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Stop Trying To Poach JDS Employees They Already Have A Job Playing Music For All Eternity They Don’t Need A Cult Membership For That Season 3, Episodes 7

💀 Call of Cthulhu: Haunted Hijinx Masterpost 💀 🎶 Call of Cthulhu Season Three Masterpost 🎶

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

hi.

I had fun this episode.

:)

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.

Sammy and Jack have been thrown into some kind of very cold truck and driven off into the night. Peter has been able to keep up with them well enough, tracking the truck back to some restaurant where it looks like they’re going to hold the two for now. Or… do something to them there. Not the original place they had headed out to, oddly enough, but that didn’t mean they had any more time than before. Somewhere along this ride the boys managed to wake up some and even talk with Peter… Sammy included. The detective passes along a simple plan from Joey, which Sammy confirms that he was let in on already when Joey visited his dream, as well as an instruction to stall for as long as possible, before he hightails it back to his body to call up Joey and let him know where the music boys are being kept.

Meanwhile, said boys are finally escorted out of the truck, and the first question they’re met with is, “Aren’t you two composers?”

Sammy gives an off-handed “Sure,” but doesn’t really respond more than that. Neither of them are very aware right now, as they have just been pulled out of a pitch black refrigerator truck into a bright enough lit room that they’re thoroughly disorientated. Saxophone backs them up though, insisting of their skill. (He is not looking too hot after what Joey did to him before though.

Of course, words alone aren't gonna cut it, so Sammy and Jack are given the opportunity to prove their compositional skill. And... Sammy knows he'll be a lot better at stalling with music than words, so, with a small upright piano already in the room, he just goes and does what he does best: He plays music. He composes songs that have been digging their way into his head and plays them with such amazing skill that the entire room, filled with musicians, gangsters and even waitstaff, stops what they’re doing to just listen and stare. Jack is able to keep up with a borrowed violin, though takes Sammy’s amazing performance to try and scout for more info: he notices that a cultist who was showing up with… what looks like might have been a yellow book is waved off. The man in the room who’s dressed up the nicest kind of looks related to Y, but also is older. Perhaps the father we had heard about. And there’s only two exits; out some large garage doors, or through a different pair of heavy doors into an unknown building.

Sammy continues playing. He does not stop playing. He’s got them entranced, might as well make a distraction out of it. Also… it’s a nice distraction for himself too.

Meanwhile, Joey has gotten the information from Peter about the restaurant the boys are apparently being held at, including an idea of the layout. He tells Peter to meet him there, and instructs him to dress closely to what the wait staff look like, if he can. If he can’t… well uh,,, dress nice then! We need to at least get you through the door. Meanwhile, he likewise gets Henry dressed up, including concealing a gun on his person, and then calls up Allison to ask her to go, uh, somewhere completely different.

Basically, he now knows Y has the address of the last known place the three girls were staying. He needs Allison to get there first, beat them to the address and recover anything she possibly can. Or even better, warn the girls if they’re still there. But also like, if Joey doesn’t call her back in a few hours uh maybe can you swing by this place downtown and make sure we’re not all captured by the mafia? Great fantastic okay byeeeee,

The boys (Henry, Peter, and a Joey+Bendy combo) head to the restaurant. Peter is… over dressed for wait staff, but dressed well enough. Except for his hair. Joey fixes that.

The three manage to get in rather easily and grab a seat at a table, as Joey uses his words to talk the wait staff around into thinking they’re just some lucky dudes celebrating their success that night. Once sat down, he even orders a round of drinks and some appetizers, making sure the staff is clear of the table before starting to give his plan.

Basically, he’s going to make a big distraction. When that starts, Henry and Peter are going to do their best to blend in with the wait staff or use the confusion and slip to the back. Henry will go first since he can actually blend in somewhat, Peter will follow once there’s a grand amount of confusion started because it’s more likely he can just push past. And if everything is successful, Joey should be able to join them quickly. But if not, just grab Sammy and Jack and get the hell out of there. He can force his way out if he needs to.

While explaining all this, the trio notice the very well dressed man who looks related to Y make his way through the building and out into the street, followed by some lackeys. Alright, they don’t have much time left if someone like THAT feels like he’s no longer needed here.

With plan in place, Joey snatches up the untouched alcoholic drinks on the table, one in each hand, and puts on his mask. Playing the part of someone who might have already had too many drinks, he starts circling the room demanding why such a beautiful stage set up of instruments is being left so empty. What they need is some live music! Surely there’s a musician in here, a singer? Anyone? 

He starts pushing drinks into people's hands and drumming on tables and humming beats to popular songs… and it works. People can’t help but get into the music, anyone who’s even slightly musically inclined currently has a compulsion to follow along. Joey gets people dancing, singing, just covering all the bases, and soon has a musical riot at his fingertips.

With the staff scrambling to get the situation under control, Henry manages to slip to the back no problem and find the garage where Sammy is still playing his music. While he managed to visually blend in, when it comes to acting, he falls a bit short, usually more reliant on Joey being around to do the talking. Other staff show up and, without realizing it, back him up Henry’s claims; informing the band members that there's a whole musical shebang breaking out up front, and their instruments perhaps have been taken over by that crowed. It manages to get the room is cleared out down to the two music boys, Saxophone and one other mafia lackey… and Henry is on the chopping block again, with Saxophone is getting suspicious about why he’s still here.

It doesn’t help that maybe he wasn’t warned about the guy’s face melting off and reacted… not great to seeing that for the first time.

Peter is also able to sneak back in all the hustle, and once Joey feels like he has something that’s going to last started, he starts sneaking around to the back as well. The two make it to the heavy metal doors, looking out the window just in time to see Henry being approached by Saxophone… and not in the nicest of ways.

As soon as the melted man reaches out to grab Henry, rather sure now that he is NOT actually part of their cult, Sammy hits the most horrible chord he can on the piano and goes to jump up and punch the guy, though whiffs and is pushed to the side–

As Joey takes the musical beat as his cue to burst through the doors, immediately transforming into some new demonic version of Bendy’s original lurkery forms, but sculpted by Joey’s overactive imagination and new attachment to the stone… an ink demon, you could call it.

Nobody is uh, happy with this actually except for Joey and Bendy. But he does manage to get between Henry and the other guy while the rest of the group loses a good cut of sanity from seeing Joey transform into a monster of a toon. Of course, Saxophone isn’t pleased about this either, and when Joey goes to attack him, he manages to ink his way onto Joey instead, somehow pushing his goopy arms into Joey’s shoulders and starting to infect him with Yellow. Henry pulls out his gun and attempts to threaten him, but he really doesn’t seem to care. Okay, good to know. Gun might not do anything to these… yellow ink musicians…The other lackey that was still in the room is thoroughly not into Gun, and scooting towards the doors heading out through the front though! Basically just have Saxophone and his weird infectious Yellow to deal with now!

Sammy and Jack are joined by a Peter, and they run over to one of the garage doors to try and get it open. Jack struggles with it at first but gets the mechanical pull working. Sammy yells at the others to follow, let’s get out of here already! Peter has the locations of the cars so he can guide them and they start making their escape, though they’re distracted with the fight Joey and Saxophone are still mixed up in. Joey decides he’s no longer interested in playing with this man, and attempts to splat him with his claws.

And that’s exactly what happens. He turns into nothing but a yellow puddle on the ground, and the Ink Demon maniacally laughs at it, declaring how they should have listened before and to not touch what’s his.

AS ONE MIGHT EXPECT. NONE OF THE OTHER BOYS. ARE UHH DOING GOOD WITH THIS EITHER. 

Nor are they doing well with watching Joey melt back down into person shape while chasing to catch up to them. But with the door crinkled down behind them, and the last goon having run off, they manage to run out into the muggy night. Joey and Bendy manage to slip back down into a person-shaped form before they exit the shadows of the alleys, Henry scoops him up as he immediately starts to falter in keeping up with the rest of the group, and they get back to the cars unfollowed… and soon they’re all safe back to JDS.

Except… those wounds, from the claws, on Joey and Sammy? Do not look well. They look very yellow. And Joey is not doing well, suffering from the extreme pain the entire ride home curled up in the back over the music boys, biting into his sleeve to keep himself from crying or screaming in pain. Sammy ends up finding his mask and putting it back on during the ride, as well as info dumping in more and more incoherent rambling about the yellow king things they learned tonight.

Back at the studio, Jack attempts to help the boys… but he’s not doing too hot himself. Looking at Joey’s wounds, he manages to do a pretty good job at patching him up while he’s lying curled up on a cot. But perhaps this is only because he knows he can’t do too much to Joey right now. Bendy manages a pretty quick pop out of Joey, and also has some marks on his arms… but isn’t hearing music or feeling things to the extent that the other boys are?? So uh. Shrug, probably fine. Sammy on the other hand is now being haunted by this music once more… the wound isn’t super bad actually other than the Yellow, and Jack ends up thinking that maybe he can get some of the Yellow out of him? It’s a much smaller wound and, and Sammy’s arms are so important he needs those to work, getting it out now might be better in the long run…

…

It doesn’t go well. Sammy eventually gets a bandage, but his arm is perhaps more torn up than it was before… and there’s still yellow in it.

Joey has now had enough time to recover that he’s able to… talk. He gets Henry to call Allison and check in, let her know they are actually not captured by the Mafia. She’s managed to stop by the address he gave her, and has… quite a lot of stuff to talk about, but is also in no condition to chat tonight. Which is fine, neither is Joey. They’ll talk in the morning.

Also, if all the Yellow is still really in their heads in the morning, Sammy is going to ask if Henry can try and purify them like he did with the sign before… Or perhaps ask Prophet to see what he knows. It has been a while since they last talked with him…

Peter and Henry start to get themselves collected up to head out. Jack and Sammy talk about heading back to Jack’s place, but Joey refuses to leave the studio. After putting so much of himself into the Stone, he needs to be near it to be at his full mental strength. He is thoroughly convinced if he steps out of the one place where he has the entirety of his mind, he’s not going to be himself anymore, that the Yellow will seep in and take him over completely. Jack and Sammy end up staying with him, in his hidden room behind his office, where a proper bed has been made for all his late nights at work. Radio in background, lights left on, Sammy only manages to get to sleep because Joey promises to perform the dream spell and try to make sure they don’t completely suffer the entire night.

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