Gwennifer MacPherson

Too crazy to live

Frustration. You want, you need, and you don't even know what you crave.

Nothing. An excess of nothing. You're drowning in boredom.

Excessively irish

Hunger. Ambition. Lust. You want everything always now.

And you will get it.

>>324958
Name is Jones,

And I am drifting aimlessly through life.

I haven't slept well since Mark died and the last thing anyone said to him was me telling him to go to hell. I'm not sure if it's his voice or mine that keeps telling me I killed him whenever I close my eyes.

I just tried to take some sleeping pills, and I think I grabbed the wrong bottle. Shit.

On the surface, I'm so normal I'm bland. Too old to look young, too young to look old, just clean enough to avoid looking like I don't care and just well-dressed enough to avoid looking poor. People tend to assume I'm nobody interesting and not bother with second looks.

Beneath that, I've never told anyone, but I hate this. All of it. I go through the motions every day because it's what I'm supposed to do, but people are boring and transparent, work is a hamster wheel writ large, family's a thin crust of saccharine sweet around a chewy center of emotionally coercive bullshit, and I can't very well say that because I'd either look crazy or so ridiculously emo that no one would ever take me seriously again. Once I made a backpack bomb and tried to blow up a skyscraper just so that I'd feel like I made a mark on the world, but I chickened out. Just as well; it probably wouldn't have worked.

I'm going to walk until I find some kind of meaning in something, or until I die. Keeping on like this would just be a slower and more boring death anyway.

>>324960
Seconding this, as long as Jones is a chick.

>>324960
I like this. Whatever the case, we better not rest our head, huh?

JTH 2011/07/11(Mon)00:41 No. 324968 ID: 223884
File 131037010395.jpg - (7.86KB , 113x168 , 1139443233.jpg )

The bed feels alien to me, like I don't belong in it. It's all for the better, I guess. I can't sleep so what use is a bed? The doctor prescribed me some pills, not that they'll work, but that feeling of buzzing drowsiness is better than bitter insomnia I guess.

I scan my one-room apartment. Normal. My bed: normal. My tv: normal. My clothes: normal. Everything is so normal it hurts. I can't stand it. Normal job, normal crime, normal existance. I crave excitement, but on second thought, do I really WANT excitement? I've been doing this for the entirety of my twenty-four year life and I haven't stopped to try to change it. Sure, that bomb thing was probably an attempt, but it's all for the better I didn't. Prison might be even more boring than this.

I sit up. My back hurts. I think a spring in the matress has been stabbing me for the whole month, but I haven't really checked. No matter, I'll be up and about like always, eternally checking for any messages - they never come - or for something interesting thing on the internet - there are none.

I get up and open a window. The stifling stillness of the air is getting to my head, not that I mind as it's a sensation different than the usual eternal feel of cold air of the polluted carbon emisions I've become bored of. The landlord forgot to put the wire mesh over the window like I asked. The last occupant was apparently rather brutish and smashed through it in a rage. That's why there's a hole just above the television, always beckoning my attention when the colorful lights dim for a moment.

I head into the tiny bathroom, not more than a few feet from my bed. I guess I'll do a once over before I take those pills. My hair is medium length for most women. It comes down a bit past my shoulders, but usually stays resting on my collarbone, the lazy sonsa - wait, calm down, this is no mood to take pills in. I sigh and look in the mirror. In normal city clothes you wouldn't notice, but in my simple tanktop and shorts it's like a giant pink elephant just stomped into the room. My body looks malnourished, like one of those kids you see in commercials asking to give money to African babies. Am I anorexic? Are the supplements the doc gave me not working? Am I just that bored with life that my body is taking initiative and ending the whole thing itself? Either way, nobody around me notices, and I don't make it a point of discussion.

My face, strangely, looks inbetween. Maybe my cheeks are a natural congregation of fat cells, but my face looks healthy. An inexperienced nutritionist would say I'm perfectly fine, but the smart ones would see through it. They would see the deep set eyes and the slightly pronounced jawline. Thankfully, those busybodies are too busy to notice and the ones that do are few and far between.

I smile a crooked smile and laugh a hollow laugh as I absentmindedly grab the bottle of pills. I don't own many medications so I'm pretty safe from accidental congestion of bullshit. I take two...no four. From what the doc said that's four times the recommended dosage. If this doesn't knock me out then I'm giving up. The small red capsules clack together as I reach for a cup. I pour some water into my mouth before dropping in the pills and swallowing.

I relax for a moment, waiting for the results...

JTH 2011/07/11(Mon)01:55 No. 324977 ID: 223884
File 131037452636.jpg - (71.47KB , 439x700 , 132334533.jpg )

Nothing. Five minutes and nothing seems to happend. Must be slow-acting or something.

In the meantime your thoughts drift to the life you had before all this. Before the insomnia, before the hatred. Your life was relatively happy. You had a few friends, an stable job, and Mark. Mark was always there for you. The best friend you could've asked for. You also had Susan. You were always with Susan. She'd talk about extreme sports and you'd talk about the wierd thing you read on the internet last night. Seventeen years old: about to take the final steps to entering the real world. But then it happened.

You had a day off from work and decided so spend the night with Susan in your parent's house. Your folks went off for a night on the town so you and Susan had the whole house to yourselves. You spent the time gossipping and gaming before Susan went off to bed in her room. A few minutes later you were watching some talking heads yell at each other when the pounding started. At first it was somewhat firm, but gentle like footsteps, but then it became fierce, angry, desperate. You hesitated, a panick came over you, but a moment later you crept up to Susan's room. You swung the door open, but there was noone to greet you. Nobody was there. Susan was gone.

You flipped. You searched for her and screamed for her and begged whatever deity was watching to give her back, but to no avail. You called the police first. You told them the gist and they came, eventually. Then you called your parents. They were angry, confused. What the hell were you doing?! How could you let this happen?! They wanted answers, but you had none. The police came, but found nothing. No trace of an abductor and the only thing left of the abductee was the friendship bracelet you gave her when you two were little. When she gave it to you, clasped in her tiny hand, she said she wanted to grow up to be your wife. During the police interrogation, it seemed to be laughing at you. Either way, you still keep it with you, always in your front left pocket.

After that you were ostracized, exhiled. Your parents all but disowned you and you became a stranger in your own family. Susan's old friends sent you letters telling me to kill myself. That nothing less befits a terrible sister such as you. But Mark was still there. Mark was always there.

That day, after they released you from interrogation, Mark was your ride home. He pulled up in his beat up minivan and moved over to your side. He tried to console you, tell you "everything was gonna be alright", but you lashed out at him. Who was he to tell you everthing was gonna be "alright"? There was no "alright" anymore. He tried to put a hand on your shoulder but you swatted it away. You told him to fuck off, he has no right to touch you. You screamed and you vented and you whined and you cried, but he just stood there and let you. He stepped back with his left foot first. You remember it so crisply it makes you sick, like your brain has a fetish for terrible memories. He took three steps, a few feet into the street. He was about to tell you "We should get going", but he didn't have enough time to say all that. He was interrupted at "get" when the speedster rammed into him. Now he's still there, a little voice in the back of your head. Whether it's really him, or just your subconscious, he's still dead. Now it's been about nine stressful, sleep-deprived days since Susan disappeared.

You realize it's been nearly half an hour since you took the drugs. What the hell, shouldn't this stuff be working? You start to look down at the bottle, but something clicks. It feels wrong and alien and sends a shiver down your spine. You look at the bottle, but everything blurs. You suddenly lose your footing and nearly crash into the cold tiled floor. What the hell were those pills?!

You stumble out the bathroom. Better get to the bed, don't want to break anything. Wait, where's the bed? Everything meshes together, like mixing paint in art class. The colors intertwine and mix before every object looks like the next. You try to regain your footing, but the drug seems stronger than you anticipated. You crash into your drawer, knocking over your lamp in the process. Your head feels full of lead and your legs like accordians. You look ahead. A wall? Yeah, just try to steady yourself against that wall and get your bearings. You reach forward with both your hands, hoping you don't hit the wall too hard. It's too late when you realize that your hands are pushing past the blurs. The cold night air sobers you enough to make out where you are. You're dangling out your window, on a crash course set for "the hell outta here". You try to grab the windowsill, but your momentum carries you father than your arms can reach. By the time you blink you're falling, about to smash into the sidewalk. You raise your arms in some futile effort to protect yourself, but it's for not. The last thing you glimpse before impact is a doorknob. You hit something hard, but you keep going. Gravity seems to shift and instead of plowing into concrete, you're skidding along rough pavement. Are you dead? The adrenaline and intensity leaves you stunned. You don't move your arms out from your eyes for what seems like hours...

JTH 2011/07/11(Mon)03:10 No. 324986 ID: 223884
File 131037902785.jpg - (48.36KB , 450x560 , w6994a.jpg )

You hear an odd ruffling of paper as something moves by you.

>"Scoop of the century! Awake falls sideways! Problem, gravity?"

You lift your head, but the rustling of paper deadens and you're shaking too much to see straight. You should be dead, what the hell just happened?! You try to regain your bearings and stand up. Shakily, you prop yourself onto your elbows and look at the damage. Looks like you scraped your arms and legs pretty bad, but you'll survive. You've got some neosporin in the cupboard so you'll be okay. You look up at the sky for a moment. The sky looks a lot closer than usual and the moon looks twice as big as it did when you saw it last night.

You look around, but what you see makes you even more disturbed. This doesn't look like Chicago anymore. The buildings are all so closely packed that maybe only one person could fit through the alleyways. The colors jump out at you and strip your sense of direction from you.

Where the hell am I?

As you have your existential crisis, something begs your attention. From behind you a terribly imitated British accent commands you:

>"Stop ci'izen. Yew've broken sub-law four-eleven-backslash-Q-nine-fish: Oll ci'izens muhst be confined to their living ehstablishments by twelve o' clock midnight or be taken in for questioning."

Wait, fish what? I turn to talk to the officer, hoping to talk him down, but as I turn I freeze. His head. His head. Where his head should be is, instead, a huge pocket-watch, ticking the seconds away. He's wearing some sort of uniform reminiscent of the police of ninteenth century London, complete with hat upon his round surface. While I'm too shocked to speak, the clock-faced officer continues.

>"Furthermore, all Awakened found during the 13th hour are to be taken in for questioning, and tha' is roit about..."

What? Thirteen? But there's only twelve - wait. I look at his face, the clock ticking down the time. On his face is an extra notch, scratched into the surface of the glass indicating a thirteenth hour and the hour hand is nearly upon it. This is fucked up, I'm going home. I step back towards the door I entered this strange place from, but the officer concludes his momentary silence.

>"... naow."

The door slams shut, almost jamming my fingers, but I back away in time. I hear a myriad of locks behind the door before everything settles. I glance back at the clockman. He's looming over me, about to grab me, but I duck away and his arms catch only air.

>"Ci'izen, yew will comploy, or oi will force it upon moyself to take yew in moyself."

He sounds much more commanding and aggresive now. Shit, I've gotta do something. I'm not sure I can outrun him since I'm barefoot, but I was in cross-country during middle school so I'm no stranger to running. Or I could perhaps fight him. I don't know how strong I am now, but I was in karate until about a month or two before all this.

What should I do?

During play, six-sided die are used. The protagonist has a natural minimum number of three die during a conflict known as her Discipline die pool. Protagonists always have three unless something terrible happens, but we'll elaborate on that if/when that occurs.

The number of SUCCESSES is equal to the number of dice rolled which land on 1, 2, or 3. Anything above is a failure.

Protagonists have the choice of adding ONE Exhaustion die to their overall casting pool during each conflict. Doing so increases the exhaustion by one, but gives them one permanent die to their pool until they get rid of Exhaustion. The max number of Exhaustion die you can roll at any one time is six, but this has a heavy price. When the Exhaustion increases to SEVEN, all the gloves are off and you CRASH. The character has pushed herself to her limits and, in her exhaustion, fall asleep. During a CRASH, the protagonist falls asleep for a number of days (at least one). During a CRASH, the protagonist's Exhaustion is swept away and all her MADNESS RESPONSES are cleared (I'll get to that later). When/if you wake up, your DISCIPLINE drops to ONE and you are unable to use any TALENTS. Thus, you are just as helpless as any normal Sleeper. You remain in this state until you stay awake for at least as long as you slept, returning you to your original sleepless self.

When the protagonist crashes you are easy prey for NIGHTMARES to feed on, a beacon in fact, and some suggest merely killing off the character as that might be a better fate, but that's for lazy GM's.

Next is her MADNESS die pool. Madness is not permanent and goes away after every roll. Madness can be added up to SIX die in one roll. If MADNESS is dominant for the conflict (something I'll demonstrate in a bit), then you check off one of your three MADNESS RESPONSES. They are FIGHT or FLIGHT responses to extreme psychological strain. Once checked, they cannot be cleared until certain conditions are met. Take a moment to vote upon which number will be FIGHT and which FLIGHT and when they are checked off, roleplay the character in such a manner.

When you are required to check off a response, but none are left you SNAP. During a SNAP, all the responses are cleared. When you snap, fucking SNAP. Cackle like a madman and weep like a baby. You just went through something psychologically straining and have nothing you can do to vent. Thus, you snap. Biggest downside to snapping: you lose one DISCIPLINE die and replace it with one permanent MADNESS die. When you snap so much that you are left with ZERO DISCIPLINE, you break. Your mind and body warp and mutate and you become a NIGHTMARE.

Now, your die, no matter what combination you use, go up against the GM's PAIN die. PAIN represents difficulty where 1 is like talking your way out of a parking ticket and 3 is about the limit a normal human can do. At 4 it seems superhuman to overcome and above 7 it seems like noone could beat it without superpowers, which, ironically, the Awakened sort of have. Jones's talents are hidden, undiscovered. She has one EXHAUSTION TALENT that uses the EXHAUSTION pool and a MADNESS TALENT which uses the MADNESS pool. Discussion over what sort of talents Jones should have is encouraged.

To simplify: Exhaustion Talents should be based off of what Jones can already do. Generally, something she's good at. The Exhaustion Talent basically takes that and enchances it to near super-human ability. A normally fast athlete can suddenly run faster than a bullet. That sort of thing.

Madness Talents are similar, but are tied to thing that should be impossible. Think superpowers, but don't be nearly as unoriginal, run with it. Some examples: Teleportation, controlling the heat and density of your breath to blow steam and freeze limbs, controlling someone else's body. That sort of stuff. Madness Talents also often go into tiers of power depending on the number of dice used while invoking it. A teleporter could use a little effort to jump twenty feet with one die, but if he really tries he can cross the whole Mad City in a single jump using six. Madness talents can go as far as you can imagine them. Someone who can cut anything can cut people, but he can also cut the ties that bind people together. Lovers become strangers, Father and son become mere acquantances.

Madness Talents require you to roll at least one Madness die, similar to Exhaustion talents which require you to have at least one Exhaustion.

Exhaustion Talents have both minor uses and Major uses. In minor uses, you automatically have a number of successes equal to your current Exhaustion. So if you have three Exhaustion and use your talent, even if you ROLL only two or one successes, those are negated by the three automatic successes.

Major Uses constitute huge uses of your ability. To use a Major Use, you must add one Exhaustion to your pool during that conflict. When you do so, you automatically gain your Exhaustion in successes, BUT you also gain the successes from your rolls as well! So if you have three Exhaustion and add one for the Major Use and when you roll you get two successes, that totals SIX successes just with Exhaustion!

So here's what to do now, I'm going to roll ONE Pain die for the Clock Lieutenant (no matter what action you take) and you're going to roll your three DISCIPLINE die, plus however many MADNESS die you want, plus an EXHAUSTION die if you think you really need it (you won't, trust me).

You're also going to think about what Talents Jones should receive and how. The Talents should be tied to Jones, related to her personality, recent events, or anything really. Try to make them matter and cause the protagonist to reflect on just what he's doing and how it parallels herself.

Now that I'm done confusing the hell out of all of you, let's roll.

dice 1d6

rolled 2 = 2

---

ONE MORE TIME

rolled 1, 5, 6, 2 = 14

---

Man, that is a lot of text. You might want to pick a voice and stick with it, though- that is, either use "I" or "you" to refer to the main character; so far you've mixed it up a bit.

>my twenty-four year life
>Seventeen years old: about to take the final steps to entering the real world. But then it happened.
>Now it's been about nine stressful, sleep-deprived days since Susan disappeared.
We are apparently already so messed up that we have forgotten how old we actually are and how long ago all traumatizing events in our life happened. Was it just days ago, or the better part of a decade? Presumably the latter, since Jones' main problem with her life- that it's monotonous and meaningless- wouldn't really have time to sink in or apply if shit like that happened just days ago. Also, our character description specifies neither old nor young, so there's no way we should still be seventeen.

>Exhaustion Talents
What Jones is good at already is blending in. Looking boring and unimportant and having people not glance at her twice. For her Talent, this could just get taken to a much greater extreme... no one's going to notice her unless she does something which would specifically draw their attention, with more successes protecting ever more extreme actions on her part from anyone else giving a shit.

>Madness Talents
When I wrote her original profile I was thinking that she'd have some kind of "say things and they happen/become true" ability; that is, she told Mark to go to hell, and he promptly died so that he could. Or at least, that's how she'd see it after realizing what her Talent is.

>What should I do?
You don't have to put up with shit from some freakish hallucination man. Tell him to leave you alone, and if he doesn't then tear that stupid clock off his face.

Rolling one Madness die.

JTH 2011/07/11(Mon)16:42 No. 325149 ID: 223884
File 131042776319.jpg - (15.71KB , 225x300 , 325464636346.jpg )

rolled 3, 1, 3 = 7

---

>>325030 The "seventeen" was refering to Susan, who I appear to have left out that she is Jones's sister. The I/you descrepancy was meant as an attempt at something clever, but I seem to have forgotten what that was. I'll keep that in mind, thanks. Also, yeah, lotta text. I tried to keep it short, but I just kept adding stuff that I thought you guys needed to know for the next part. I'll try to keep it shorter from now on.

PAIN: One success

JONES Two Successes, Discipline Dominant

This place is pissing you off and this clock-faced bastard is only making it worse.

"Look, buddy, I'm not going anywhere. Now you're either going to take off your retarded Halloween costume and walk away or I'm gonna mess you up."

He doesn't seem to listen as he looms closer. You aren't much of a fighter, but one hallucination can't be that hard to beat right? You sidestep another attempt to grab you and sweep to his left. You let your fist fly as he turns his giant, flat face towards you, practically asking you to break it into a thousand pieces. Your fist slams into the glass, shattering it and sending the "officer" to the ground in a slump. The glass seems to have cut your hand a bit, but, like your road rash, only stings a little.

A few gears plunk onto the road as you regain your breath. You look to the door and test the knob. Looks like it's locked up tight. Great, this must be some messed up drug trip or something. Shouldn't have taken so many pills.

You reflect, momentarily, upon why everything was so monotonous. Why does it seem like years when it's only been days? The lack of sleep may be messing with your head. Long nights and long days have screwed with your sense of time. After all, eight extra hours on top of the sixteen you're usually awake could be psychologically, as wel as physically, shocking.

In your mental musings you notice that something fell out of the clock-head's pocket. It appears to be a wallet. It's petite and is heavily worn, like someone scraped sandpaper against it for an hour. Casually, you pick it up and check the contents. There's no money, but there appears to be a card. Checking the card makes your heart stop and your head spin. The card is a driver's liscence belonging to a young lady. In the picture is someone you thought you'd never see again. This is Susan's driver's liscence.

You swallow hard. This is just a hallucination isn't it? This isn't real right? Could Susan really be here in this messed up funhouse of a city?

Before you can settle your thoughts, however, more clockwork cops come around a nearby corner.

>"'ey wot's all- Stop! Murderer!"

He blows his wistle despite not having a mouth, and in that moment two more cops burst to the scene. They each seem like cops from a different era and location, but singular in their purpose. They rush forward and you know that they're gonna beat you senseless if you don't do something quick.

If one punch knocked out one cop, you might be able to clobber three, but it might draw attention. Alternatively, you could book it down the street or alleyway and the alleyway would mean they'd have to go single-file.

[Possible Exhaustion Talent]: Chameleon - Jones is pretty good at making herself less noticable since being noticed used to only meant hateful snears and remarks. Now, she's able to keep hidden, almost disappear even.

Minor Use: Jones blends her immediate surroundings, making it harder to track and easeier to miss.

Major Use: Jones becomes all but nonexistant as she disappears from the face of the earth. Similar to invisibility, but covers every aspect of existance.

[Possible Madness Talent]: So Sayeth I - Jones's life was rather monotonous even before the incident and the events only cemented that without her two friends there is nothing, but it doesn't have to be that way in the Mad City. Jones can speak a few cryptic words and warp reality as a result. Just what she always wanted. Potency and duration may vary.

1-2 die: Jones tells someone or something to do something it is easily capable of doing and it does it. Things like "kill yourself", "run away", or "come at me bro".

3-4 die: Jones speaks to the world and warps it, but keeps it easily intact. Say the word and a huge staircase becomes an escalator. One phrase can make things warp and twist.

5-6 die: Jones is tired of the world and wants change. Change the very fabric of reality itself. Make up down. Turn the world on its head and spin it like a top. All it takes is a well-placed paragraph.

How does it Break You?

Fight: God damnit all this is pissing me off, just one word, three little letters, is all it'll take to turn this waste of space into a meaty pile. Just one: "die Die DIE DIE!"

Flight: When things get heavy I change the world, but it doesn't always last. Everything snaps back moments later and sometimes it hurts. Sometimes I feel something towering over me, and it's angry. I run, but I can never escape. It's furious at me messing with the world like some big toy and I cower under it like a child.

Quick explanation: Win/loss is based on successes (duh), but the direction of the proceeding events is determined by the DOMNINANCE. Like you saw, Discipline dominated that roll and as such, you accomplished it with skill and calmness. Things kept under control. When Discipline dominates you can also take off one EXHAUSTION or one RESPONSE, but you have neither as of yet.

RESPONSES: Fight [] [] [] Flight [] [] []

Choose, using three X's in total, how many responses you want of each. Ex. 1 fight, 2 flight

rolled 6, 6, 1, 4, 1, 6, 2, 3, 2 = 31

---

>>325149
>The card is a driver's liscence belonging to a young lady. In the picture is someone you thought you'd never see again. This is Susan's driver's liscence.
Well. Susan's gone, so why would this guy have this? It's impossible. Too convenient to be real. At the same time, it's too compelling to ignore. We need answers, and these clockfaces have them.

The first one was weak; so will these be. Beat them down with a smirk and a pithy comment or two disparaging their abilities- "That's it? You're weak. Clumsy. I was better than you at twelve. Talk about a worthless excuse for cops, even in crazy dream land."

When we've won, it's time to demand answers. If the first one was so conveniently equipped with Susan's license, then these three will have equally convenient information. It will be so. I'm sure of it. Hold it out and ask any of them still moving. "Why did he have this? Where did he get it? Where is she? Tell me. Now."

Get our answers, then kick them a few times and leave in whatever direction will take us to Susan... or to the last place we hope she was.

RESPONSES: Fight [x] [x] [ ] Flight [x] [ ] [ ]

Six Madness dice. Use a Fight, if I understand this correctly. Let's go crazy.

Several of the lines I wrote for talking can be taken as potentially reality-altering commands, if we're going with Jones triggering crazy powers without knowing they exist- she can arguably ask questions that they don't know the answers to, and still get the right answers.

JTH 2011/07/11(Mon)22:14 No. 325217 ID: 223884
File 131044768113.jpg - (48.89KB , 350x272 , 23453453456346.jpg )

rolled 5, 3, 6, 6, 1, 4, 6, 5, 4, 5 = 45

---

PAIN: Three Successes

JONES: Five Successes, Discipline Dominant

"You guys are small time."

You run forward, meeting their charge and smashing into the three of them. One tries to bring you down with them, but they miss and tumble down. You take initiative and immediately bring your foot down on what should be one's neck. He grabs his throat and thrashes for a moment before settling down, dead.

The other two are up and upon you when you whip your elbow around and into the elbow of the second cop. It produces a sickening snap, cracking under the pressure, but you aren't done. You grab him by his huge head and bring it down as you thrust your knee up. The glass breaks with ease, cutting up your leg, but the adrenaline numbs the pain.

The final cop grabs you from behind, holding your arms behind your back and attempts to cuff you. You bring your head back, smacking into its face and bringing it tumbling down. You jump on it, hoping to get some answers. You thrust the wallet into his slightly cracked face.

"Where the hell did he get this? Where is Susan?!"

>"As an officer of the law I have no obligation to tell you, Awakened."

You smack him good, just enough to crack him some more, but not enough to break him.

"Listen you mechanical sonofabitch, you're gonna tell me what I want to know or I'm going to make you wish all this is a hallucination."

It freezes for a moment before the hands on its face begin spinning wildly. They begin to glow red from the heat, but immediately stop, both hands pointing to thirteen o' clock.

>"The suspect specified is currently being held in Officer Tock's personal holding cells. Have a nice day."

It's voice sounds like an answering machine, but before you can ask it anything else its head explodes in a shower of gears and springs.

You stand up, "Who the hell is Officer Tock?"

You speak to yourself aloud, but unexpectedly receive an answer from a forceful British accent.

>"That would be me, young lady."

You turn around to find a man two times taller than yourself. His head, like the others, is a golden, gleaming stopwatch, but unlike them, the bottom half is split in a huge maw filled with turning gears. Its grin spreads almost all the way across the watch's surface. He's holding what seems to be a huge clock hand, caked with dry blood.

>"I am Officer Tock, chief of police of this fine Mad City, and you, little lady, are a criminal. Since you've injured my men, you're a danger to our orderly District 13 and must be eliminated."

He raises the man-sized clock hand and brings it down, but you jump away as it smashes into his once-ticking subordinate. He hefts the hand up slowly, giving you a moment to think.

This guy's huge, too huge. Talk is useless now, he's out for blood. This might be a dream, but this is pushing it. The door back is locked and the only escape routes are through the alleys or down the street.

What do you do?

[spoiler]As a point of clarification, Madness Responses are only used when either MADNESS or PAIN dominates a conflict.

Small addition. An explanation of what might happen during rolls is this: the pool with the highest number gets domination. If two pools' highest die are the same number, go to the next highest in each pool. If both pools are equal still, the pool with the most cast die wins. If that's equal as well, the rule of thumb goes DISCIPLINE > EXHAUSTION > MADNESS > PAIN.

rolled 3, 4, 2, 1, 1, 6, 1, 5, 1, 1 = 25

---

>>325217
>You turn around to find a man two times taller than yourself. His head, like the others, is a golden, gleaming stopwatch, but unlike them, the bottom half is split in a huge maw filled with turning gears. Its grin spreads almost all the way across the watch's surface. He's holding what seems to be a huge clock hand, caked with dry blood.
Thirteen hours, exploding prisoners, giant killer clock policemen.... our subconscious is so messed up. I think we're done here; it's time to get the hell away.

He's big, and those alleys aren't- with any luck, he won't be fitting down them well. Yell "Piss off!" and sprint down one that looks narrow. Then dart across the street and take another alley, and keep moving; just run until we think we've lost him. After that... try to get our bearings. Look around and see if there are people around anywhere who aren't murderous freakish mechanical clock men. Maybe we'll be able to find someone who can tell us where Officer Tock's personal holding cells are; if that big bastard is roaming the city looking for us, he's not back at his base... we might be able to slip in and find Susan.


Adding one Exhaustion die so our Talent can aid in our escape (I believe that's how it works, right?). Rolling six Madness dice so we're just that crazy good.

JTH 2011/07/12(Tue)00:43 No. 325264 ID: 223884
File 131045658881.jpg - (105.70KB , 497x700 , 235454364564567.jpg )

>>325229

PAIN: Two Successes, Pain Dominant

JONES Seven Successes

[Exhaustion Talent: MAJOR USE]

Successes increase to Eight!

Exhaustion increased to One!

Without realizing it, you disappear and dive out from under the giant's crushing blow. You use his momentary confusion to your advantage and sprint for the alley. The strangeness of not seeing your arms in front of as you sprint causes your talent to falter and you blink back into existence. You charge as fast as your legs can push you. The cuts on your leg bleed more heavily, but you ignore it and push yourself in your bid towards safety. You're nearly to the alley when you glance back, perhaps to spit some rude remark at the clockwork creep, but you quickly swallow your words. He's right behind you, even with your head start and quick legs.

You hope his swing is as slow as before and you force your legs to give a might push forward in a dive towards the alley. Unfortunately, it seems the cop was bluffing with his slow, heavy swings and you feel an intense pain shoot through your lower right calf. Your graceful dive turns into a painful tumble to the ground, but you've made it to the alley. You turn to see Officer Tock huff in defeat, his shoulders simply too wide to even hope to pass through.

You catch your breath for a small moment before checking your leg. The calf is split to such a degree that any farther and he might've hit bone. There might've been a tendon or something in there too, but you didn't pay too much in Chemistry class and it's been six years since high school. It's bleeding heavily. The sight gives you a tiny flash of Mark's demise, but you ignore it as best you can. You'll take what you can get, you think, as you pick yourself up unsteadily and hobble through the alley. This hurts, but dreams shouldn't hurt should they? Maybe your brain's just firing off pain signals from the overdose of pills or something, you think. Yeah, that's gotta be it.

You hobble to the end of the alley, but instead of another street, you find that the alley branches off. At least that means the crazy bastard can't follow me. You hobble a bit longer, but your body's protests become too much to handle. Your skin is pale, your leg is screwed, and you're losing your balance. You slump against one of the walls, thankful that you're not claustrophobic, but that really doesn't matter now. You might die here, you think. Bloody, cut up, and alone in some alley in nowhere.

Pain Dominance: Exhaustion increases to Two!

Your head swims and your consciousness falters ... but you hear a voice.

>"Oh my, what's happened to you?"

Through lidded eyes you see someone yellow run up to you. You make a feeble attempt at crawling away, but you get nowhere by the time the voice reaches you.

>"Oh my, this is terrible. Here, hold still. Head back, drink this."

She props you up against the wall and pries open your mouth, not that you could do anything to stop her in this state. She uncorks a suspicious bottle of sparkling red liquid and pours it down your throat. Your senses come back to you full-force and you gasp. You look at your arms and the road rash is gone. You inspect your calf and find that the only evidence of that ghastly injury is a small scar.

You look up to the yellow savior to thank her, but you're rather taken aback by how she looks. She's wearing what seems to be a Victorian style outfit including a skirt and corset. Her long blonde hair is almost touching the ground as she kneels in front of you.

"Uh, thanks for that..."

>"Oh don't mention it, I'm merely helping out where I can. My name is Janine, a member of The Dream. So what's your name? How'd you get here? Why were you injured? Did a Nightmare hurt you? Is that why you're so malnourished?"

She speaks gently, but her many questions confuse me for a moment.

How do I respond?

>>325264
"I-I'm Jones. I think I'm hallucinating or something, I was just attacked by a bunch of guys with clocks for heads. They said they had Susan and- god this is so messed up, I really need help."

>>325264
A member of the dream? How meta. If we're hallucinating our brain continues to have a sick sense of humor.

Injuries don't heal like that. It doesn't happen. So... were we ever injured in the first place, if all that's left of our wound? Or did we somehow imagine that? Was the giant clock man even real?

And why is she saying we're malnourished? No one ever notices that but us... other people aren't supposed to be that discerning.

Say >>325308, though.

JTH 2011/07/12(Tue)21:23 No. 325762 ID: 223884
File 131053098642.jpg - (63.93KB , 400x300 , well shit.jpg )

rolled 5, 4, 6, 4, 4, 2, 5, 5, 3, 3, 2, 4 = 47

---

>>325329 see >>324968 In normal city clothes you wouldn't notice, but in my simple tanktop and shorts it's like a giant pink elephant just stomped into the room. My body looks malnourished, like one of those kids you see in commercials asking to give money to African babies. Am I anorexic?

>>325308

Your head swims with uncertainty, but a friendly face gives you small hope you aren’t totally screwed.

"I-I'm Jones. I think I'm hallucinating or something, I was just attacked by a bunch of guys with clocks for heads. They said they had Susan and- god this is so messed up, I really need help."

Janine puts a hand on your shoulder gently and tries to calm you down. It works relatively well, but the earlier events still leave your mind reeling. It's wierd, you think, that she's conmforting you like this. She doesn't look a day past sixteen, but here she is calming an adult down from hysteria.

>"Don’t worry, you’re not crazy, at least not yet. Unfortunately, this is no illusion. Everything here is “real” in a twisted sense of the word. Now, do you know what just happened? You said something about clocks?”

Her voice puts you at ease and compells you to open up. It's been a while since you've heard another voice directed at you that wasn't yelling at you or belittling you.

“I just fell into this screwed up place when some clock-headed cop guy starts spouting shit about taking me in and thirteen o’ clock, but I refused. I tried to run, but all the doors locked and I...I killed them. Please tell me those weren’t actually people, oh shit.”

You start to shake at the thought that you might have actually killed someone. What if those were real people? Janine reassures you that, no, those weren’t people. She tells you that they’re the “police” of the Mad City, but they’re definitely not human anymore, and asks you to continue.

“Okay, then some huge guy comes around with a fucking huge clock hand and tries to kill me so I run for the alley. He got me in the leg, but I escaped, and well, here I am.”

Janine nods in understanding and stands. She offerings you a hand up before explaining.

>”So you fought Officer Tock huh? My, you sure picked a bad time to fall through a wierd door. He’s usually not too tough, but under the right circumstances, or wrong depending on your perspective, he’s much stronger. He’s usually stronger if he’s in District 13, where we are currently, if it’s thirteen o’ clock, which it is, and finally-”

Her explanation gets cut short, however, by an explosion of brick and drywall. A huge figures steps through a gaping hole in a wall in the alley to your right. The gleaming gold watch and incessant ticking means that Officer Tock is still on patrol.

“A warrant of arrest has been issued to the Awakened known as “Jones”. She is wanted Dead or Not Alive. Will you comply?”

>“Well I guess I don’t have to tell you. Got a plan, sweety?”

Janine, despite keeping relative cool, looks shaken. Officer Tock takes the opportunity to walk towards you, plowing through both walls of the alley with his huge shoulders. He’s coming pretty quickly, but the walls seem like they’re slowing him down a bit.

The walls are pretty bare and the path is somewhat clear save for a trash can here or there. The surfaces all seem the same and almost all the buildings are at least two stories high. Tock’s coming at you Juggernaut style. You’re scared for your life, but Janine’s look to you for any ideas.

What do you do?

Just a heads up, but if you notice that the Madness or Pain pool is dominant for that conflict, please choose a Response and explain the actions it affects. Say, you originally want Jones to calmly fire a gun from a distance, but Madness is dominant for the roll. Then, you might choose Fight and have Jones run in Rambo-style, gunning the hell out of her target. Thanks for participating!

rolled 1, 3, 4, 2, 6, 3, 6, 2, 5, 4, 3 = 39

---

>>325762
How are we supposed to know what is dominant when we don't have any idea what the results of our roll will be? All we know when we're writing our posts up is how many dice we'll be rolling. By the time we get a chance to tailor our reaction you've already resolved everything and moved on to the next conflict.

Making an effort to generally roleplay resentment at the world thickly coated by reflexive completion of whatever is expected, but putting the periodic spins that the dice demand on it doesn't seem terribly practical in the current format.

>You start to shake at the thought that you might have actually killed someone. What if those were real people?
That's a silly line of thought that we should have aborted before it even started. People don't have clocks for heads and gears for insides. Nor do they apparently die from a couple punches to the face, nor could we take on three of them at once with our mediocre karate skills. We could smash a thousand of them and not feel bad about it; at best they're detailed robot-things.

All the more so because their boss has actual blood on his hands and wants to kill us, the giant mechanical bastard.

>You’re scared for your life, but Janine’s look to you for any ideas.
Screw being scared. This is too surreal to be afraid, for all that Janine claims it's real; not like we can take her word for it. Apply dream-logic: What should we be doing? What are we supposed to be doing? What is expected of us?

We found Susan's license on the first clockwork man, so we're supposed to be finding her. One of those clock guys was even kind enough to give us directions, if under duress.

It seemed like the clock men were getting more numerous and powerful and we wouldn't be able to beat them so we should run away, but we tried that and it's obviously not working. If we run away again, then this guy will just keep following us again. Therefore, the only way we're getting out of this is to beat him in some kind of confrontation- outtalk, outthink, or outfight him.

Therefore:
First, let's try a basic deception since these guys seem pretty stupid. Shout out to him, "She's not here! You should go looking somewhere else!"

If that falls through, we've got out-thinking him. Start running and ask Janine if there's anyone hostile to him that we could lead him into, or any crumbling buildings that we could dart through and he'd probably collapse on himself by doing his smash-through-mortar bit, or other convenient traps.

If even that proves infeasible, well... there's always shimmying up a building and jumping on his head with a brick when he doesn't expect it. Subsequently apply brick to clockface until there's a pressing reason to stop.


Rolling two exhaustion dice since I believe we get those on all rolls until we get a Discipline dominance and can reduce it, if I understand correctly, and six madness dice because we need large numbers of dice for fighting large enemies.

Speaking of dominance, I got my hands on the actual DRYH rulebook, and I don't think that Pain dominating increases Exhaustion. Since Pain is all over the place, that would result in very short games. Exhaustion dominating increases Exhaustion, and Pain dominating gives the GM Despair tokens. Or that's my reading of the rules, anyway. Have we changed it for this game?

JTH 2011/07/13(Wed)05:44 No. 325946 ID: 223884
File 131056106292.jpg - (24.88KB , 500x326 , is he dead yet.jpg )

>>325924 I see what you're saying about appeasing the dice and I pretty much agree. I'll just write it as it goes. I also shouldn't be trying to force you guys to shoulder the narrative and I apologize. Also, jeez, how the heck did I miss the Pain thing? I even double-checked when I made the update. Drugs man. Thanks for the correction, bro. +1 HOPE coin for that.

[+1 HOPE coin!]

PAIN: Four Successes, Pain Dominant [+1 DESPAIR coin!]

JONES Six Successes!

Tock's big. Big guys are dumb right? It happens all the time in movies, why not here?

"She ain't here! Go look somewhere else!"

...yeah, no dice. Shit, you think, nothing else to do, but gain distance and think up a plan. You sprint in the other direction with Janine right behind. Janine seems to have something in mind:

>"I'm sorry I'm not much of a strategist, but I'll try to slow him down a bit! Please come up with something!"

TEAMWORK+ 2 Successes!

She turns around as she runs, pointing her arm out towards Officer Tock. Wait, she doesn't have any weapons, what the hell's she gonna do? Your worries are assuaged when a large rifle appears in her hand from completely out of nowhere. What the hell? Definitely a dream, there's no way this is real. She fires repeatedly into the monster's maw, striking some gears and causing him to falter for a few moments. That was too accurate, has she fought this guy before?

In the brief downtime you hatch a skeleton of a plan. If he's so fond of busting walls, a whole building shouldn't be too much of a problem. You'll bring the house down on him.

You whisper your bare-bones plan to Janine and head off. With Tock in tow, you circle around an alley sans walls. The two of you nod to each other, head into the building and split off, hoping to confuse him.

He falters, but chooses to capture his initial prey: you. It's difficult to navigate the cramped office building, but it's even harder for the gearhead. You avoid him like the plague, making huge circles around him and throwing any debris in his way. All the while, you lead him into anything that looks like a support pillar. Janine continues to give support from afar, flinging bullets into his head, and helps keep you from getting cornered.

A few moments in and the building seems uneven, but you're becoming tired and you're unsure if this plan was really worth it. How hard is it to topple a building? It's so much harder than they make it out to be.

"Goddamnit, fall, fall you stupid pile of bricks, fall!"

[Madness Talent: ACTIVATE]

Upon completion of your sentence, three pillars disappear from your view, as if someone pulled off a magic trick and the crashing building was the roaring audience. You scream for Janine to get the hell out of the building as you each race for different exits. You dive with the grace of a hawk piloting a blimp as you crash down in what used to be and alley, but is now more similar to a vacant lot. The rubble is uncontrolable and some topples onto you, hitting your back and knocking the wind out of you. You lie there for a moment under some rubble, breathless. Dream or no dream, this fucking hurts.

You regain your breath as the dust settles. There's no trace of Officer Tock and you really don't want to look for him in all this FUBAR. Janine emerges from the other side, heavily bruised and cut, but still functional. Her right ankle is sprained, however, and she asks you for assistance. You sigh and give her your shoulder for support. You find your way to the street and begin your trek, not letting your guard down as you eye the windows suspiciously.

"Jeez, is there anywhere we can, y'know, talk without the fuzz bursting in to interrupt us?"

>"Of course, The Dream has safehouses in most districts of the city. The one I'm from is nearby, I'll direct you. With Officer Tock out of the way, the other clockwork cops will be in disarray, so we won't have to worry about them for a while. Would you like to talk on the way?"

That's a good question. Even if this is your subconscious, your conscious or whatever it is doesn't understand a whif of it. Maybe she knows who or what did that crazy Hoodini shit.

What sort of questions should you ask? What sort of questions she has should you anticipate from her?

Moreover, do they have more of those healing things? This headache feels like Hindenburg just crashed into your skull.

DESPAIR and HOPE coins are simple. If PAIN dominates, a coin of Despair appears. With that coin of Despair, I get to fuck you guys over. "Oh joy, with a 6 in discipline, discipline is dominant!" Yeah, no. Using a coin of Despair, I get to make that 6 disappear. Or I can put a 6 in any pool. Thankfully, there's an economy to the coins. Every time I spend a coin of Despair (or I screw up and you guys point it out) you guys get a coin of Hope.

With Hope coins, you can spend them during down time. If Jones seems to be catching a breather, you can probably spend them. You can use one coin to decrease your exhaustion by one or erase one marked-off Response. You can also use them to give yourself some lost Discipline if you've snapped at some point. This takes (relatively) at least a few calm hours of reflection and costs 5-(current number of Discipline). [/text wall]

Current Economy: HOPE-(1) DESPAIR-(1)

>What sort of questions should you ask?
One line of questioning matters most.

"Those other clockfaces were pushovers, but they said he was keeping Susan locked up." Show her the license. "If he's out of the way for now... will we ever have a better chance to get her out?"

We hurt, but it's supposed to hurt when you win, right? Feel the burn, that's how you know you're getting stronger, that's what they say when you exercise. We can feel the... pounding pain in our skull. If we can push just a little more to try and save Susan, shouldn't we? What else are we going to do- sit around in safehouses hiding from giant hallucinatory monsters with some organization fully of people in frilly old-style clothing with disappearing rifles and sparkling cranberry juice that makes hurts go away? That seems miserable, and all too likely to lead back to a cycle of pointless bullshit that goes nowhere. A more exciting, more surreal cycle of pointless bullshit than we've encountered in our life thus far, but the same kind of thing nevertheless. If we go with the flow, that's where we'll probably end up.

Instead, follow the storyline. We found the plot hook, followed up on it, fought the boss and lost, got an ally and grew stronger, then fought the boss and won. We're dreaming up a classic heroic tale in miserable miniature here. What's the next step? Obviously, it's to push on and save the girl. Susan. And either it will work or something will go horribly wrong and we'll find out that this is one of those frustrating ten-book epics that the author dies before finishing.

God, this is crazy as hell. We just need directions to Officer Tock's personal holding cells, and any more of that cranberry juice if Janine's got any. Fucking headache. Asking her to make sense of crazy dream world and explain its nuances can wait. Things might go back to normal when we save Susan anyway, and then it won't matter.

>What sort of questions she has should you anticipate from her?
Probably boring things. Most of our life is boring, after all; what is there interesting to ask about us, aside from what's happened in the last twenty minutes? All the silly, useless things that people care about or just ask about because they are supposed to when they meet people so that they feel like they know more about them.

JTH 2011/07/13(Wed)22:12 No. 326202 ID: 223884
File 131062037688.jpg - (266.66KB , 900x1200 , yeah no.jpg )

rolled 4, 1, 1, 4 = 10

---

>>326172

After a few silent seconds you realize the situation you're in. Tock's out of the game, so that means that his "personal cells" are lacking its most powerful protection. You turn towards your new ally and show her the recovered driver's license.

"Those other clockfaces were pushovers, but they said he was keeping Susan locked up. If he's out of the way for now... will we ever have a better chance to get her out?"

She stops and goes through several faces in the next moment. Her expression changes from surprised to worried to deep thought before she finally gives a confident, knowing smile. She places a hand upon your shoulder.

>"I knew there was something special about you. With anyone else I'd be pretty hesitant, but your passion is hard to pass up. Unfortunately, we're not in much condition to even attempt it, but we might be able to fix that with your power."

"Wait, what? Power? You lost me."

>"When you told the building to collapse, it followed your command. I knew someone with a similar ability, but nobody's seen him in years. Here, try it on my ankle."

She motions her leg towards you and you sigh. So that's what was up with the cop you questioned. He answered you because you ordered him to. So, does that make you, like, the boss of the universe or something? Nah, that's stupid. You're normal, no matter how much you hate it and it isn't going to change. Though, doesn't your being here prove that you're abnormal? If this is a dream, it means that your head's so screwed up, normality's out of the question. If this is, by some twist of eldritch comedy, quasi-real, then you're pretty weird by default. Though in context of this fun-house, you're about as mundane as they come.

You kick yourself out of your thought-produced hesitation and concentrate on her ankle.

"Heal...please?"

...nothing. Maybe you weren't forceful enough.

"Heal. Now."

You hear a small snapping sound and Janine winces. A moment later and she hesitantly rotates her foot around, inspecting your handiwork.

>"That felt weird, but now it's much better. Try healing us both and we'll head off to rescue your Susan."

You nod and command yourselves to get better. Most of your bruises and cuts knit together, but some are stubborn and refuse. Furthermore, your headache seems to pound harder still. You wonder if you can change that, but this is still new to you and you don't want to push it so you leave it be for now. Janine points the two of you towards your destination and you begin trekking.

"So, that sparkly stuff, what was up with that?"

>"Ah, that was a healing potion I guess, but it's not that simple. The other resident at the safe-house has a rather useful ability to eat anything. Alternatively, he can use those materials to "cough up" new items. Sometimes it's literal, like eating wood and coughing up a carving, and sometimes it's rather figurative. He made those potions after eating some pages out of a book. He said the book was called 'Deeandee'."

You begin to think about how nice Janine is. She's saved your life with that healing stuff and is even helping you find Susan. You begin to feel a bit defensive, though. What kind of person just up and joins some random stranger on a suicide mission for her sister, even if you share some stuff in common? What sort of person is Janine?

"Hey, why are you so eager to help me? Noone in the "real" world would lift a finger for me, so why are you? Is it 'cause you're a figment of my imagination or what?"

>"I'll repeat that I'm quite sure I'm real, but I won't push you to acceptance. I'm helping you for several reasons. I feel an obligation to help out others like you and me, other people who are Awake. People are falling into this nightmare every day and are either getting swallowed whole or they assimilate. For us, though, we don't have that choice. That's the other reason I'm helping you: we both have goals. You want to help someone out of this mess and I feel a sort of kinship with that. Other than that, I'm just a naturally helpful person I guess."

"Huh. So...what's with the getup?"

Janine looks down at herself and blushes shyly.

>"Ah, yes, this. Well, it is a bit showy isn't it? Unfortunately, a proper dress just wouldn't do with the scenarios I encounter here."

"Wait, a dress? What century do you think this is, the 1800's?"

>"Well, yes, isn't it?"

Oh god damnit, this just became so much more awkward and confusing.

"Well, no. Didn't my clothes give you a clue? I'm wearing almost nothing and you're being shy about a skirt. Nevermind, I don't want to deal with time shenanigans in an already messed up dreamland, let's just drop it."

You continue awkwardly for a few minutes before your new traveling partner breaks the silence.

>"So...do you have a lover back in the real world?"

"Whoa-jeez, what kind of question is that all of a sudden? Why would you want to know that?

>"Oh, no reason, just trying to make small talk. If it really has been so long since I last ventured home, I'd like to hear about how much it's changed. Maybe you could take me there some time?"

Disregarding that that was, in fact, a reason, the thought of showing someone how miserable your life has become fills you with dread. Even if that someone is a maybe-real figment of your imaagination from the 1800s. Man this is getting rediculous.

You consider lying to her, but you decide to tell her the truth. If she's real, it'll just get you tangled up in more lies. If she's a dream, then she probably already knows and wouldn't take kindly to being lied to.

"No, I don't have a special someone. Nobody pays attention to me anyway, so it doesn't matter. On bringing you home, uh, maybe some time. I'll think about it I guess."

With the social awkwardness out of the way, the two of you continue. Shortly, huge, looming building comes into view. All the windows are covered with thick, looping metal bars. Each story of the structure looks horribly out of balance, yet everything stays stable, like some messed up game of Jenga. Gotta be the place.

A few cops are frantically running around in and out of the location, but they pay you no mind. Guess their boss really was the brains, even if he didn't have many to begin with.

>"Well, here we are."

Called it.

You begin walking towards the screwed up building, but are stopped by your Victorian partner.

>"No no, not there, that's the police station, over there is Tock's home."

She points towards a building sitting next to the station that looks exactly like all the other bland houses, except twice as large. So Tock even keeps prisoners in his own home? When they said "personal" they really meant it, huh?

Okay a quick survey of the front reveals the windows are barred with metal like most other buildings and the door is big enough for a giant, though considering whose house this is, that should be obvious. The walls are all completely flat surfaces with egg-shell colored paint. There might be air vents or something, seeing as how the cops seem to be subject to most normal physiological weaknesses for humans and the buildings seem modern enough.

How do you plan on gaining entrance to your adversaries abode? What orders do you give Janine, if any, and should she follow you or enter elsewhere? If Susan is in there, how do you plan to get her free, and if she isn't present, how might you go about searching for clues?

rolled 5, 5, 3, 1, 5, 4, 3 = 26

---

>>326202
>Janine is from the 1800s
Welp, either she's crazy, this is solidly dreamland, or she's crazy and this is solidly dreamland. Still, not going to hold a little bit of insanity or nonexistence against someone friendly.

>How do you plan on gaining entrance to your adversaries abode? What orders do you give Janine, if any, and should she follow you or enter elsewhere?
First, circle the place to see if there are any easy entrances on the sides or at the rear. We might get lucky. If that fails, try ordering a door open. If that also fails... we've got problems. At that point, if there's a convenient air vent, take it and trust in the protection of cliche bullshit to see us safely inside; otherwise see if Janine can just whip up something very dangerous out of thin air and try to blast our way in.

Janine should stick close. Splitting up would be needlessly risky.

>If Susan is in there, how do you plan to get her free, and if she isn't present, how might you go about searching for clues?
Susan will be there. We're sure she will. The place is locked up, so Tock would have been the only one with access, and how could he have found the time to move her since we found out where she was? If she's locked up and we can't find keys or something inside the house, well, hopefully either we'll be able to order her free or Janine will be able to, uh... Shoot out the lock with a gigantic disappearing gun, maybe?


Rolling two Exhaustion dice (automatic) and two Madness dice.