Dragos's Yard

Decaying scrapyard

***Decaying scrapyard***

**Dragos's Yard** is a section and location in *Citizen Sleeper*.

## Overview

Found between the Rotunda and the Bright Market, Dragos' shipbreaking yard is the place where the Sleeper winds up after their escape ship is shot up to bits. Helped by Dragos, the owner, they can help the elder shipbreaker save his yard from doom when the debt collectors come.

## Back in Business

This is the player's first instance of interacting with dice actions and clocks. It's laboring work, and the pay is quite bad, but it's a good place to start. You can either use your Engineer skill to seek out quality materials, or you can use your Endure skill to brute-force your way through as much salvage as possible.

### Repeatable actions

####   Hull Dissection

*Even the rustiest hull can hide valuable components and materials. Extracting them means cutting carefully and skillfully.*
(Risky, Dice roll, Engineer))
**Positive:** *Beneath the pockmarked hulls you find hidden containers, alloy plating and wire bundles thick as your arm, preserved in their trunking.*
(+2 Back in Business, +15 Cryo)
**Neutral:** *It takes you a while to get a handle on Dragos's equipment, but before long you are precisely slicing down hull plates into neat piles.*
(+1 Back in Business, +15 Cryo)
**Negative:** *After hours of careful slicing and separation, you uncover little more than layer after layer of worthless scrap. This is going nowhere.*
(+10 Cryo, -1 Energy)
####  Manual Salvage

*It's going to take some time to sort and cut your way through the towers of salvage, but you are no stranger to hard labor.*
(Dice roll, Endure)
**Positive:** It is heavy going, but the hard work helps you forget your worries. Before long you have cleared a large portion of the yard.
(+2 Back in Business, +10 Cryo)
**Neutral:** The salvaging is brutal work, but you take no small sense of satisfaction from the ordered piles and clear yard you leave behind.
(+1 Back in Business, +10 Cryo)
**Negative:** You ache from hammering away at the scrap, and most of it crumbles into worthless rust. You call it a day early, before you injure yourself.
(+5 Cryo)
When the Back in Business Step Clock is filled, the descriptive text for this action changes to: *When you finish your shift Dragos gestures you into the office at the side of the yard. He wants to talk.*

### Clocks

####   Back in Business (8 Steps)

*Every salvager knows they are always just one lucky haul away from their next payday.*
Filling this Step Clock locks off both of the Repeatable Actions at this location at this time. It also initiates an active scene with Dragos, which completes the Repay Dragos Drive, and begins the Study the Winter Light Drive.

####   A Debt Called In (8 Cycles)

*Dragos is tied-up in something ugly, and if he misses a payment or two things could get nasty.*
This cycle clock indicates how long before Dragos's debt needs to be all paid up. Letting this clock fill initiates an active scene with Dragos, in which his debtors threaten to repossess his yard if he does not repay his debts within 6 cycles.

## Holding Payments

This set is only accessed by failing to fill the Back In Business step clock before the A Debt Called In cycle clock is filled. Most players will never see it. Arguably, getting to this set is a more efficient method of Repaying Dragos if you are willing to part with 30 Cryo and a high-pip Engage Dice, and don't mind waiting a while longer to complete the Drive and secure the upgrade point.

### Critical Action

####   Negotiate The Debt

*The salvager is hanging around to keep an eye on Dragos, perhaps he could be persuaded to lay off the old man?
(Dice action, Engage, Danger)*
**Positive:** *He seems uneasy, threatened by your insistence, and is unsure how to respond. He reduces the payments just to get rid of you.*
(+2 Holding Payments)
**Neutral:** *He laughs off your plea. But after mocking you for a while he says he'll reduce the payment out of "pity".*
(+1 Holding Payments)
**Negative:** *He responds with a right hook. He cuts two cycles from the deadline and threatens to kill you if "you come near him again".*
(+2 Final Deadline, -1 Condition)
### Repeatable Action

####  Make a Payment

*If Dragos can't make his payments he loses his yard. You can pay on his behalf, if you want to.*
**Outcome:** *You find the salvager and hand him the chits. He grins broadly at you, like a shopkeeper accepting change from a child.*
(+1 Holding Payments, -30 Cryo)
After filling the Holding Payments step clock, the descriptive text for this action will change to "*That's it, the salvager leaves. That should buy Dragos enough breathing room to escape the trap he's in.*" - though you may need to attempt to drop more Cryo into the item input slot to remind the game to display the new description.

### Clocks

####   Final Deadline (8 Cycles)

*The salvagers said they'll be back in 6 cycles, and this time they'll take the yard.*

Letting this Cycle Clock fill triggers an active scene, in which Dragos's Yard is repossessed by his debtors. The Repay Dragos drive is failed.

####  Holding Payments (3 Steps)

*A few payments to the salvagers will keep them off Dragos's back for now.*
Filling this Step Clock has an identical outcome to filling the Back in Business clock from the earlier set - the Repay Dragos drive is completed, and the Study the Winter Light drive is started.

## Winter Light

After completing Repay Dragos, the hulk of the Winter Light will land in the yard, awaiting breaking up. This will start a new clock *and* two new activities.

### Repeatable Actions

####  Forensic Trawl

*Investigating the 'Winter Light' means picking through its systems and structures with care. It won't pay but you may find answers.*
(Dice roll, Intuit)
**Positive**: *You discover a hidden compartment with spare components and backup data storage. This has to contain something of use.*
(+2 Winter Light, 1 Scrap Components OR 1 Shipmind Fragment)
**Neutral**: *Picking through the wrecked cutter is slow work, but you start to piece together the impact patterns and blast marks.*
(+1 Winter Light)
**Negative**: *Its impossible to understand anything with the ship being salvaged as you look. Dragos gives you a disapproving look.*
(+1 Yard Clearance)
####   Cutter Salvage

*Ship breaking is tougher than slicing up loose salvage, but Dragos is happy to pay you a fixed wage if you are up to it.*
(Danger,Dice roll, Engineer)
**Positive**: *You work your way into the ship, systematically separating and cutting. Piece by piece the ship starts to come apart.*
(+2 Yard Clearance, 16 Cryo)
**Neutral**: *The hull puts up some resistance, but you manage to push through just before your shift is up.*
(+1 Yard Clearance, 16 Cryo)
**Negative**: *You mistakenly take your torch to a fuel line and the residue ignites, knocking you back into the yard.*
(-1 Condition, 16 Cryo)
### Clocks

####  Winter Light (8 Steps)

*The wrecked cutter Dragos has brought in to salvage has a history to discover if you are curious.*
Once complete, this will kick off a special interaction where you discover that the Winter Light did not break up due to reactor malfunction, but due to an attacker who killed its crew; apparently in pursuit of another sleeper. At the end, Dragos will enter and decide that the Sleeper is too much of a risk to continue working with, ending the Scrapyard story arc.
After the active scene, you will be rewarded with two things: a vial of Stabilizer, and the completion of the Study the Winter Light drive.

####  Yard Clearance (8 Steps)

*History or no, this ship is salvage. As Dragos always says: "Break it down, move it on."*
This clock also results in an active scene in which Dragos decides to part ways with the Sleeper, though in an arguably more amicable way. It also fails the Study the Winter Light drive, but earns you a bonus payment of 48 Cryo.

####  Dragos's Nerve (12 Cycles)

*Dragos seems increasingly nervous about your presence in the Yard. You're not sure he's going to hold his nerve much longer.*
Allowing this Cycle Clock to fill results in an active scene in which Dragos decides to part ways. Similar to **Yard Clearance**, this will fail the Study the Winter Light drive, but earn you a bonus payment of 48 Cryo.

### Gameplay Optimization

Forensic Trawl is almost always the better choice of this phase, because each action gives you a random scrap item; either a Scrap Component or a Shipmind Fragment. Either of these items is worth more than the 16 Cryo received from the Yard Clearance action. What's more, filling the Winter Light clock yields +1 Stabilizer and +1 Upgrade Point. By comparison, filling the Yard Clearance clock yields just 48 Cryo.