The Game

Black Friday, 2020
11:59 PM

You find yourselves in the Metropolis Mega Mall Complex, a sprawling mega-mall encompassing miles and miles of every store you can think of, and some you've never seen before. Thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children are packed within, either waiting in colossal lines or milling about frantically and futilely for a "smaller" line to get the products they need.
Big sales start in one minute.
The crowd surges with restlessness and that bloodthirsty sense of competition you can't find anywhere else but Black Friday.
Retail employees kitted out in riot gear start beating back overzealous front-of-the-liners, as everyone waits for the clock to tick down that last 60 seconds before your precious sales.

GM: So starting off we've got Sammy in the food court, Daisuke waiting in line at Omega Electronics, Ben the Chef looking for a BlendTec, and Gus Gus browsing Victoria's Secret. What is your next move once you realize your objective at your current location?

Sammy, as you are walking past the giant line, about 2 stores down you see your hated rival Gina. In middle school you were best friends, but in 9th grade she betrayed you and you've been worst enemies ever since. She's standing in line with your ex-boyfriend. She sees you and gives a sneer, while your ex bows his head really quickly and refuses to make eye contact.

"Hey, Sammy!" she says in a mocking sing-song voice as gives her hair a sassy flip.. "It's so great to see you, trailing behind me as always. I hope you weren't planning on getting an iPhone 17, because by the time you get through the line they'll be all gone, girl. If you were smart you would've gotten here early, like I did. Oh, but you're not that smart, are you?"
She sticks out her tongue at you and then turns and starts furiously making out with your ex.

Sammy, your dignity and poise shine through, and you give her the coldest of shoulders. You hear her gasp in shock that she didn't phase you and you don't have to look back to know the exact stupid pout that she has on her face. You continue to the end of the line without further incident.

Daisuke, as you turn to wander you see a giant neon sign that says BUY PS5 HERE, LOWEST PRICES GUARANTEED above a store named Omega Electronics, and you realize that the crowd of people you've been standing in the middle of is actually the line for it and you are fairly close to the front. Standing right in front of you is a man in denim shorts, a denim vest, a black leather cowboy hat and boots, and nothing else. He gives you a huge grin as he sees you dazedly looking around.
"Well hey hey there, lil buddy. You look like youse lost. You from China or somethin?"

Gus Gus, as you fumble with the package but ultimately catch it and find a bit of relief as you are shuffled and jostled out of the crowd, an alert pings on your Google glass.
You see Vanessa, your pursuer (and lady love? The dangerous thoughts distract you for a second) get up from where she was eating in the food court, casually discard her garbage in the nearest receptacle and speak into her cuff for a second before she carefully puts on a pair of shades and begins making her way down the wing of the mall you are currently in.
You estimate you have about one minute before she walks by where you are currently standing.
What do you do?

Gus Gus, to reassert control over the drone I'm gonna need you to make a mundane roll.

Ben, to successfully navigate and walk past the moms like a normal person, I'm going to need you to also make a mundane roll.

Sammy, at that moment you receive a picture message on your phone from your BFF and it's very clearly your boyfriend Brensen and he appears to be in the company of another girl you don't recognize. She is a bit older, seemingly college age, and EXTREMELY attractive. The caption reads OMG BABE I JUST SAW BREN AND HES WITH THIS SKANK. What do you do?

Gus, you are now in control of the drone, but you cannot see Vanessa in the sea of people. She must have entered a crowd.

Ben, you make your way past each of the moms without incident, and you are standing near the pallet display of BlendTecs.

At that moment, a loud horn blares throughout the mall signaling that the sales have OFFICIALLY started, and people begin to shriek, whoop, and shout. The crowds begin to surge and press forward towards the deals. Daisuke, Sammy, and Gus Gus are all violently shoved and jostled as the people around them press towards Omega Electronics, and you are all at risk of being trampled if you don't act quickly.
Ben, you see that the BlendTec display disappears in literal seconds, as hundreds of hands reach, punch, and grab for them in mere moments. A single BlendTec remains as it was knocked off of the display in the struggle, but you can see an overweight woman lunging for it. She has a huge lead on you, and will definitely get there before you unless drastic measures are taken.

What do you do?

GM: Alright Sammy, so that's going to be a failure, but I'll give you the chance to surrender a piece of bubblegum if you'd like to still succeed. What would you like to do?

Sammy, as you try to force your way through the crowd in a blind rage Gus Gus is lifted out of your hands and involuntarily crowdsurfs further away from the entrance of the line. You reach after him to try and maintain your grip but suddenly you are shoved from behind and your phone goes skittering out of your possession and under the feet of the manic shoppers.

Ben, as you call out your ruse the woman whose arm you are grabbing turns and gives you a snarl.
"Excuuuse me, asshole! Get your damn hand OFF ME!"
She grabs the BlendTec with her other hand (you can't help but admire that the packaging has such a convenient handle for transporting it) and whips it around with surprising power, clocking you right in the face. You fall back on your ass and by the time you stop seeing stars she's nowhere in sight, and there are no BlendTecs left either.

Gus Gus, as you are crowdsurfed away from Sammy, you get deposited roughly on the side of the line. As you find your footing and check to make sure you still have all your belongings, you look up to see Vanessa about a hundred feet away. She's walking towards you along with her partner. They must have regrouped when you lost sight with the drone. She makes eye contact with you and speaks into her cuff as she breaks into a run.

What do you do?

GM: An equal roll goes to the player, so Sammy succeeds on her kick ass roll.
Sammy, you are water and you flow through the other people in the crowd effortlessly. A few people, dressed in the colors of your school's hated rivals the "Crosstown Cougars", get in your way and they snarl as they try to block you but you lash out with mighty kicks, punches, and elbows and they practically melt before you. You powerslide through the legs of an overweight woman strangling another woman over a set of wind chimes, and scoop up your phone as you spin and strike a victorious pose at the edge of the balcony on the fringe of the crowd. As you turn and look back in your wake, the lacrosse field fades and you see a swath of broken and bruised bodies, and a few shoppers looking at you in horror. Most continue with their crazed deal hunting, unphased.

Ben, you find that there's actually a crazy Black Friday deal on Glenvilet going on, with a large blackboard sign displaying that shots are 2 for $1.
Also, the pub is startlingly calm and other than you there's only one other patron in the place.
You're not sure what gender they are, but they're sitting at the bar in a trenchcoat that straddles the creepy/badass line.

Gus Gus, you see that your jacket flutters down to the second floor and lands on a dude-bro who does a fist pump and immediately puts it on. In the confusion and chaos you see Vanessa and the young man run out of the cloud towards the railing choking and coughing, where the see the dude-bro strolling away in your coat into a crowd on the second floor and run off towards the escalator, talking frantically into their cuffs. It's seems you're in the clear, at least for the moment. You look over past the chaos that you caused and see a pile of badly beaten shoppers scattered about, and that girl Sammy who had been talking to you in line standing near the railing and holding up her cellphone in a pose reminiscent of some sort of pulp fantasy comic book cover.

Sammy, as you tell Siri call Bae and the phone is ringing, you hear Brensen finally pick up.
He begins to say something, but before he can get out more than a "Hey-" his voice is cut off and when you look at your phone you realize the battery has died, but your doubts are very much alive.

GM: Ben, I'm not sure exactly what triggered your reaction (lol), but 1 successful roll would have sufficed or the sacrifice of 1 piece of bubblegum. No need for both if you're going to spend BG anyways so we'll just disregard the roll for now.

Ben, as you walk away from the flaming pub you hear a crash of shattering glass and see in your peripheral vision that the figure in the trench coat has just leapt through the plate glass display, and landed seemingly unharmed in a crouching position. As he straightens up and fixes the positioning of the coat, you swear you catch a glimpse of a metallic sheen underneath. He's far enough away that you can't quite make out his face, but he yells over the fleeing bystanders to you.
"Now that was simply uncalled for, Benjamin. But I forgive you. It's been a stressful day."
As you turn to see him more fully he fades into a mob of people and disappears, and a few blinks later you see no trace of his ever having been there at all.

Gus Gus, as you go to step off the escalator your shoelace gets caught in the track and is now being pulled into it! You trip and fall flat on your face, and as you try to get back up you realize your foot is stuck.
Your gas mask tumbled out of your bag when you fell, and you can't quite reach it from where you are. A bystander sees it and begins screaming, "TERRORISTS!!! AHHHHHH!!!"

Sammy, as the fragments of your phone fall to the ground, the people around you who weren't already freaking out over the beatings you'd delivered begin running from you in sheer terror. You scan the area for Gino and you catch a glimpse of his bright jacket in the crowd on the floor below you, then he goes down as he gets roughly tackled by multiple people in suits.

Ah, this is the stuff.

Gus Gus, as you go to scramble and kick the mask you unfortunately realize that at this point part of your pants also got stuck in the escalator, and while you are able to free your foot from the shoe the forward motion rips off an entire leg of your pants. You fumble the kick and instead of kicking the mask down below, it goes straight up into the air and defying all odds lands straight on your face as you slip backwards and fall on your back. The woman who initially started screaming passes out.

Sammy, as you are heading down the escalator you see your former BFF Gina scurrying away down on the floor below you with the Victoria's Secret bag that Gino discarded. She rushes past the commotion of people who are assaulting the boy in Gino's jacket who you quickly realize is not Gino as you approach. It's just some crying white kid, and the suits who apprehended him are furiously conversing into their sleeves and looking around frantically. As you go to walk away, however, you recognize the woman who seems to be in charge and calling the shots is the same woman from the picture message you received of Brensen.

Ben, as you go to chase after the Trenchcoat Man, a hand reaches out and grabs your ankle. You come crashing down and through a table, but as you turn to face the person who did it to you, you see an abnormally large man whose face suddenly starts melting away to reveal what appears to be greenish scales and rows upon rows of sharp teeth.The crowd around you starts screaming in terror and fleeing, as the creature let's out a snarl and lifts a table over it's head and throws it at you.

GM: Derek-buddy, I'm gonna catch you up to the current timeline as you were absent for a little bit.
Daisuke, the man raises a fist in anger at you, feeling insulted, but before he can do anything you hear a sound of rushing wind and a loud THWACK, and he falls to the ground unconscious. A small, somewhat familiar looking Japanese man a bit older than you is standing behind him holding what appears to be a wooden katana. He quickly places the weapon in his belt, and bows quickly to you.
"Daisuke-san, we must go, quickly! There is much to discuss! No time for questions, no time!"
He attempts to lead you past a scene of carnage where a young American schoolgirl mercilessly beat some bystanders and find a place of somewhat quiet in the midst of the Black Friday chaos.

Sammy, your kick connects mightily and the woman lets out a wheezing gasp of pain, as she doubles over and slides back on the mall floor from the force of your attack. All the suits around her immediately pull out guns and train them on you.
"YOU HAVE JUST ASSAULTED A MEMBER OF THE FBI, STAND DOWN OR WE WILL PUT YOU DOWN!" barks an intimately familiar voice. As you turn your head to see who addressed you, you lock eyes with none other than your own boyfriend, Brensen. His face becomes a mask of confusion as he realizes it's you who has attacked his partner. He's about to say something when the woman finally catches her breath.
"Agent Sosa! Take this impudent little bitch into custody before I lose my cool!" Vanessa struggles to her feet and Brensen looks at you, paralyzed.

Ben, you perfectly somersault under the flying table and come up mere inches away from the monster, and let out a fireball straight into it's roaring maw. The battlecry turns into a shriek of pain as the creature falls backwards and claws at its face. You can tell you've blinded it and bought yourself at least a few moments before it regains it's composure, but it's not quite taken out.
GM: By my count you should be at 5 gum at this point, so with a tie you actually succeeded! :)

At that moment, all the lights in the mall kick off. Red emergency lights kick on along some of the outer walls, but it's still nearly impossible to see even with them. The crowds start screaming and panicking, so it's also very difficult to hear anything with all this commotion.

Gus Gus, you're finally able to extract yourself from this sticky situation. Where do you head next?

Sammy, you feel a gentle grasp on your arm before you hear Brensen whisper in your ear, "You need to go, now. I'll explain everything later but for now just go! I'll distract them."

Ben, all you can see are the glowing burns on the creature's face and the flickering shadows cast by the burning pub behind it. All the normal shoppers are gone from this area, having fled from your arson and monster fighting tendencies. It appears to be just you and this creature.