So last session I started playing 50s rock in the background, to simulate the 50s rock playing in the background in the hallways of the Encino Shopping Arcade. I hope my players don't find it annoying.
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| Sand... Witches? |
CAST:
Sir Roland Byrne - A Roller Knight of the Knights of Hawthorne, dresses in an oversized suit and wears a hair-shaped helmet
El Mosco - A mosquito/vampire themed Lichador.
Scrunky - A Scrapmaster who is pretty scrunky.
George - A Big Monkey with a big heart, and also a gun.
and introducing Teasag - a Druid with a mission to return nature to the malls of America.
George's Neurolinked Dreamer™ was both sick and dealing with final exams, so for this Shared Psychoscape™ he was controlled by Me™, the Architect™.
Six Travelers
walk the halls of the Encino Shopping Arcade. The path to Mega Multiplex Movie Theaters has been mostly safe so far, but out of the fog approaches a figure: could it be Danger come to show its alluringly handsome face? And perhaps invite you to come meet its equally stunning friends Action and Rad Magic Items Found On The Bodies Of Your Enemies? The four of you might come in for coffee, and who knows what would happen? Maybe some other time, but this figure is familiar to four of the Travelers. It is Teasag, someone who Sir Roland Byrne, El Mosco, Scrunky, and George have met multiple times while searching through trash at other, marginally less weird shopping arcades in the past. But the past is a foreign country, and sometimes too does it feel that Burbank is a foreign country - Burbank being where Teasag was mere minutes before. Teasag was in a mall, growing plants in a broken down home and garden store as she is oft seen doing, when suddenly she appeared here. As fellow strangers, they knew they can trust Teasag and continue on down the hallway towards Mega Multiplex.
Not long after this, Hot Topic comes out of the fog, metaphorically, it doesn't move, it might be reasonable to expect that I meant literally given context but in this case the Hot Topic is stationary and inanimate. A goth woman sits in the doorway reading Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice. The goth is wearing a frilly black and white dress. She welcomes the group, and offers some cookies.
The cookies are on a tray, shaped like ravens, roses, and little gingerbread men with their heads broken off. Nearby is an Easy-Bake Oven - and several more in boxes. Also some baking ingredients exist in cardboard boxes. Otherwise, the Hot Topic is surprisingly clean. Joy Division is playing on the store's P.A. system.
El Mosco accepts a cookie, and is literally stunned by how amazing the cookie is, not moving until Scrunky plays his mask-proboscis like a kalimba, or maybe a jaw-harp where the jaw is El Mosco's face.
El Mosco begins to inquire as to the secret recipe for the cookies, which the woman who is not a witch insists would defy the point of a secret recipe. El Mosco asks if anyone has died in the woman's bakery. The goth denies this, a little baffled, but El Mosco decides to channel a nearby ghost anyways. Then Sir Roland Byrne eats a cookie too, since it seems like a good idea.
El Mosco immediately begins speaking in the voice of a child, begging and pleading for the party to save someone lest they meet the child's fate. Sir Roland Byrne is stunned at how good that cookie was. El Mosco is like, "Whoa, that's heavy," and stops being a ghost-host for now.
El Mosco, Scrunky, and Teasag start to interrogate the goth about what the deal was with that, though she feigns ignorance. Sir Roland Byrne is stunned at how good that cookie was. El Mosco starts to Break Stuff - wait frig that song came out in 2000, it is Non-Canon for Mall Rats, dagnabbit. Anyways El Mosco starts to throw things onto the ground in case someone is being held captive behind the zipper pants, making his way to the door to the back room. Sir Roland Byrne is stunned at how good that cookie was.
Before he reaches the door, the goth summons two other goths, who appear near her listening to an album on headphones plugged into a turntable. The first goth - who's name is revealed as Morgantha - is about to command them to attack, but first disappointedly chastises the other goths for listening to her record. Then she bites the head off a poppet, deleting a head from one of the other goths. Sir Roland Byrne is stunned at how good that cookie was.
Morgantha pulls a knife, so everyone starts to get ready to throw hands and also Teasag finally shakes Sir Roland Byrne out of his stupor. A fight occurs in which:
- Morgantha offers more cookies (an offer which both Sir Roland Byrne and El Mosco feel compelled to accept, stunning them multiple times).
- The other goth, Offalia, teleports in the way of people attempting to hit Morgantha.
- El Mosco does a flip and bludgeons Offalia with the headless body of the third goth whose name never came up.
- Alucard conjures and throws an axe at Morgantha, then once Offalia dies he grabs a floating heart from her body and throws another axe.
- Morgantha turns magically active-camoflaged and attempts to flee, but Teasag summons vines to restrain her.
In the end, the goths are defeated without anyone getting too close to death. Scrunky got to 0 HP, which is like about halfway down the driveway to the Long Road On Which None Return From Their Evening Strolls. Sir Roland Byrne starts listening to Morgantha's record, "Permanent Sound" by Danny Alder and the Way Cools, while everyone else goes to the back room to find the cookie recipes.
No cookie recipes are found, but rather a child in a cage named Stuart who goes by "Freak" because he's a freak. He is from Food Court and Ireena recognizes him. He was sold to Morgantha by his parents, because they ran out of cookie money and were addicted to cookies. Stuart thinks Morgantha probably was going to eat him. He doesn't want to go back to his parents, but offers the group an Experience Token if they take him to Mega Multiplex safely. Sir Roland Byrne is stunned by how moderately neat that record was.
Leaving Hot Topic to keep heading to Mega Multiplex, the group encounters a vendor with a kiosk, the same vendor and kiosk as the last several times (presumably, his identity is still concealed by a balaclava+sunglasses+gloves), trying to sell another sword. He doesn't want more bananas this time, so no deals are struck.
They also find a fat possum. Scrunky suggests it is a good source of food, but in the end everyone agrees to walk around it.
At the corner of the roads to Mega Multiplex, Tower Records, and Food Court (the party having come from Food Court), a man is standing wearing an ostentatious pink outfit (I think it was pink). He complements Scrunky's glowing purple coat and sounds like a bad Elvis impersonator. After some polite conversation in which the man reveals he is Count Zarovich, the party heads on towards Mega Multiplex. Count Zarovich seemingly didn't notice Ireena's presence in the group; the Blue's Clues mask seems to have worked. Count Zarovich stares at the group as they leave, not stopping for at least as long as they can see him through the fog.
The group passes by a Petco that has been heavily fortified, with a door jury-rigged into the closed shutters, and several bear traps hammered into the ground outside. The party does not approach the door.
With the glowing marquee to Mega Multiplex in sight, a man comes walking from the west, talking to seemingly no-one. His name is Dave, and he is on a quest. The Casio VL-Tone in his pocket insists (and he accepts) that he is the Hero of Destiny, foretold to kill the great shapeshifting dragon Zarovich. They seek the mythical Permanent Sound, a power so great that neither of them knows what it is, exactly. But they will find it.
Sir Roland Byrne recalls the prophecy the group received, "Surrounded by vestments of the night, the power of your enemy is hoarded. It is a relic of a sound long dead, and by this you will know it." Could this "relic of a sound long dead" be the Permanent Sound? Casio quickly deduces that "vestments of the night" sounds like what corpses wear, and that Dave should hurry to find a mortuary.
The group thinks more, and realize that the prophecy is probably referring to the old record in the Hot Topic, but as they turn to tell Dave that they see he is already nearly vanished into the fog, and they've got two people to escort the other way to Mega Multiplex.
And they lived happily ever after, until a few weeks from now when things will happen again.
My stats for the three goths. It's all Mall Rats rules, and "(uses Death Dice)" just means they use the same death rules as players rather than dropping dead at 0 HP.
Bella is the one whose head got unexisted.
Morgantha
Level 6
HP: 16 (uses Death Dice)
STR: 2, DEX: 0, MIND: 6
ATTACK: 5 DEFENSE: 4
ITEM SLOTS: 12
STEALTH: 4
MOVE: 2
Pocketknife (1d6 damage)
Can summon Bella and Offalia to her side
Can camouflage once per day for a minute (while camouflaged -4 to target with attacks and hard to find)
Has 7 cookies in her pocket
Bella
Level 3
HP: 10 (uses Death Dice)
STR: 0, DEX: 4, MIND: -4
ATTACK: 4 DEFENSE: 2
ITEM SLOTS: 6
STEALTH: -4
MOVE: 2
Slingshot (1d6 damage)
Can set things on fire with her slingshot once. If something is on fire, it takes 1d4 damage at the start of each turn unless someone spends a turn putting it out. This recharges on a 1-in-6 at the start of each turn.
Offalia
Level 3
HP: 20 (uses Death Dice)
STR: 4, DEX: 0, MIND: -4
ATTACK: 4 DEFENSE: 2
ITEM SLOTS: 6
STEALTH: -4
MOVE: 2
Punch (1d10 damage)
Can teleport into the path of any attack once per turn.
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