As the group prepares for the contest that evening where they hope to find Susie and the other muses, Joey, Sammy, and Bendy decide to see if Prophet has any insight to share on what’s to come.
…Or on the mysterious episode Jack had the other day that left stars in his eyes…
Sammy stared at the paper for a long time, pen hovering over the surface.
“DID SOMETHING HAPPEN TO JACK?”
He slowly set the pen down, uncertain, reading over the questions he’d left one more time before looking back up at the other two. His expression still seemed… distracted. “Don’t give him more Ink this time. He has to ask me.”
Warning:This campaign is an edited version of Call of Cthulhu: Song and Dancescenario from the Tales of the Crescent City book. While a lot has been changed, there IS spoilersfor it throughout these posts. ALSO we are currently playing this, so please don’t spoil us either!!Thanks!
SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TO @bertrumstrousers WHO APPARENTLY HELPED THREN BY BRAINSTORMING AND PROVIDING SOME OF THE POSSIBLE CONTENT SHE COULD USE FOR BETRUM SHOWING UP IN THE GAME?!?! including some signature words he yells at one point, which still delights me to this day.
ART CHANGES THIS SEASON!!@inkdemonapologist and I are collabing on all the art for these summery posts!! Shazz does lines, and I compose and colour the pieces.
Joey has since had a few rooms of his own secretly installed throughout the building as Thomas has been replacing pipes. He says they’re to have a quiet space where he can be uninterrupted, a lot of them using old abandoned rooms that had become storage for outdated materials. The project was started after the New Orleans Trip though, so it’s more likely… so he can have somewhere hidden to rest.
Hahaha yeah no it’s so he has privacy for like normal Joey extra hard working hours hahahahaha anyways this is where Joey and Sammy end up talking with Prophet, along with Bendy. Sammy has his own questions he writes down on a piece of paper for Prophet to answer on, and Joey silently waits in the background to ask his own questions afterwards.
His own questions being… how to stop himself from going mad like last time. He doesn’t want to betray Prophet again, but it’s Prophet’s sort of realms that does this to him. So… what to do to stop it? Bendy also has a question about one of the things from Prophet’s last vision, a strangely mundane demonic monster that Sammy’d described, and Prophet does his best to draw it for them.
Meanwhile, Jack ends up checking on the music department. After being asked by Sammy to keep an eye on Jack, Norman follows him around as well. Henry ends up coming in a little late after spending the morning going over a few more things with Linda in preparation, checking on his own department before all of them meet up in the afternoon and go over final plans. While Prophet and Sammy managed to figure out that the cultists’ plan is to put Angels (like those monsters they fought in NOLA) into Susie, Colette, and Nichole, and corrupt the muses possessing them with the Yellow King, they still don’t exactly know how that’s happening, or when, or what Y and his men are going to try to do themselves to get to this goal.
So! Our goal is actually very simple: Find the girls and get them out of there before the mob can execute their plan. Just be heckin better at kidnapping some ladies out of a public place than a whole buncha mobsters!
No Problem!!!
This will surely go… fine!
More specifically, we’re gonna grab the girls, head IMMEDIATELY to the apartment where the circle is already existing with a lot of the supplies needed to finish it, and expel the muses before the goons ever figure out what’s going on.
… from a venue that only a few of us have snuck around in so far and hardly know the layout of.
… during a contest that we have no connections to but the mob clearly does.
Okay, so maybe we need a little more of a plan, just in case we get separated at the start. Sammy and Norman know Susie the mostest, so if we can’t figure out another way to get Sammy back there, those two can just brute force and sneak their way back there, respectively. If Peter can get in the back as Press, bonus. Henry and Jack will secure an exit and be ready to drive if we manage to find any of the girls, just get them out as quickly as possible. And Joey has called upon Leon (Colette’s boyfriend, the nervous doctor guy), Allison, and Timothee (brother of Nichole and gun enthusiast) to get their help; the four of them will run a middle man between the two groups and help with the transfer of any of the girls out of the building.
AND! THAT’S ABOUT ALL THE PLANNING WE CAN DO!! CROSS UR FINGERS AND REMEMBER THAT PROBABLY MOST OF THE MAFIA IS MADE OUT OF WEIRD YELLOW INK SO WE CAN’T JUST TREAT EM LIKE REGULAR HUMANS IF WE GET INTO A CONFRONTATION OKAY EVERYONE IN THE CARS LET’S GO.
Sammy brings up that any performance by one of the muses might get them wrapped up in their current creative addictions, just like how he lost himself the other night and Norman lost hours to dancing before when he met the girls–
THEN DON’T LET THAT HAPPEN OKAY EVERYONE IN THE CARS L E T ‘ S G O.
They arrive at the contest about an hour before it starts, making sure to come in with the crowds and have the vehicles parked far enough away from the entrance they’re not immediately recognized, but with easy road access for getting away once they gotta.
Joey and Bendy and Sammy immediately get distracted looking at Coney Island as they go in, all three of them rather wishing to be there instead of at a stuffy contest. Luckily, Jack and Henry are paying enough attention to point out the signup situation as well as the security situation.
As well as the… familiar band situation. Oh look, they replaced that one dude already. Wouldn’t be a band without a saxophone player after all.
Sammy and Joey go to see if Susie is already here or not by trying to spy on the sign up lists instead of asking like normal people do until Sammy gets caught trying to spy because he’s terrible at being sneaky. Nobody named Susie Campbell is signed up… but Joey notices there’s a line on the list that just says “Alice.”
So she ishere.
Well, time to start looking then. The plan is altered slightly as we meet up with the others: Norman tries to sneak in the back as a staff member, ends up fumbling on identifying what band member he’s supposed to be by the instrument case he’s carrying (which actually has a gun in it,) but Peter gets the security caught up in checking his press pass and Norman slips through.
As a second wave sneaking back, Leon and Sammy sign up as a music/singing duo (doesn’t matter if Leon can sing or not, we’re planning on not letting performances start on that stage at all if possible.) This is because nobody else actually can easily identify Colette, and on top of that, nobody else knows what to possibly say to her to get her to agree to come with them.
Timothee and Henry end up posting up back, keeping an eye out on the floor, since they’re the most armed and ready to barge their way into a situation and change it. If something happens, they can intercept, and if we get the girls to them, they can protect. Also Henry has the Bendy Lapel Pin, so there’s a form of communication back to Joey (through Bendy) through that.
Which leaves Allison, Joey + Bendy, and Jack to play middle field; Most sociable, best for blending in, and they can run interference between the two groups if need be.
… SO BASICALLY EVERYTHING IS THE SAME EXCEPT WE SHUFFLED SOME PEOPLE AROUND;;
Sammy and Leon head backstage and start looking around. Sammy is both looking for Susie, but also looking for any magic, ink, changes to the building since he was last here. Hidden doors, weird walls… Nothing suspicious yet, but Peter confirms while passing by that Y is in one of the backrooms, the office with the guarded door. All the players are here.
Which includes,
THE GREAT BERTRUM PIEDMONT
That’s right, BERTRUM IS HERE!!!!!! The contest flyer advertised a famous guest judge for the contest and ITS HIM, GREAT APPRECIATOR OF THE ARTS BERTRUM PIEDMONT,
who is, currently talking very loudly,,, to anyone that will listen to him,,,,,, over near the buffet. About the contest that they’re already at and how great it is, but also about his picks for the hors d'oeuvres and how great those are too.
Because he is great.
Everyone continues to hold their positions, all looking for the girls. As the room gets more filled and it gets closer to time, Bertrum disappears into the back, and the search becomes a bit more desperate as we try to beat out the mob in this race of sorts.
But then! Sammy does end up spotting three girls, one of them is absolutely Susie!! Sammy grabs Leon and immediately runs over to catch up with them before they head out onto the floor and disappear into the crowd.
Sammy grabs her arm, and it takes her a few blinks before she goes from simply politely smiling at him, to a recognizable expression. She asks why he’s here instead of at the studio getting ready for the premiere and, gosh, Sorry! Was gonna swing by but then got caught up in–
Doesn’t matter! Sammy starts trying to drag her out with him, insisting that it’s dangerous if she performs here and they need to go right now.
Nicole obviously notices and cuts him off while Leon tries to talk to his girlfriend as well. This gets Sammy rambling for a moment, insisting they all get out of here before the the cult of the Yellow–
Aaaaaaand Peter thankfully steps in very quickly to stop this before the guards start focusing too hard on what’s happening in this corner. Susie is looking a bit shaken, but Nicole steps in and alleviates all their fears. Of course it’s not a cult, why would a cult be having a talent contest. And they can’t just sacrifice someone on stage or whatever publicly like this. That’d be ridiculous.
And… Sammy nods. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. They can’t snatch them off stage… and if this is the one finally thing the girls need to do before they go with them, okay, fine. Just come back here right after! Or find Joey! One last performance and that’s it!
And he lets them go.
Susie promises she understands and will find Sammy right after and not go off with anyone else, giving him a kiss on the cheek before disappearing into the floods of people on the floor. Sammy… feels weird. Not just because of how convincing Nicole was, but this doesn’t seem exactly like what he slammed into the other night while trying to reach out with the dream spell. And it doesn’t seem quite like Susie either…
Sammy tells Peter to let the rest of them know of the new plan; let the girls get their last performance in, then go. Because this is a very smart and good decision he made using all of his brain cell. Peter does just that.
(…….remember how Joey’s ability to fast talk people has been SUPERNATURALLY BOOSTED by one of the muses…… tHAT MIGHT BE…. THE ONE NICHOLE HAS……)
But while he’s making his way through the crowds, Joey spots Susie coming down from the back and starts heading towards her to try and convince her himself, since clearly Sammy didn’t manage to catch her in the back. The sooner he can get her to Henry and Timothee, the sooner he can go check on Sammy and make sure he didn’t get kidnapped or something again.
Though first he tells Allison to maybe not approach Susie unless absolutely necessary. Or be seen by her. Because she is maybe not on the friends list right now and will make this more difficult. Allison simply nods and makes herself scarce.
Joey manages to use his dancing skills to weave through the crowd and get dancing with Susie, who is still surrounded by Nicole and Colette as well. She tries to inform him about the plan she made with Sammy and that everything is fine, which of course he’s having none of. So, he pulls her into a dance to help sell the very touching speech he’s going to deliver, about how he knows what’s going on, and he knows what she’s done, but he can’t let this happen at the risk of losing his Alice Angel.
Susie tears up a bit, because she wasn’t quite sure of herself recently. But before the hook manages to catch, Nicole steps in, frustrated with why everyone keeps trying to ruin their fun, just let them have one last evening together before they can’t anymore JEEZE (we’re gonna ignore the fact this has been going on for a week but ok)
She wants a bang to go out on? Alright!! Then Joey can give her a way better performance opportunity than this. He has a whole theater lined up this weekend, filled with big names in the entertainment industry, people who worked with singers and dancers for movie productions all over New York to see his feature film. If they go with him right now, he will make sure to give them a stage far larger than this one, but if they go through with this silly contest tonight, they might never do anything together again because of the men hunting them right now. Which, by the way? Bertie back there may have done amazing work for Coney Island and be a fancy name, but apparently he is only here for the friggin tiny sausages. Meanwhile, Joey will make the entire stage theirs.
Speaking of.
The lights go down. The stage lights up, and from the curtains emerges
The Great Bertrum Piedmont
And starts on his long rambles of introducing himself and getting the crowd’s energy up all on their adoration of him. Of course. He actually hasn’t picked up the mic yet he’s just that loud and attention grabbing that the entire room kinda simmered down. Peter whispers that he’s heard this guy is a pain to try to stop interviewing. JOEY WILL REMEMBER THIS…
While this is happening and Joey has been going back and forth with Nicole, Susie manages to disappear on him and head towards the line up of contestants as Bertrum gets the singing contest started.
And… also starts picking off contestants. Quite quickly. Apparently he’s not only picky about the hors d'oeuvres, but also music? Hardly letting a lot of them get their songs started even before interrupting them.
And Alice is a name that isn’t far down the list.
Joey frantically starts waving everyone from where they are and pointing towards the girls, just trying to get them to do SOMETHING to stop all of this. They CAN’T LET THEM PERFORM. Sammy is still waiting backstage, since, uh, the plan was to let them sing and whatever anyways; but Henry catches Joey’s frantic waving, and being fluent in Joey, heads over to try and convince Susie to come with him. Somehow. Henry meets her near where Jack is, and she starts trying to tell him as well of the “plan” Sammy agreed to as he tries to usher her out. Knowing Sammy, WHO SPECIFICALLY WARNED EVERYONE NOT TO LET THEM PERFORM, Jack immediately sees that something went wrong, and heads towards the back stage to find him and make sure he’s okay since Sammy wouldn’t have just agreed to such a plan.
Susie’s grown more concerned by the boys’ determination, and Henry actually does manage to convince her and doesn’t need to opaquely grab and run, since for once, Nicole is not around. But Joey has lost sight of Colette now, and Nicole is still being stubborn, and something will clearly be up the moment the muse-infused girls don’t show up. SO IT MIGHT AS WELL BE UP NOW.
Joey leaps up on stage between singers during a long pause and grabs the mic, putting on his showman persona and pulls out a good ol’ “Well, while we’re waiting for that contestant to make it out to the floor, why don’t you tell us a bit more about yourself!”
Which works of course. He’s
The Great Bertrum Piedmont!
And he has SO MUCH to tell you all about himself.
While on stage, Joey notices four things.
The band is no longer hanging out in the bandstand. Okay, this was expected, and Joey is aware he will probably have goons on him very soon. Timothee has managed to find Nicole and is currently talking with her. Good. Henry is heading towards the exit with Susie. Good. Colette… is nowhere to be found. That one, iiiiiiisssssss,,, less than good….? Actually it’s very bad.
Joey disappears into the curtains as the first band-goon shows his face, starting to climb onto the front of the stage, letting Bertie continue on now that he has the initial nudge of momentum to start going.
Which he does.
Jack manages to find Sammy in the back (after… probably lifting someone’s ticket,) and is immediately met with the very normal “What the Fuck is Joey Doing” response. It’s almost a secondary secret company slogan at this point. Jack asks him about this “New Plan” he’s apparently made, and as he gets talking about it Sammy slowly realizes… what he’s saying. Jack helps finish that nail off by reminding him of how bad the situation is going to be the moment any one of them performs.
Okay, yeah, Jack’s probably right. Let’s go get the girls out of here now. They run back out to the floor with Leon and start trying to find the girls. They manage to spot Susie and Nicole in the crowd, but before they can find Colette, Jack points out another one of the band goons is making his way towards Nicole. Since it looks like Henry has Susie heading towards the exit, OUR band boys decide to run interference. Also Peter. Leon heads out onto the dance floor to find his girlfriend and sorta disappears.
The one band goon heading towards Nicole tries to start with convincing them that he just needs to talk with Nicole backstage while trying to push his way through Jack, Sammy, Peter and Timothee who are all sort of getting in his way. So he also waves over some of the general security in the place to help out. Luckily, this all helps out Timothee’s case, and he convinces Nicole to go finally, so they manage to start pushing towards the exit after Henry and Susie while Jack, Peter and Sammy stall.
Joey, between the layers of curtains, uses a toon arm to reach up to the catwalk and zoop himself up there before the goons can find him, expecting them to come from both sides. This indeed confuses the goon, as he’s left scratching his head about where Joey possibly could have gone and starting to look behind the other curtains. Meanwhile Joey tries to sneak across to the opposite side of the catwalk so he can, hopefully, just disappear completely and leave them searching. Before jumping down, he looks out over the crowd to try and get an idea of the situation again, and sees the goons heading towards one of the back doors at the other end of the stage from him, with another person pushed between them all, in a very planned manner… Well, so much for sneaking down.
Now that two of the girls are near escaping and Sammy has become what he’s second best at, being a completely immovable and bothersome object the moment he’s pissed off, the goon decides to shake things up: He yells and fires off a gun, which immediately brings up a whole chorus of screaming as people start to panic, including
The Great Bertrum Piedmont
yellingBLOODY SCAMPER!!! and helping the panic be even more panic. The goon attempts to use the chaos to run after the girls, but despite initial shock of gun fire, Sammy immediately launches himself to stop him. He manages to stop him, but only because, perhaps, he is busy starting to turn one of his hands into some yellow claaaws? Yike,
While Sammy is freaking out a bit about the transformed hand, Jack catches the security guy who was waved over, and uses the new panic caused by the guy who was yelling right as a gunshot went off and is now getting into a fight with Sammy, to try and convince him that THIS GUY is actually the one causing a commotion and security needs to deal with him. Also uhh… his hand is. Weird. The goon starts trying to struggle and break out of Sammy’s grip while this is happening. Sammy manages to swing him around and punch him though, and the security guy finally sees the claws. So he uh, maybe takes some sanity damage from that, but also is now convinced that this band dude is absolutely the problem and starts working to remove him.
Or, try.
Henry manages to make it outside with Susie, while Timothee and Nicole are somewhat behind them but still making good time. But now the panic is causing a whole crowd of people to start moving towards the exit too and it’s about to get a lot harder to find each other and get out. Though once Susie is out of the building, Allison reveals herself near the entrance to the dance floor, standing on one of the tables and starting to calm people, using her powers to convince them they’d agreed to follow her out instead, and getting them out of the way. It doesn’t make the crowd less big, but people are moving out of the building quicker now, which will be good for when the rest need to run.
Joey has control of the spotlights, so he ends up grabbing one and turning it on the group of “band members” heading towards the back door, in an attempt to see better who they’re escorting, but also to blind them of what he’s doing above. Actually, he runs down the line and turns ALL the spotlights on them, assuming they probably have one of the girls just by the fact that Leon is STILL aimlessly wandering the dancefloor. And while they’re squinting at that, he goes and does what you’d do in any cartoon to stop a bad guy: throw a pulley break and drop a sandbag on him. Both Peter and
T h e G r e a t B e r t r u m P i e d m o n t
had noticed the spotlights turning, but one of them runs towards the shine while the other runs away into the backstage dressing rooms.
I’m sure you can guess which one does what.
Sammy is still fighting with the band goon, who is quite intent on capturing him or something, which is terrifying, actually, but Sammy responds to fear by punching, while the goon tries to pin him down. Which, after some wide throws, Sammy manages to leave himself open enough that the goon guy grabs him around the center and throws him over his shoulder. Sammy of course is kicking and yelling. Jack is panicking and ends up just running towards him and trying to tackle the goon to do???!? ANYTHING TO GET SAMMY FREE? He doesn’t manage to build up enough strength to throw a snake this guy around and actually ends up being kicked back into a table. Leon rushes over now that the room is somewhat cleared out and he’s rather sure Colette is not around, and tries to help Jack up. The security guard finally decides enough is enough, pulls out his kNIFE?!?? And runs in to knife this… mONSTER?!?! While Sammy is still flailing around in his arms…
Joey looks down from the catwalk to chase after the group and notices that… the man under the sand bag… the liquid around him… is not yellow.
It’s red.
Oh no, that’s not– Joey takes a moment as he’s kicked in the head right out of cartoon world by the reality of this all. During that he does hear yelling in the back, specifically the loud voice of
The Great Bertrum Piedmont
complaining to SOMEONE about how they got him into this mess, they better bloody well get him out of it! He also manages to spot Peter who had run over. Good, anything else to think about besides the sandbag. He does the ladder slidey thing down, quickly informs Peter that the goons are still dragging someone to the back, and then immediately goes chasing after them, leaving Peter to take his own moment of “There’s a squished guy under a sand bag” sanity damage.
Joey slides into the hallway to see the back doors shoved open and a car speeding off, with all the goons and their captive in the back and, probably Bertie, in it. There’s a moment of trying to figure out if he can hecking chase down a car, when something else clicks.
He doesn’t need to chase down the car. He knows where they’re going.
Warning:This campaign is an edited version of Call of Cthulhu: Song and Dancescenario from the Tales of the Crescent City book. While a lot has been changed, there IS spoilersfor it throughout these posts. ALSO we are currently playing this, so please don’t spoil us either!!Thanks!
This one was delayed because I needed to make sure it was as cool as Henry was in this scene. It was a REALLY COOL SCENE… and uh, VERY FRIGHTENING,, Anyways, we’re in the thick of it now, boys!
ART CHANGES THIS SEASON!!@inkdemonapologist and I are collabing on all the art for these summery posts!! Shazz does lines, and I compose and colour the pieces.
Well, Joey knows where he’s going to find the kidnapped Colette at least, but it’s not like he can just sprint there now on his own, so we’ll get back to that later.
So… what happened to the other girls?
Henry managed to get Susie outside safely, though they noticed they had someone scanning the crowds looking for her right away. She’s familiar, not because Henry has seen her before, but because he’s seen multiple family members of hers: Y’s sister… They start hurrying towards the car. Not too far behind them, Timothee and Nicole are just buried in the crowd enough not to be noticed and manage to sneak out as well. For a moment Henry and Susie pause, worried that the Y sibling might try to grab Nicole… but no, it’s not Nicole she’s after right now. Instead, she’s heading right towards Henry and Susie, definitely in their direction, and not a vaguely-into-the-crowd’s direction…. OKAY TIME TO SERIOUSLY GET TO THE CAR GOGOGO,, Henry gets Susie to hide in the back while he pulls out the gun he was borrowing, and points it at the approaching mobster.
Inside, the goon holding Sammy is attempting to drag him off towards the door, suffering somewhat after getting knifed in the arm. Jack, unable to answer any of Leon’s panicked and non-helpful questions, seeing a point of opportunity, and more determined than ever, runs forward and full body tackles the goon one more time. This time it works, and he fully manages to knock the guy over, unfortunately also knocking Sammy over into a chair. But that’s fine! Because Sammy is free once again, and likewise, done with this guy’s shit. As the two scramble to their feet, Sammy yelling hint hint it’d be nice if Trenchcoat showed up around now, the goon sees Joey and Peter have also turned around from their other exit and started heading back towards this particular fight.
Remembering what happened to dearly departed Saxophone when Joey showed up, he starts backing away. Sammy is still in panicked fight mode though, and grabs the chair he got knocked into, slamming it into the goon and causing him to splatter into a whole patch of Yellow Ink across the center of the dance floor.
Everyone will remember that for a while. Especially this security guard who was in no way prepared to see such a thing. Especially especially Leon, who was gently prepared for this but not actually prepared for this.
Jack turns to Joey and asks what to do while people start trying to cope with this, Joey who is mostly propping Peter up right now? He’s not passed out, but he’s not quite there either and his legs are only half working for some reason after slamming into someone in the crowd. Joey doesn’t quite have an answer for Jack, but Allison calls out to the group from her position between the dancefloor and the entrance with one: she’s seen someone chasing after Henry. Well!! THERE’S YOUR ANSWER!! Joey grabs Jack and gets him to help Peter, while he then grabs a disassociating Sammy and a broken Leon and drags them enough towards the door to get them moving and just hurries everyone along with him. Everyone outside now!! We need to catch up with Henry!!!! NO MORE TIME FOR CHATTING.
While running outside, Sammy catches up with Jack and grabs his hand, trying to see if he can tell anything about Jack… because the thing Joey didn’t notice was that it wasn’t exactly Sammy anymore. Not getting a read in the heat of the situation though, Prophet just whispers a ‘Come, my sheep’ and pulls Jack, and thus Peter, along with him towards the entrance. Though halfway there, he gets disoriented, and apparently returns to being the shepherd again.
Norman peeks his head out from backstage now that the abduction that raced past him is gone, and follows after them.
Y (sister forme) continues to approach Henry and the car Susie is in, slowly, calmly now, addressing them and letting them know that if Henry just hands Susie over, nobody has to get hurt. Of course, to this Henry pulls back the hammer on the gun and makes it very clear he is not up for such a negotiation. She does not seem to hesitate though, walking up and grabbing his arm, somewhat calling his bluff. It was a bluff… in a way. He wasn’t exactly ready to try and shoot her. But upon feeling a weird jolt of himself being sucked away from her touch, he panics, and… slices her through the middle with a golden ethereal scythe thing?? That he? summoned out of??? HIMSELF?!??! He just,,, has the colour drain out of him and has now a scary scythe thing….
Which, at this point she’s morphed somewhat into a weird orb tentacle monster? She collapses some onto the ground, and Henry slashes her again, just to make sure. She’s not cut open, but does continue to just have two golden slashes through her that remain. And has completely stopped moving. She is very dead now.
Joey runs up, with some others trailing behind him as they witness whatever this is. Henry is still weirdly pale… not like he’s sick, like he’s monochrome. Like that time, back in Haiti, where the world went weird and silent. The scythe disappears, and Henry steps over the corpse to ask Joey if everyone is alright.
JOEY GRABS HENRY AND STARTS FRANTICALLY ASKING IF HE IS!! ALRIGHT?!?! WHAT HAPPENED WHAT WAS THAT WHAT DID YOU DO ARE YOU OKAY–
Henry holds him still and tells him everything is fine, despite the fact he’s uh, monochrome. When Joey points this out, he doesn’t seem to be shocked by it, just slightly surprised that there had been an effect. He actually seems… very non emotional overall. Henry informs his best friend that it’s just a spell that he picked up from Doc Moonlight’s journal. No big.
This does not comfort Joey.
Henry tries to get them back on task but Joey just frantically hugs him for a moment, in a possessive and somewhat fearful way, like Henry might just disappear any second now. When that doesn’t happen and Henry just calmly hugs back, he finally pulls himself together enough to get everyone loaded in the car and heading back to the studio. They need to go after Colette but first they need to get the other girls to safety and get some more supplies if they’re going to beat down the door of a Mobster Cult Hideout.
But Jack, Leon, Timothee, Nichole, and Sammy DID SEE danger approaching Henry as they ran out to Jack’s car, so Jack takes a moment to loop back around and check on the other group before heading back to the studio, where Sammy and Jack both manage to catch a look at the dead monster that was once Y(F) on the ground. But they also see that the other group is fine and getting the second car started as well, so start to head off–
Sammy was initially recovering from the sight of the monster, but becomes suddenly very insistent on following the other car. Staying behind them, keeping an eye on them. Jack… continues to drive in the same direction as he was planning to, as Sammy continues to explain that he’s “seen the Golden Sheep before and seen the harm he can do.”
Well… hello again Prophet. Lovely for you to join us again out of the blue on this car ride.
They all get back to the studio, where Tom has been the only employee hanging around since they closed up before heading towards the contest in the first place. Knowing it was possible to bring back bad news, or a buncha muses stuffed into girls, or need to do weird rituals on the fly, or leave a buncha strangers in somewhat safety while going to retrieve a third lost muse girl, hypothetically, Joey had made sure to have the studio cleared out and one of the lobby film rooms available for everyone to sit in.
Joey informs people he knows where they’re taking Colette, but doesn’t know how much time they have until they try to do the ritual on her, so they need to quickly get ready and head back out again; Norman and Timothee will stay behind with the other two girls to guard them meanwhile. Leon is offered a choice, with a quick rundown of what he may or may not be facing when he goes on this adventure, and ends up deciding to go, wanting to help save his girlfriend instead of standby in anxious stress.
Nicole goes to stand up and also demand to go with them, but Joey manages to interrupt before she can start being persuasive, cuts her off at the pass, and gets her to sit back down. She and Susie will wait here.
Prophet is staring at Henry. He’s very staring at Henry, like if he takes his eyes off Henry for a moment some bear trap will go off and snap them all up. But as Henry gets caught up in chatter with Joey and the others up front, it’s enough to convince him for a moment it’s safe not to watch, and he asks Jack for some paper to write stuff down. Specifically some warnings about “the golden sheep is not himself, he will slaughter the flock, DO NOT TRUST HIM,” and leaves it in his pocket later for Sammy to find. Y’know, a very clear, obvious message that will make a lot of sense later.
Susie ends up near them while this is going on, and asks what’s wrong with Sammy. Of course, Prophet immediately steps in to comment, trying to assure Susie that here is the safe place to wait and to stay far away from danger and everything will be alright. In the very normal Prophet way of not explaining what he is talking about at any point, calling everyone some sort of sheep, and not even answering her original question.
Susie… attempts to ask Jack, specifically, again, what happened.
Joey has still not noticed that Prophet has joined them, currently wrapped up in trying to get Henry to explain what he possibly did before?? Which, while there’s an explanation that makes sense (He got a spell from Moonlight’s journal, and it hasn’t worked until now, but this time it did, and he knows he probably should have sourced it from somewhere else but he just wanted an offensive spell (boy did he get one!! Joey is VERY offended rn!!!!!)) but as for what exactly is happening to him in this moment? he doesn’t know. BUT IT WORKED SO IT’S FINE!! EXCEPT JOEY VERY THINKS IT ISN’T. Even getting something from Masked Messenger would be better because at least you know whatever that’s gonna DO. It might be a knife that hurts you to hold but at least you know it’ll still stab a guy! Meanwhile Doc Moonlight hands you a knife that hurts you to hold but when you go to use it the dang thing blows up in your face instead!!!
While this goes on, Prophet attempts one more time to assure Susie that she doesn’t need to worry before trying to get Bendy’s attention. Which involves getting Joey’s attention, since they’re still sharing a body right now. Jack takes this moment to explain to Susie as best he can right now; it’s a long story, magic stuff. Not an urgent thing that needs addressing, more explanation later. So she tries to call out to Sammy to ask him for another take, (she knows she can do better now!) which he pauses at, because Prophet DOES remember what she’s talking about. When he doesn’t respond right away though she starts singing the newest version of Alice’s song… the one Sammy had manically improved over the week, the one that… She shouldn’t have any way of knowing.
This does cause him to turn around and hush her, insisting on doing this later… she’s surprised? But agrees, they need to help Colette first.
When Prophet finally grabs Joey’s attention, Joey’s actually not annoyed that his usual rival-in-his-lover’s-body has shown up again, just surprised. He does immediately demand Prophet hand over his flask, which is suspicious, but he confirms impatiently when Prophet questions it that, yes, Joey is assuming if you’re around you’ve drained some of your ink supply and need more so hand it over so he can fill it up. Okay well, Prophet wants to talk with them anyways about something so tries to pull him to the side, which is fine Joey needs to walk up to his office anyways for the ink refill. He gets Henry to round up the others to get ready to go while he’s talking with Prophet, which Henry doesn’t seem too sure about but does what he’s told.
Once alone, Prophet insists to Joey that Henry is not himself, he’ll betray his allies and slaughter anyone in his path. Joey is… confused but listening. He knows a thing or two about betraying people while under the bad influence of eldritch things around them after all. But this apparently isn’t the same… Prophet has seen this Henry before. It’s not their normal Henry. It’s one that showed up on one of the cycles in Haiti, according to Bendy… but just that once! And he didn’t seem TOTALLY murderous??? But if this is really as bad as Prophet says it is, then Joey knows he needs to bring Henry with him. Because leaving him here seems like a poor idea when Prophet is warning him about Henry slaughtering “the sheep they are trying to save”, and Joey knows he can’t betray Henry by sending him home to his family as he currently is, so Henry will have to come along. Joey refills their ink flasks, shots are taken, and they head downstairs, ready to go face whatever awaits them when they head back to Coney Island.
Boo shared this song with with the CoC gang as a Cthulhu!Joey song, and I got some big Prophet vibes as well, and he was like, I mean, if there’s a Joey - Prophet song, it’s this one. And then…… I thought about it……….. and did the thing where you start imagining an entire music video….. aND THEN TRIED TO MAKE AN ANIMATIC???? i got super excited and have been working on nothing but this fOR THE LAST WEEK AND A HALF,,
AnYWAY I’ve never made an animatic before but IM VERY PROUD OF THIS, PLEASE ENJOY!!!!
I’ve been losing my entire mind during every step of the process and i’m AMAZING HOW MUCH THERE IS AND HOW MANY DETAILS ARE IN IT AND AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA,
GOSH JOEY HIDING HIS HAND IN THE PAST, EVERY TIME HIS FANGS SHOW, THE W A L K C Y C L E S, also just… every time joey and prophet’s faces ar eclose together listne i am a simpl e man,
thanks for making the sacrifice scene as gay as it needed 3 be, waah
SLAMS FISTS YES YES BOO GETS IT!!! (gfdkdgfkgfgf the sacrifice scene is gREAT) “ENJOY” IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT SHAZZ I AM STILL COMPLETELY LOSING MY MIND OVER THIS!!!!
Sammy Jack and Joey have gone from being completely cut off from their creative skills for an entire day to having them restored, stronger than ever! Maybe even a little too strong…
The three of them work on adapting to this new normal, and also to Peter’s unexpected arrival at Jack’s.
“You’re right there’s something to do with music. But also acting. Performers on the radio struggled or simply didn’t work as well. I am worried about the state of any theatres in the city…” Joey said.
“Eh… might have different problems now…” Jack had started writing again. He needed his hands to be doing something. “If they’re going through what weare, they, uh… They…” Hm, what was a good synonym for ‘compelled’ to use for this line. Joey’s mention of it being more than musicians was interesting, too. Maybe he could link that in to this song and…
Warning:This campaign is an edited version of Call of Cthulhu: Song and Dancescenario from the Tales of the Crescent City book. While a lot has been changed, there IS spoilersfor it throughout these posts. ALSO we are currently playing this, so please don’t spoil us either!!Thanks!
This one was delayed because I needed to make sure it was as cool as Henry was in this scene. It was a REALLY COOL SCENE… and uh, VERY FRIGHTENING,, Anyways, we’re in the thick of it now, boys!
ART CHANGES THIS SEASON!!@inkdemonapologist and I are collabing on all the art for these summery posts!! Shazz does lines, and I compose and colour the pieces.
As the group prepares for the contest that evening where they hope to find Susie and the other muses, Joey, Sammy, and Bendy decide to see if Prophet has any insight to share on what’s to come.
…Or on the mysterious episode Jack had the other day that left stars in his eyes…
Sammy stared at the paper for a long time, pen hovering over the surface.
“DID SOMETHING HAPPEN TO JACK?”
He slowly set the pen down, uncertain, reading over the questions he’d left one more time before looking back up at the other two. His expression still seemed… distracted. “Don’t give him more Ink this time. He has to ask me.”
Warning:This campaign is an edited version of Call of Cthulhu: Song and Dancescenario from the Tales of the Crescent City book. While a lot has been changed, there IS spoilersfor it throughout these posts. ALSO we are currently playing this, so please don’t spoil us either!!Thanks!
WOOOAAAAH WE’RE HALFWAY THERE WHOOOAAAH LIVING ON A– wait, PROPHET NO!!
(i’m not kidding we have like at least 8 more episodes to go.)
ART CHANGES THIS SEASON!!@inkdemonapologist and I are collabing on all the art for these summery posts!! Shazz does lines, and I compose and colour the pieces.
As the group prepares for the contest that evening where they hope to find Susie and the other muses, Joey, Sammy, and Bendy decide to see if Prophet has any insight to share on what’s to come.
…Or on the mysterious episode Jack had the other day that left stars in his eyes…
Sammy stared at the paper for a long time, pen hovering over the surface.
“DID SOMETHING HAPPEN TO JACK?”
He slowly set the pen down, uncertain, reading over the questions he’d left one more time before looking back up at the other two. His expression still seemed… distracted. “Don’t give him more Ink this time. He has to ask me.”
