When an attack is successful, the defender must absorb the hit, which has shifts equal to the difference between the attack’s effort and defense’s effort.

You can absorb shifts of a hit by marking stress boxes and by taking consequences. If you can’t or don’t absorb all of the shifts, you are taken out (page XX)—you’re removed from the scene, and the attacker decides how it plays out.

A series of regrettable decisions has put Charles in a dank basement, confronting a ghoul that very much wants to eat him. The ghoul attacks, lunging with its sharp claws; this is an attack using its Fair (+2) Fight. The GM rolls [0][0][+][+], bringing the effort up to Great (+4). Charles tries to leap out of the way with his Good (+3) Athletics, but rolls [0][0][0][-], taking his effort down to Fair (+2). Because the ghoul’s attack effort was two steps higher than Charles’s defense effort, Charles must absorb two shifts. He marks the first two of his three physical stress boxes; already the fight is proving dangerous.