The PCs:
- Julianne, a computer whiz who fell on hard times and had to take a “temporary” job at All-Mart over a year ago.
- CC, an obnoxiously upbeat new-agey internet personality and crystal collector.
- Darian, a full-time computer science student on top of his All-Mart job, also with a curiosity about the occult.
- Star (joined this session), a washed-up, self-aggrandizing grifter.
It's been a week and a day since the altercation with the squatter, and there's still no further sign of him. John remains convinced he's still in the store, though, and has been present more than usual.
Star moved from the day shift to the night shift, joining the PCs. She spent all day moving hundreds of free samples, which the higher management insists all be fed to customers TODAY. She and the day shift fed 226 of these unpleasantly chewy, off-white cubes to customers, noting strange effects in many who eat more than one. Any time they disposed of a cube without feeding it to a customer, even if they ate it themselves, it reappeared on the tray. By the night shift, seven are left. They taste like chalk dipped in easy cheese.
The free samples,courtesy of Kristina, Darian's player
On her way to work, CC buys coffee for herself and her coworkers
at the nearest Dunkin, like she does every week. The barista, who turns out to
be a fan of hers by the name of Tyler, makes some weird comment about her being
“naught but a commodity, mint in box” and then denies having said this, and is confused
why CC insists he did. CC talks Tyler into giving her a dozen glazed donuts for
free. Later, due to a botched roll to call her fans in to eat the free samples,
CC gets cancelled online because she blew Tyler a kiss on the
way out of the Dunkin, which is deemed “predatory” as he's only seventeen.
As Julianne tries to show Star her process for stocking shelves and Star ineffectually bosses her around, they discover new exostock: an instructional 80s VHS tape titled “Overcoming Disembowelment and Other Setbacks”, starring a celebrity they’ve never heard of, Rodney Nimrod.
Meanwhile, Darian, even more sleep deprived than usual as finals loom for his fall semester, gets called into John’s office. John explains that he believes shapeshifters are taking over the government and that one of them impersonated CC last week and broke into his office, stealing exostock. He demands Darian keep a close eye on his shiftmates, and, noticing Darian’s fatigue, insists he take a pill from his shirt pocket without explaining what it is.
Tonight’s customers (most of whom are pressured into eating sandwiches containing the free samples) include the new father, now incredibly paranoid but still needing diapers and formula, Mr. Smith, arriving arm-in-arm with the weird lady from last session (henceforth dubbed “Mrs. Smith”), and a sleazy guy named Vince accompanied by a hulking, quiet bruiser of a woman who wears a crucifix.
Unbeknownst to the other PCs, Vince has contacted Julianne through her old job’s Slack channel, though she doesn’t remember working with him. He offered her a job and claimed he new a way for her to quit from All-Mart, so when he arrives, she agrees to talk with him in private in the employee break room. The woman with Vince, who he calls Marie, blocks the entrance as Vince covers Julianne’s mouth and nose and casually explains that they want her to start collecting all the exostock she can and bringing it to a drop point after work, and that they will kill her if she doesn’t comply. Julianne manages to take this in stride. CC, concerned by Vince’s casual misogyny, follows them to the break room but gets distracted and doesn’t notice Marie follow them inside. She remains oblivious to the nature of their interaction.
John sneaks out of the store with an envelope, looking really suspicious, but no one confronts him. After the most pressing tasks of the night shift are done, the PCs get together to watch the “Overcoming Disembowelment” tape, with only Julianne able to figure out how to set up the all-in-one media player the store carries. The tape just shows static, however, along with occasional frames of upsetting and violent content. As the night winds on, Darian has been getting more and more wired and excited by John’s pill. Julianne, per Vince’s instructions, tells none of the other PCs about his demands.
Julianne buys a pack of gum, hoping to "count as a customer" and then eats two of the remaining three free samples, and she keeps them down but becomes filled with a sense of foreboding. Shortly after, while she is manning a register, her fingers get caught in the checkout conveyor belt in a freak accident, mangling her pinky. Before Vince and Marie leave, Star tries to get them to eat the last sample, but Vince just wants to pocket it “for later”. He and Star end up flirting and it’s just awful, but when she insists he eat the sample, he becomes enraged. John returns and they get into a shouting match, with John brandishing his handgun. Vince threatens to sic Marie on the employees, but she whispers something in his ear and he backs off. Marie eats the last sample begrudgingly and the pair leaves.
By this point Darian is crashing from whatever John gave him. Star tries and fails to get a reaction from Mr. Smith, who appears utterly emotionless, and who Mrs. Smith shepherds away repeatedly. The Smiths spend a good chunk of the night rooting through the appliance section for something specific, to no avail.
After work, Darian falls asleep in his car. CC and Star smoke outside for a bit, and notice a strange man standing alone in the parking lot. Star chases him down, and he ends up calling John, who shepherds the man away, apologizing for the PCs’ behavior. Julianne sneaks off and walks a mile into the woods with the exostock she could gather, including a copy of the VHS tape, and leaves it at the drop point as instructed. Vince, still peeved from being shut down by Star earlier, insults Julianne from the shadows as she returns to the parking lot, and collects the exostock.
Objective progress: 0% -> 8% (I gave them a minor milestone for Julianne getting what little information she did from Vince and Marie).
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