *

3) If Gad Joined the Engineering Clan

Dead eyes stared coldly at Jerrod. And the horns glinted in the low-light conditions. Unlike the demonic nightmare beasts in his nightmares of late, though, these eyes and horns were being ordered to go.

A frustrated creature engineer stood in front of the counter of the village’s materials storehouse. "Do I really have to tell you that the pupils need to match?"

"Sorry! I'll swap that out for you!" Gad swept one of the eyes off the counter back into his hands, then put it hastily back in its display case. He pulled out another eye and set it on the counter.

"That one's twice as big! Aww, forget it. I'll just go synthesize my own." The robot huffed off.

Gad wilted a little. "But that's all we had..."

Jerrod walked over to the counter. "Supply shortage?"

“Jerrod! Good to see you! Yeah, like you wouldn't believe.”

(remainder in progress, but similar idea as the others. Jerrod wonders where if Gad knows where Blizz went. Gad is surprised she’s gone, gets overzealous to try to save her himself, then gets a little flustered and makes a silly mistake)

4) If Gad Joined the Protector Clan

(Protector Clan) The Weightlifting Room:

Trying to do a nunchuck kata, fails miserably.

5) If Gad Joined the Keeper Clan

Jerrod walked back through the village to check the Keeper's tower again. After all, that's Ephraim's home clan. It'd make sense that he come back there eventually. What he saw instead, though, was small, blue-bemohawked robot frantically jumping up and down, futilely grasping at the teddy bear Jerrod had given him. It was drifting a clean 10 feet off the ground and glowing a crisp spring green.

Close enough for now.

"Hey Gad. I...see you're busy, but have you seen Ephraim or Blizz? They ran off ahead of me and we've been separated ever since."

He kept jumping.

"I'm sorry--Gad, what the heck are you doing?"

"I'm trying to get my bear back from this stupid glowfly! It's my job to take care of her, but the thing hates my guts!"

Jerrod noticed the other glowing objects in the air. Then he noticed the blob in the center of the floating objects, sitting in a small bowl atop a pole. There were dozens of poles like this across the village.

The blob was giggling to itself.

Jerrod didn't have time for this right now. He walked over to the pole, then gave it a swift kick. The kick reverberated all the way up the pole, shaking the little creature--a glowfly Gad called it. Shocked, the creature quit giggling immediately. Gad's Teddy bear and the other small objects stopped glowing and dropped back to the ground with an unceremonious thud.

He turned back to Gad. "Where's Blizz?"

Gad hugged the bear, then glared at the blob with a death stare that would've been effective had it not from a 2 foot tall baby-faced robot. After another second, what Jerrod said had finally registered. "Wait, you mean Blizz is missing?"

"Yes. Ephraim too. So I take it you don't know where they are?"

Gad withered a little bit. "No...Dang! I feel like it's supposed to my job to protect her!"

"No, no, Gad, that's not on you at all. Blizz is my responsibility."

"But she's my friend!"

It was actually kind of sweet the way Gad doted on Blizz. She'd made quite the impact on him back in Grand Cluster.

"I'll find her and get her back. You just focus on...well I guess just focus on not getting punked by a sentient lamp post."

Gad crossed his arms.

"Hey, you'll get there, man. Have you tried feeding the thing?" Do psychokinetic blob creatures actually have stomachs?

"Y'know, I haven't. I'll bet that's why she's been so cranky. Thanks Jerrod!"