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inkyvendingmachine · 4 months

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T'was The Night Before Crisis... Season 4, Episode 1

💀 Call of Cthulhu: Haunted Hijinx Masterpost 💀 Call of Cthulhu Season Four Masterpost (Coming Soon)

Warning: This campaign is an edited version of a Call of Cthulhu scenario from the Tales of the Crescent City book. While a lot has been changed, there IS spoilers for it throughout these posts.

WE'RE BACK. After over a whole heckin year of 10000 RP logs, we have returned with our final season of Cthulhu! It's been not just a year out of game, but a little over a year worth of in game time has passed too, and they boys are indulging in a chill, at home seasonal celebration... for now! Surely nothing weird will happen, nothing ever does around holidays for these boys obviously.

Happy Holidays!

Art Credit: @inkdemonapologist : sketching + inking @inkyvendingmachine : concept + colouring

A week. Two weeks. A month. A season. A year.

A whole year and a couple of months go by without any crazy outside force trying to rid the boys of… anything really. The time isn't exactly calm or empty… but compared to recent events, for a while, things were… kinda normal?

Well, except for when Joey got Peter to help him meet with Y secretly to prevent the gang from continuing to mess with JDS, or when Sammy and Henry realized mid tennis match that a version of Henry had slashed him right through the center. Or how the Prophet can just pop out now without ink. And how Susie has been brought in on all this, and perhaps brought in on even more than just the supernatural content as her bonds with Sammy and Joey grow tighter. And how Peter is actually moving to New York City now and ends up visiting Jack just as Beans goes missing and now there’s many little Beans kittens. And the summoning spell to ask the spirit that helped them in Haiti what will become of Sammy and Prophet. And the other summoning spell for Prophet to get his instructions from the Masked Messenger. And Sammy still can't tell where he's going half the time after uncovering some of Prophet’s memories. And Joey is still a bit hesitant to leave the studio if not being actively distracted. But other than that! It's been normal!!

And the boys have made it all the way to Christmas. Joey's received some parcels in the mail, from the Fowlers and Nicole. The Fowlers actually sent each of the helpful boys uh… 1000$?? That's a thousand. EACH. IN THE 1930s. For helping out… which I guess if stuck eternally in soul lake hell, wouldn't have that money anyways. But still, that's quite a lot for the time.

Meanwhile, Nicole has had time to move on from her heartbreak, and is ready to start a new chapter in her life, and as thanks, leaves Joey both the keys to her old apartment (the lease being paid up for a few years already) and to her previous car, with a guarantee she's giving these things up for better, not to worry about her. And totally not because maybe all the occult scratches and bullet marks in the wall makes the apartment hard to rent, or the fact that her car is an extremely recognized Mercedes, or that both of these assets were hounded by gangs for a bit after her magical mistakes…

It probably is actually all out of good will and appreciation, and these things will come in useful, especially if they do need to deal with more mafia or what have you. Joey doesn't need them tracking Henry's car home to his family or back to Jack's house.

With those gifts out of the way, the actual holiday is spent in Jack's house, with a big potluck meal. This holiday celebration includes a small group of friends and their families, namely, all the people Jack has befriended and also would be okay with the Lurker partying with em. The event goes well, Sammy gets to play through the night, Henry’s children get to hang out with a real Bendy and also a buncha newly grown-up cats, Henry gets to eat as many cookies as he wants…

That… slows down when Henry sees a yellow sign in a ribbon. But as soon as he tries to not lose his entire cool and freak out, it disappears… the ribbon was just a ribbon the entire time. Perhaps golden ribbons shouldn't be their normal holiday decor…

Meanwhile, Peter feels eyes on him and decides to move away from the window maybe, especially because it feels like he suddenly knew exactly which star in the sky holds Carcosa at the same time… surely a fine coincidence to have happened at almost the same time. But nobody else is acting weirdly, sooooo.

The night wraps up, with Susie and Norman heading out first, followed by Henry and his family. Sammy also heads home after being socially exhausted and desperately needing his alone time, and Peter helps Jack clean up some before heading out too. Jack heads to bed, only to find an already asleep Joey with a Spark sprawled on top of him, probably after he “closed his eyes for a moment” a little earlier.

The next day, there's technically work, but it's a short day because what's actually happening is a charity auction and party. A collection of “originals, signed by the creators” has been donated to help raise money for relief efforts in a few warring European countries, as well as the “entertainment” for the evening (Bendy cartoons, of course), courtesy of JDS, which means of course all the stars who signed the auctioned items were invited to the party as well.

Yes, even Sammy.

(And also Jack, Henry, Susie, and Joey of course.)

The event is being held at a yacht club, advertised to the wealthies of the city midst the great depression, with live music playing and glittering evening wear, and uh. Denis.

Y'know, Denis?? That rich guy from NOLA who invited us to the masquerade?? That Joey casually name dropped his legal name to in order to keep him from tracing himself and Sammy back to JDS, when they didn't know who or how dangerous their initial information gathering was.

Anyways, a quick little talking him in circles by Joey corrects that past mistake, as well as gets him the information that Denis is actually related to one of the people who put the entire event together. Ha. Good to know.

Of course it's difficult to shake him afterwards, since Joey is one of the few people Denis knows all the way up in New York. At least Joey actually has a fancy car to talk about now.

Meanwhile, in the quietest, emptiest corner he could find, Sammy notices something odd about the song that's currently being played live. It sounds familiar, and while surely there's been some Bendy music played this evening…. This particular song is not that. But it WAS composed by Sammy.

In NOLA.

When he was improvising with some random music on the street while hanging out on the balcony of his and Joey's hotel room. Properly freaked out by having a song from a very scary time literally come back to haunt him, Sammy runs to find someone, (Joey is still busy with Denis), and comes across Jack first. But before he can fully explain, the entire party is interrupted.

Chatter turns into hushed confusion as some pale man up near the front starts speaking in tongues. It's hard to tell if he's trying to perform some ritual or just incoherently rambling, but it doesn't matter! Because very quickly there’s a gunshot!!

And the Prophet? He's awake. He knows what that gunshot was. He's been waiting for this.

It has begun.

Of course the entire party breaks out in panic once the gun goes off. Joey doesn't know what sort of Eldritch nonsense was happening up front, but upon scanning the crowd and noticing Jack and Sammy together, beelines for the snack table to grab Henry and search for Susie.

As everyone is being rushed out, some of the boys manage to notice that not all of the panic is simply from the mad ramblings and sudden bullet, but also we've got some people in the crowd bleeding from their eyes. How festive!

Upon getting outside, the Yacht club is of course already being surrounded by security and the police, as the sudden gun shots quickly alerted locals to the nonsense going on. Nobody is allowed to bolt until an investigation is conducted and people are questioned, but of course Joey managed to sweet talk his way over to a telephone to make a very important quick phone call.

To one Peter Sunstram!

Turns out, between all their arguments, there are a few things they can agree on, which includes quietly spying on suspicious parties even though they should probably not be doing that if they actually wanna be safe but surely everyone will understand when they find out IT'S FINE.

Anyways Peter’s been keeping an eye on Y, and earlier in the day Y seemed to be performing some ritual before having some kind of … breakthrough? Revelation? Peter had told Joey of it, and in good faith Joey agreed to keep an eye out for WEIRDNESS, hoping that Y was upholding his promise to not be interfering with JDS anymore. But now this episode seems to have specifically happened, right at their exact event for the evening, so Joey does his best to pass along as much info as he can in that moment to Peter. As well as set up a backup plan in case anything else happens to them before they can escape the Yacht Club.

After some interviews with the police though, they’re allowed to go free. Listening to other partygoers' recollections they’re able to pick up a few more names here and there – the one who fired the gun up front by the bandstand is said to be another local gangster by the name of Johnny Nero, and the band playing on that bandstand one Red Leverett and the Jumps – but no evidence that really points the crew in any sort of serious lead. (including more commentary by Denis wHY ARE YOU STILL HERE UR NOT PART OF THE GROUP)

So having managed to collect everyone together, including Prophet returning Sammy to the front for the interview thank the lord (not that one)(not that one either)(maybe that one) the JDS crew head over to their very safe and secure hide away to talk about what just happened: that’s right, they’re going to Peter’s apartment.

And staying there through midnight! Listen, the last time weird shit started happening like this, everything popped off at midnight and there were panics all around. It’d be nice to know where people were this evening. And while they’re all sitting around waiting for that to pass, Henry and Peter can even talk about the really weird things that happened last night! Yknow, where Henry saw the yellow sign for a moment and Peter felt something watching him from space? Those very normal Christmas activities?

The group also gets informed about how Peter maybe has been keeping an eye on the Y that still hangs out in the city, and how Y was excited over some weird ritual. While he goes over that and also Joey and Peter guiltily kinda admit to their secret spying tendencies, Henry gets info from Linda when he calls to explain why he’s not home yet and how he won’t be home for a little while still. She’s remembered some research that crosses over with the prophecies they had gotten a month or so after the last big event like this. And Jack and Sammy bring up how they had been theorizing over who’s and what’s in the prophecies… for instance, that which the Phantom seeks, who bears already the scars of following the Mender’s lead….

Is it Peter? He followed Jack into the weird ghosty world. Is it Joey? He’s followed the Mender in other ways, and also literally bears scars caused from Jack’s healing. Or is it somehow Y?? Who seems… involved in this somehow, despite promising he wouldn’t be fucking around with stuff that might step on JDS’s toes again.

With no real conclusions, but midnight having come and past, people start to head home. Joey has someone drop him off at the studio, as after weirdness happened with any sort of occult stuff he’s interested in checking in on Bendy and the Stone. Since, those tend to be targets for this kinda creepy thing. Bendy is perfectly fine though, and hardly even noticed anything going on… So Joey picks up some of his notes and… finds himself unable to leave the studio. For some reason it just seems like the wrong idea… so he spends all night up researching, unsettled by how many non-leads he has into what will possibly happen next. It’s starting to feel like Haiti again, knowing that something bad is coming but really having no idea where to fortify with this information.

But he does have something new…

He has plenty of things new now, including his dream spell.

Peter’s not the only one who can spy, and while Joey is sure he’d hit some kind of barrier trying to peek in on Y’s dreams… just knowing whether the man was still alive, or possessed by some eldritch nonsense seemed like a good place to start. Maybe his excitement at the ritual earlier was coincidental…

The thing is, defying all reason, Joey’s able to step into Y’s dream just fine somehow.

This is probably not something he’ll regret doing later, surely.

[Next Episode] (not yet released)

#call of cthulhu: haunted hijinx #joey drew #henry stein #sammy lawrence #jack fain #peter sunstram #bendy the lurker #beans the cat

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inkyvendingmachine · 3 months

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Moving Pieces Season 4, Episode 2

💀 Call of Cthulhu: Haunted Hijinx Masterpost 💀 Call of Cthulhu Season Four Masterpost (Coming Soon)

Warning: This campaign is an edited version of a Call of Cthulhu scenario from the Tales of the Crescent City book. While a lot has been changed, there IS spoilers for it throughout these posts.

The boys are going through a normal one.

Can you tell I recently played Betrayal for the first time,

Art Credit: @inkdemonapologist : sketching + inking @inkyvendingmachine : concept + colouring

Joey wakes up to Sammy bursting into his office and demanding an explanation of why he didn’t come home last night. Bendy happily lets Sammy know that Joey tried to do a dream spell, which just sets him off more. They go back and forth some, Joey confirming that yes, he did that, but he was just trying to see what the general feel of Y was right now… and he doesn’t seem to be like Moonlight had been before. It seems like he’s just… doing his thing, discussing possible options with some dream-version of his sister, and not that he’s specifically scheming or anything.

While they’re doing their usual arguing dance, Sammy is suddenly interrupted by Prophet… urging him not to submit to the call of the yellow king. This is when they both notice that Sammy had actually been going for the ink faucet in Joey's office???

Joey takes this opportunity to turn the argument around on Sammy, asking if Prophet isn’t going for the ink, then why is he being called towards it? IS THE INK GOING BAD?? DID SOMEONE MESS WITH IT AGAIN!?!??

Bendy clarifies that the ink isn��t tainted, but it does seem to be resonating with something nearby… and that Sammy is sensitive to it. Sammy calls Prophet out to confirm this, as well as confirming it’s def yellow king stuff, before fading again. With that as solved as it could be, Sammy heads to Music to catch Jack up on these developments, while Joey goes and info dumps all the same info on Henry. During this he kinda talks himself thru realizing that maybe Y’s sister is not as dead as they expected… since they don’t really know what sorts of immortal properties come from making yourself an ink body.

Joey goes back to his office and gets in contact with Peter to make sure he’s still alive, gives him a command to check in at the end of day and immediately hangs up as Peter is trying to complete a response. Sammy and Jack try to find Norman to get him up to speed, but find he's called out for the day. And of course, he gave some outlandish excuse, so nobody really knows why he’s staying home. Joey calls Norman and, surprisingly, he actually picks up?? Norman admits part of the reason he’s staying home is because he’s noticed some weird shit is happening again. Joey gives him an update, which is cut off by him asking, “So when’s the trip to New Orleans? That’s where it started, right?”

That’s… a good point.

Joey hangs up on Norman and calls Grace Fowler. He plays off the reasoning as wanting to thank her for the holiday gift, and catch up with her daughter Estelle, who’s also interested in catching up with him.

Especially because between an odd dream Estelle had, where her father showed up and told her to both be careful and stay away from New York, and that night of yellow mist, she thinks Joey’s calling because there’s something weird happening. Joey confirms this, he’s not gonna lie to a child that he likes, and manages to learn from her that a strange man had also been asking her about odd happenings recently. Joey asks if he looks like how he remembers Avedon, and Estelle is extremely impressed that he’s exactly right.

So maybe this is why Norman is waiting at home for a call…

Joey promises to send her a present and tells her to keep up the good detective work, along with reinforcing not to worry her mother and stay safe and all that stuff. (the present is going to be a very good quality notebook that he gets Henry’s help to doodle Bendys and Friends on the page margins throughout it, and an engraved pen to go with it.)

Their strongest lead, at least as far as Sammy's concerned, is that weird performance of Sammy's old improv last night -- so with half a day of work done, Jack, Sammy and Susie head out to one of the clubs they remember some of that band from the charity event tends to frequent. They manage to easily get in, being recognized from their speakeasy days and Jack and Susie being their usual charming, talkative selves. People probably tried to talk to Sammy too, but he’s just interested in chatting with the Jumps after their set. Until then, they get to grab some drinks, sit back and actually enjoy the music for a while. It’s actually… kind of nice? No terrible haunted songs being played, no ink spread throughout the city gnawing in the back of Sammy’s head, no gun fire.

When they do get to talk with the band after the show, it’s immediately apparent that the clarinetist from the charity event is not there. That’s… interesting, since Prophet’s prophecy mentioned a “black wood” and Jack has noted that could be slang for a clarinet instead of a forest… Jack does remember some of these fine folks though, and starts off the conversation, only for Sammy to interject during a lull and ask where they got the music from the other night.

Everyone laughs and agrees that Sammy is still Sammy - A whole hecking gunshot weird cultist nonsense goes down and Sam’s here asking about where they sourced their music. Well, to answer that question, yes it came from a guest they were playing with that night, and yes it was the guy playing a mean reed. His name is Alan Leroy, and they’ve got a lot of nice things to say about him that can also be taken in an extremely concerning way, like how he can make sounds come out of his instrument they’ve never heard before.

Yay! That’s exactly the kind of descriptions of musicians we love to hear about!!!

Jack manages to get the information for where Alan lives, along with some of his friends. Sammy is content with this and attempts to head to the door (in entirely the wrong direction) while Jack winds down the conversation… finding out that also they haven’t been able to contact Al since the other night. He’s probably at home??? But he seemed so shaken up by that guy yelling nonsense at him…

Jack and Susie catch up to Sammy to lead him to the right door, but when Sammy opens it, it… IS the right door? Susie thinks so at least, but it seems odd to Jack, who thinks that they definitely entered through a different door, and Sammy isn’t sure what to think. Things like this haven't been reliable for him for an exceedingly long time, and he can't tell if this door is any different. Something might really be wrong if Prophet’s navigational skills are working with him and not against him…………

But outside, everything seems chill. Normal… Susie even thinks this is the same door, but Jack is very sure they were not on this block earlier. And when he turns to head back to the car, he notices a certain unmoving, pale face in a different car passing down the road. And it’s looking right at him.

Joey and Henry do a tour to check in with people after work, starting with Peter. He’s gotten in contact with his old paper and confirms the weird mist was down in NOLA. He also talked with the police and got confirmation that the shot was fired by some gangster named Johnny Nero, and some places they could look into to find out more about him.

Oh and also there was this weird guy. Peter saw him across the street during lunch, unnaturally pale, dark suit… but he didn’t get to see much more before he just up and vanished. Just a wee bit odd fella, that’s all.

Neither Joey nor Henry are feeling good about this info.

Maybe it’s time to install the buddy system again.

Joey also ends up just calling Norman instead of stopping by, from Peter’s phone of course, and updating him on what’s been going on, as well as asking him if HE knows what’s Avedon up to. Norman says he hasn’t been able to get ahold of him, but it’s good to know he’s out and about.

The other three meet up with them at Peter’s place late that night and updates are had all around. We keep splitting up so you’re gonna hear that sentence a lot this season I feel. This is what happens when our DM has given us multiple NPCs we enjoy so we keep forcing her to take them along with us. c:

Anyways, between all these comparisons, Joey is starting to think that maybe their previous experiences in Carcosa-like situations in NOLA is perhaps giving them a different view of events than say, Susie, who’s very sure that the door they left out of was the same they went in. With this information in hand and a pretty good inkling that apparently things are moving around and there’s a weird pale guy following them, the boys decide they want to go and try to talk with that Alan guy tonight.

Arriving at a pretty nice house in a pretty nice neighborhood, the boys all shuffle out of their new fancy red Mercedes to go wake Mr. Leroy up in the middle of the night. Instead they get his… butler? Who is not too happy about our middle of the night bothering. After some standard Joeying Up, he admits that Alan hasn’t been home for a few days, but also that’s not unusual. He can give us some information of friends Al usually stays with and stuff, and Joey hands over a number to be called if he returns home soon. (A number for a second phone line he got installed over the last year. It goes directly to his office and is listed under an alias, specifically for situations like this where maybe he doesn’t want to lead every gangster and cultist back to JDS right away.)

While Joey is doing his Joey thing, the others start hearing a lady around the side of the house chatting excitedly. Perhaps in a conversation with a beloved? But it seems to be just one side of it… like, WEIRDLY seems to be just one side of a conversation.

The group heads out from the house, around the corner and finds… the car isn’t there. However, there is another Mercedes up the street. Almost the same exact car, just parked somewhere different and now a stunning new colour!

It’s brown.

(well i guess they were out of blue ones.)

After closer inspection, they confirm that it is indeed their car. This is just a wee bit disorienting, and while four boys puzzle over this, Henry tiredly notices that apparently a lady has wandered up to him in the meanwhile. She takes his arm and starts talking about how she’s looking forward to when he gets his own ship, and when they sail away to spend their life together.

Henry just mumbles back “I’m married..?”

Jack and Sammy recognize her as the lady they heard earlier. Joey feels like he’s on the edge of remembering something about her, but none of them actually know who she is so. Uh.

TIME TO LEAVE.

Everyone awkwardly shuffles into the car, since it seems about as safe as anything else around them now, and drive off as the lady continues to monologue and wave Henry into the distance.

Joey asks Jack to drive directly away from the water, and watches the car as they move out of the mist.

It’s still brown.

(also Joey is still taking the middle seat as he usually does, he’s just leaning over Sammy to stare out the window.)

While they could head out to the other addresses in the middle of the night, it’s starting to feel not very safe to be split up and looking for clues with these sorts of changes happening. They pull over and Henry makes a phone call to Linda, telling her he’s not heading home tonight since it feels like eldritch nonsense may or may not be following them, and they’re gonna stay in the studio tonight. He also sees… a familiar pale face in a black suit… reflected in the glass of the phone booth… but of course, when he turns, it’s gone. The group makes their way to Norman’s, wanting to check on him and Susie in case they’re actually getting Carcosa’d.

When they get there though, Norman and Susie seem to be perfectly fine, and don’t understand why Joey is insisting on them looking at the car. It seems to Norman a very odd midnight activity, to have him look at their new paint job.

Susie’s confused. Paint job? It’s always been brown.

Welp. That seems to confirm the suspicions. Whatever’s going on, it seems only those who touched Carcosa in some way have been able to tell that things are different. Anyone else is seeing these changes as if that reality had been true from the start. Susie isn’t pleased about being kicked out of the Oddly Affected Club (or the Oddly Unaffected Club?), but it is nice to have someone they can get reality checks from. Joey states they’re gonna go back to the studio for the night, but Norman declines the invitation. He’s still waiting for a call.

Alrighty, good luck with that.

The group gets back to the studio and starts pulling some cots out of storage, Jack sits down with Lurks and chats some, while Joey goes and starts to prepare a dream spell. When Henry questions him on this, he talks about wanting to try and reach out to Fowler?? Like… up until now, they had been running with the idea that Fowler wasn’t able to be communicated with at all. But if he reached out to his family through their dreams… then maybe Joey can reach out to him in his?

Henry offers to help, because he’s actually had dreams and communication with Fowler in the past, and they both have a sort of understanding with each other. Joey can’t deny that it’d probably work better than him trying on his own, so he sets up the spell for Henry.

And Henry finds himself in a very misty dream. There’s really nothing to see, except three lit corridors going off in different directions… Henry calls out to Fowler, and sort of hears someone in the distance call back? So instead of walking into any of the lit areas, he follows the voice into the fog, and calls out once again, letting Fowler know it’s Henry…

And suddenly, from all around, a very loud booming voice shakes Henry to the core, telling him to get his family out of New York, before it’s too late.

Henry sits up from Joey’s lap and immediately goes for the phone, saying he’s sorry, he didn’t get much information but he needs to call Linda. Telling Joey what he heard as he dials, a freshly awoken Linda gets an exceedingly serious sounding Henry telling her to get the kids packed up and get out of New York ASAP. of course, her first question is about whether or not he’s coming too.

“No.”

“How do you know you’re going to be safe then?”

“I’m not.”

JOEY SNATCHES THE PHONE FROM HENRY,

and gives her an actual explanation of the situation. Something’s following them, tied to Henry, they’re trying to get it untied from them but the longer Linda and the kids stay in New York the more likely they might also get wrapped up in it which will be worse for everyone, Henry included. He’s not doing any dumb sacrificial bullshit, and Joey promises he will do everything in his power to keep Henry safe.

She knows he wouldn’t let anything happen to Henry if he could prevent it.

With that all actually said, Joey hands Henry the phone back, and he’s able to apologize for being dramatic instead of informative. With a soft I love you exchange, Henry hangs up.

And he goes and gives Joey a hug.

[Next Episode] (not yet released)

#call of cthulhu: haunted hijinx #joey drew #henry stein #jack fain #sammy lawrence #peter sunstram #norman polk #susie campbell #the prophet #they're all here in the text also yes i promise i am going easier on the thumbnails this time round #look it's not fully fully coloured

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