BoyBandsEpisode2

Episode Two: The Dead Hate the Living's Singing

When we last left our...protagonists, they were resting up after the big concert at Gethamane. As this session opens a few days later, the boys are called into the rehearsal room to meet with the Tour Manager. Joshi takes the opportunity to hit on one of the Indifferent Musicians, who he has decided must be female. "She" remains indifferent, and Joshi fails in his attempt to peek under the ninja-mask.

Asaimizu: "Dude, that's a *guy*.

Joshi: "No way. Besides, I think she's starting to come around."

When they gather, the TM explains that the next engagement will be a bit more difficult. They'll be performing in a Shadowland neighborhood of Chiaroscuro, for a mostly-Dead audience. The spectacular lightshow they put on last time would be inappropriate at best, and turn the audience into ash at worst.

This is a problem. Smoldering Embers has the "Beacon of Power" Flaw. You know, the one where all your Essence is Peripheral. This means he's going to have to go through the whole concert without using any Charms!

The boys try to wrap what brains they have around the concept of "subtle" while the TM goes on to inform them that there's something of a religious war going on in Gethamane - their fans are fighting in the streets with the fans of The Oncoming Storm, who *also* put on a spectacular performance in that city.

Asaimizu: "*muttermutter* talentless hacks *muttermutter*"

The band gets down to work. They quickly decide to write a new song called "Your Love Will Be the Death of Me", about how true love can overcome death and persevere even in the Underworld. Embers, Windsong, and Joshi get started composing while Asaimizu heads for the Wardrobe to look for appropriate costumes.

After adding up successes, the song is musically good, but not as catchy as the group's debut single, "You Are the Scarlet Empress of My Heart". Lyrically, however, the new song is *way* better than the first one - but there's a catch.

A2K took the "Unbidden Oracle" and "Throwback" flaws when she made Windsong. We had already decided that the Oracle would manifest occasionally through his lyrics. I further decided that the Oracle would be filtered through his alternate Throwback personality - a devout, uptight, intolerant Immaculate nun who committed suicide shortly after Exalting as a Solar.

So. The song is brilliantly written - but it contains a section about how reincarnation is the only proper result of death and that lingering as a ghost is an abomination before the Elemental Dragons. The boys decide the song will fall apart without that part and cross their fingers, hoping to get points for being "controversial."

Meanwhile, Asaimizu has rolled a bunch of successes while hunting through the Wardrobe and found the *perfect* costumes - outfits made out of black leather straps with silver buckles (making the wearer look like a black leather mummy) complete with voluminous black capes with huge black feathered collar/epaulette thingies. He chooses knee-high, low-heeled boots for himself, while picking out thigh-high platformy KISS boots for the other three boys, hoping to make his own dancing skills stand out more.

After lots of rehearsing, the Airship of Love arrives at Chiaroscuro, just after sunset. The boys have a day to scout the area...and the competition.

So the group goes down to street level, finding themselves on a dark, dilapidated avenue. The only source of light is a nearby tavern - "Memories" - lit by flickering corpseflames.

They go in and announce that "We're the band," and the entire bar - ghosts, sickly shadowlanders, and a few zombie barstaff - stare at them. After a few tense moments, a good-looking young man appears and leads them into the back, trading some barbs with Asaimizu while Embers tries to be diplomatic. The PCs never got this guy's name - he refused to answer when Asaimizu asked because he found him irritating, and no-one else asked - but it was the Black Tiger Who Haunts the Forest of the Night. Yeah, he was a Midnight.

Embers finagles permission to go meet the band's opponents, a group called PYRE. On the way to the stage, they pass by several dressing rooms, seeing their own room and rooms labeled "Black Jade" and "LOOKSHY."

They reach the area where they'll be performing. It's small - this is a club gig, not a stadium performance - and the stage is surrounded by moaning, writhing Soulsteel chickenwire. "Sometimes the crowd gets a little rough," the deathknight explains.

The boys meet PYRE, who are rehearshing a dance sequence. The band consists of two ghosts - twin brothers - and two Nemissaries, who Asaimizu, with his funerist's training, figures are in their own corpses. There's a bit of pseudopolite back-and-forth (Windsong demonstrates his utter lack of tact) and Joshi gets progressively more and more creeped out by the Dead. He asks if there's anything to drink, and the Black Tiger points out the nearby bar - fully-stocked with a wide variety of blood. Joshi gets even more squicked, and becomes convinced that the Nemissaries are sizing him up for a snack.

The boys retreat to their dressing room, which is barely big enough for the four of them to fit in together. There's a bit of brainstorming - we need a prop coffin! - and Joshi indicates his extreme need to be elsewhere and intoxicated. They decide to split up - Joshi and Windsong will head out into the living portion of the city to stock up on booze, while Embers and Asaimizu will travel to a nearby mortuary to purchase a tricked-out coffin for the show.

Windsong and Joshi cross over the salt line into an extremely nice neighborhood, and are immediately accosted by a spirit who takes the form of a sweet little old lady who demands to know what they're up to. They've wandered into Grandmother Bright's domain. After they explain who they are and why they're there, she leads them to a very nice little tavern and plies them with home-baked cookies, eventually guilting them into promising that the band will come back after the contest and do a free performance for her residents. "And *do* eat another macaroon, sweetheart, you're far too thin. And Joshi, dearie, eat some more peanuts if you're going to drink that much. Grandmother knows best."

Meanwhile, Asaimizu and Embers are not having nearly so pleasant a time. They make it to the mortuary and meet the proprieter (played by Angus Scrimm, the Tall Man from the Phantasm movies). He's not happy to see them, but lets them in when he hears they are in the market for a coffin. They find a great one - all gothy and spiky with wrought iron - but it's very expensive and neither of them are great at haggling. Asaimizu decides to perform the Husband-Seducing Demon's Dance to get the coffin at a steep discount.

He proceeds to give the Tall Man a lapdance (1-die Stunt!). Unfortunately, Embers is watching as well, and is gripped by lust for his bandmate (Isaac had some *great* facial expressions here). The Tall Man gives them the coffin for free, and promises to be in the front row at the performance the next night. Embers then possessively drags Asaimizu out and back to the Airship of Love, where he runs back to his room to, er, think about things until the Charm wears off.

Embers: "We will never speak of this again."

Joshi and Windsong, liquored up and laden with a picnic basket full of sweets and snacks, make it back as well, and there's some more rehearsing and witty banter before the boys retire for the night.

Okay, so it's performance day, and the sun is setting. The band heads down to Memories, this time going in the stage door in back, and throwing some pointed remarks at "Smoldering Members" about "going in the back door."

As they are going in, another band is leaving, looking rather disgusted. Some of the boys are aware enough to notice that these good-looking young men bear the marks of high-Breeding Dragon-Blooded, but they pass by each other without incident (if this was a movie, the shot where they walk past each other nonchalantly would be in slow motion and probably shown from a couple angles).

Inside, they wait in their "dressing room". They ask for some chairs, and a couple zombies deliver some barstools, freaking Joshi out again. After waiting for a bit, the Black Tiger appears to lead them to the stage. There's some catty interplay between the Abyssal (who lets his caste mark bleed a bit) and Asaimizu, but Embers is as usual shmoozy and calms things down.

Onstage, PYRE is performing. (Music played at this point for the players: "Venus", by FLAME) The Dead are dancing nicely, but not harmonizing very well - but they do have cool special effects, including a ghostly glow and an illusion of a vast orchestra of skeletons playing behind them. The audience loves their hometown champions, and both judges seem pleased with the performance.

Black Tiger sneers as he introduces "the challengers, WA HA HA." No-one applauds.

The Indifferent Musicians march on with the group, playing a dirge. Some of them are acting as Indifferent Pallbearers, carrying the coffin aquired the previous night. Center stage, Windsong "dies" and falls back into the coffin, activating Phantom-Conjuring Performance and sending his "ghost" up through the lid, singing the song's first verse.

Embers is acting as a "priest", conducting the funeral, while Asaimizu does a popular southern mourning dance. Joshi, meanwhile, has activated a Charm and vanished from sight (he practices Air Dragon Style) and proceeds to flit around the stage, providing invisible ghostly voices here and there.

I know I'm forgetting some stuff here, so the players should feel free to fill in. ^_^

Embers is relying on his massive natural dice pool and Hearthstone help to sing his heart out. Asaimizu at some point climbs up onto the Soulsteel chickenwire and starts writhing against it. Windsong's "ghost" is dancing on the barbed coffin lid, feet "bleeding" onto it artistically.

Things get a bit iffy when the "controversial" lyrics come up. The audience begins to growl angrily. The boys push on, lifting the coffin onto its end and opening the lid, revealing a second "lid" underneath - a set of bars, which Windsong uses to do the equivalent of a cage dance (coffin dance?). He's throwing himself against the bars, as if trying to escape death and be reunited with his lover, and Joshi re-appears centerstage for his guitar solo, wailing like the souls of the damned.

Asaimizu throws up some more dance charms. Embers decides to try a stunt, going up to the chickenwire and pointing his Boomstick at the audience just past it, trying to incorporate their groaning into the song and harmonize with it. The stunt works, but in an unpleasant way - the angry growling intensifies and spreads.

Windsong throws himself at the barred coffin lid one last time, covering himself with an illusion of his body ripping to shreds and passing through the bars, as Joshi collapses on stage, writhing on his back and playing the final few chords of the song.

The Indifferent Musicians grab the props and skedaddle. The boys gather on the side of the stage closest to the exit, while PYRE comes on from the other side, looking *really* pissed.

Black Tiger enters, ready to announce the contest results.

A zombie shuffles up with a slip of paper. The deathknight receives it and smirks. "The audience votes for...PYRE."

The boys groan. They need to win two out of the three votes. The audience has voted against them, so they need to get both judges' votes - and one of the judges is a ghost (the other is a rather sickly-looking human).

The living judge rises. "I vote for WA HA HA" he says, then cringes as the audience moans its displeasure. The Black Tiger shoots him a look like "later for you" and then smiles as he waits for the final vote, from "the mayor of our little community."

The Dead judge rises. Everyone who can still breathe is holding his breath. The boys are sure they've lost (and from the looks on the players' faces, they thought so too). "I'm sorry to disappoint people," the ghost says as he looks at Our Heroes, "But I have to vote truthfully. I thought WA HA HA's song was beautiful, and so I vote for them."

Chaos ensues.

As the boys register that they've won, the Dead slam into the chickenwire, which buckles under the weight of the mob. The judges both disappear under a swarm of rapidly shapeshifting ghosts.

PYRE, across the stage from the band, isn't so impeded. Both Nemissaries lurch across the stage, while one ghost begins to glow more brightly and the other opens its mouth, vomiting up a flood of inky blackness.

Joshi is in the wings already. "Let's go!" Windsong has whipped out his flute and extended it to staff-size, while Asaimizu neatly parries the first Nemissary's fist with his Jade Razor Claw, slicing off the corpse's hand. Embers tries to use his Mob-Dispersing Rebuke charm, but it only sends the few surviving humans fleeing. Embers: "Now we run."

They exit, stage right. Embers is flaring his Zenith anima to try to hold the dead back, and as they make it out onto the street the light attracts more Shadowlands residents. The boys hare off for the gondola that will carry them back up to the Airship of Love - at the far end of the street.

Halfway there they look back, and see not only the ghosts and zombies in hot pursuit, but a flood of vermin - rats, snakes, and cockroaches. A few hasty Athletics rolls later, and they are all safely aboard the gondola, barely shutting the door as the torrent of vermin smashes into it. There's a microsecond of relief before all four guys realize they're not moving yet and simultaneously dive for the "recall" pull-chain.

A few zombie hands punch through the floor as they are lifted up, but Embers zaps them with Zenith-mojo while the others frantically dance and stomp.

Safely back on the ship, the Tour Manager scowls disapprovingly at Embers. "I thought we were being *subtle* this time." He's mollified when he hears that the boys won, and encourages them to rest up (and enjoy the relaxing-by-comparison freebie concert for Grandmother Bright's neighborhood the next day).

Next stop: Coral, and an engagement with Black Jade, singers who are also pirates.

Wait, pirates?

TM: "Yes, they're an offshoot of some family or other...I can never remember the name..."

PCs, in unison: "The LINTHA?"

TM: "Oh yes, that's it."

Roll credits. End, episode two.