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Encounter Conditions
Halloween 2024
Initial Text
Someone has hauled in a pile of speakers, presumably at no small expense, but just left them without doing any setup. Spread out a bit and configured properly, they could be rather spooky, but now…
Summary of Choices
- Run thick cabling - Lose 1 thick cabling, gain 4 XP Perception
- Add a subwoofer - Lose 1 subwoofer, gain 10 XP Perception, adds 1 duration to Thrumming Horror Music
- Cover it in crepe paper - Lose 1 crepe paper, gain 2 XP Will, adds to cornfield
- Plant a sprouting seed (After making adjustments with an electrical kit/salvaging tools) - Lose 1 sprouting seed, gain 6 XP Strength, adds to vines
- Install mirrored glass - Lose 1 mirrored glass, gain 6 XP Reflexes, adds to body horror?
- Make adjustments - Gain 2 XP in Perception, or with electrical kit/salvaging tools, unlocks Plant a sprouting seed option
- Try some tunes - Gain 20 of Skittering Tune, Inexorable Tune or Warning Tune.
- Leave it be - Walk away
Choice Text and Results
Run thick cabling
There's plenty of power running to the floor, so you lay a bit of cabling to power up one of the speakers.
You've earned 4 XP in Perception
(Lose 1 thick cabling)
Add a subwoofer
You carefully pick out a spot to install the nice new subwoofer, letting it spread the vibrations through the floor and walls as much as the air.
You've earned 10 XP in Perception
(Lose 1 subwoofer)
Cover it in crepe paper
You hang some crepe on the speakers. It's not the best camouflage, but does help them blend in with the general decor.
You've earned 2 XP in Will
(Lose 1 crepe paper)
Plant a sprouting seed
You pry off the side of one of the larger speakers, finding some foam that seems like a great place to plant a seed. The seed seems to agree, at least you think it grew a bit while you were looking away.
You've earned 6 XP in Strength
(Lose 1 sprouting seed)
Install mirrored glass
You affix a plate of mirrored glass to the side of a larger speaker. It doesn't distract from the speaker, exactly, but disguises it in that odd way that mirrors have.
The subtle movements of the glass when people turn on music makes it all the more disorienting, however.
You've earned 6 XP in Reflexes
(Lose 1 mirrored glass)
Make adjustments
They've got plenty of speakers here, although there's a limit to what you can do without more cables to connect everything. Still, they're basically a pile for now, so a little overview helps you improve their setup.
You've earned 2 XP in Perception
(Or with electrical kit/salvaging tools)
They've got plenty of speakers here, but nothing's really set up. You have the right tools to do some maintenance and configuration, so you do you best to take a look.
Digging inside the shadows of each speaker with the padding and wiring and so forth is a little challenging, but you make some improvements on their configuration.
You've earned 4 XP in Perception
Try some tunes
You turn on some random tunes a student's loaded into the speakers. It's horrible… or possibly horrific, a song that almost makes you wish things were actually crawling along your bones because you could do something about that.
You've gained 20 duration of Skittering Tune.
Or:
You turn on some random tunes a student's loaded into the speakers. It's slow-moving, enough that you're off dealing with other things when its themes of inevitability and inexorable horror fully sink in.
You've gained 20 duration of Inexorable Tune.
Or:
You turn on some random tunes a student's loaded into the speakers. It picks up with a folksy warning about corporate greed causing horrible tragedies, but nobody seems to mind the message with as catchy as the song is.
You've gained 20 duration of Warning Tune.
Or, with music already playing:
You're already listening to your own stuff, but you load a random song a student loaded as a test. It does seem to work okay and drowns out some of the floor's ambient noise.
Leave it be
Even if they're not set up, surely speakers will make noise, right? You leave them as you continue wandering the floor.