Episode 12: Spookaroo Special, The Haunted Bakery Part 1


 * WooOOOoo! It's Spookaroo in Fantasy Australia and our heroes are about to embark on their spoopiest adventure yet! Can they survive the horror's in Gunnacarkit's Haunted Bakery and lift the curse? Or will they mess up again and embarrass us all? Either way, it's one of our greatest stories yet! It's Dungeons and Dragons meets Australia meets Halloween meets assorted meats... in a pie! Did I mention WooOOOOooooO!?

Synopsis
It is the end of the tenth month of the year, spring, and preparations are beginning for Spookaroo. Wenzo insists the group celebrate their first Spookaroo together, sets up a barbecue and encourages Gadai, McKenzie and Plank to wear costumes. Plank insults people using a Ouija board, while Gadai has filled bowls with spiders, snakes and eyeballs and is refusing to explain where they came from.

Gadai notices an unseasonable thick mist filling the clearing, while Plank realises it is growing cold. The Ouija board planchette explodes, and the group all hears a staticky, indistinct through their Chatterpillars saying, "Save us. Help us. Solve the mystery, save the town. Ask for Shirley." McKenzie attempts to magically dissipate the mist, and Plank attacks it, but it only seems to thicken. Wenzo tells them to go to the town whose lights appear through the mist.

Arriving in the town, Gunnacarkit, they find wary and hiding townsfolk and a statue to local baker Solomon Brumby which has not been cared for and across which the word THIEF has been painted. They find a pair of wrought iron gates with SB in them, and find the young woman Charlotte laying flowers outside the gates in memory of her great-uncle Richard Dickson who disappeared at the bakery. She slips away before they can ask her further questions.

As the three enter the run-down bakery, the door locks itself behind them, and lights turn on around them leading towards another door. They follow the lights to a bathroom, where the mirror says "For a good time, say Shirley into the mirror three times". Plank does so, and a screaming middle-aged woman with a slashed-up face presses against the mirror. Plank recognises the urban legend Sausageface Shirley, who begs them to solve the mystery of the bakery and find Solomon Brumby's treasure from his office. She explains that Brumby, owner of the bakery, abused and stole ideas from his workers before they mysteriously 'disappeared'. They hear retching from the bathroom stall and approach to find the ghost of a young dwarf woman vomiting. She asks them to leave, and they do so.

The lights in the main room now lead to Brumby's office, which McKenzie unlocks using the Chime of Opening. There is a large chest in the centre of the room, with eight dull gems on the lid, and on the floor in front of the desk is the twisted and frightened-looking mummified corpse of Solomon Brumby. McKenzie looks through the Sober Goggles to see that the chest is moving or alive, and the group attacks from a distance. As it is damage, the chest reveals itself to be a Mimic.

The group readies to attack again, only for Shirley to appear in the mirror and tell them to stop, or the treasure will be lost. A Magic Mouth appears on the bust of Solomon Brumby in the room, and confirms Shirley's words. He gloats about his intelligence and explains that to open the chest, they must speak the full true names of the eight people who invented the products which made him rich. They retrieve a scroll from his body which lists sausage rolls, finger buns, doughnut balls, bear claws, brownies, mini quiche, spotted dick, and fairy bread.

Gadai, McKenzie and Plank speak to Sausageface Shirley again. She explains that while working at the bakery she tripped and fell face-first into the slicer; as she fled, Solomon Brumby wrapped pastry around the pieces of her face and sold them as sausage rolls. Shirley cannot remember her surname, so the group ready to retrieve her namebadge from the slicer.

They are interrupted by rattling from a drawer in Brumby's office, and open it to find a skeletal fairy pinned to a board which they release. Plank persuades the fairy the group is here to help but she refuses to talk further until they make a sandwich of "things squeezed out of [them]". McKenzie searches the office for company employment records, but finds they have been shredded. Gadai uses the Immovable Rod to block the angry, haunted slicer so that Plank can lower her in to reach Shirley's namebadge, which says "Shitley". Saying "Shirley Shitley" lights the first gem on the box.

Plank suggest they make a humanoid sandwich - Plank lying on the desk, with McKenzie on top of him and Gadai on top of her. Plank opens the drawer with magic and the fairy looks out before starting to laugh and saying their name is Cinnamon Shadowberry. Saying this name lights the eighth gem on the box.

Characters

 * Gadai
 * McKenzie
 * Plank
 * Wenzo
 * Little Beefy (mentioned)
 * Solomon Brumby
 * Charlotte
 * Richard Dickson (mentioned)
 * Sausageface Shirley
 * Cinnamon Shadowberry

Locations

 * Gunnacarkit
 * Solomon Brumby's Bakery

Peoples

 * Dwarves
 * Fairies
 * Halflings
 * High Elves
 * Humans
 * Tieflings

Creatures

 * Ghosts
 * Mimics
 * Piebugs (mentioned)
 * Wombangers (mentioned)

Definitions

 * Acker Dacker (mentioned)
 * Cap of Breathing (mentioned)
 * Chatterpillars
 * Chime of Opening
 * Crikey Moses (mentioned)
 * Gnomish Grenades (mentioned)
 * Immovable Rod
 * Smart Arse (Cap) (mentioned)
 * Sober Goggles (mentioned)
 * Spookaroo

Quotes
Paris: We're not worthy? Suzanne: Ah... no, no, it's just a little bit racist. Paris: Shirley. Plank: "...I. I mean." Charlotte: "Oh, my bodice is popping." Plank. "Oh, hello." Sausageface Shirley: "No! It's the money! It's gold!" Zach: I pull his pants down. Plank: "Tough!" Gadai: "Why?" McKenzie: (laughter) Luke: ...now I'm gonna leave the room. Plank: "To make a sandwich." Gadai: "Why?" Plank: "For the fairy." McKenzie: "I don't wanna be eaten by a fairy." Plank: "I feel like it's gonna be sexy eating. ...no? Fine. Let's just go find some bread."
 * Luke: Preparations are underway, because the end of Marpenoth marks the pagan festival that is known locally as Spookaroo. Now, not many people in the south really understand Spookaroo - any traditions have been passed along word of mouth and some of the details have no doubt been lost in translation over the years. Your countryfolk, however, enjoy any excuse to piss it up, to wear crazy costumes, break into stranger's houses and steal their food. They carve dicks in pumpkins, they carve dicks in watermelons, they carve dicks in cattle, they stick dicks in pumpkins, they stick dicks in watermelons, they stick dicks in cattle... and that's just the women.
 * Zach: Plank has a Ouija board. But he's just using cantrips to tell people they're dickheads.
 * Suzanne: McKenzie had a plan but, er, because there is stuff that happens in her home territory that gets trotted out at Spookaroo. But she's thinking... maybe it won't be something that she does with this crowd.
 * Zach: Plank jumps out straight into the mist, and starts screaming the name "Charlotte."
 * Charlotte: "Why are you ravaging me, you - you handsome big red man."
 * Luke: I don't know how that works, because I think there's a lot of shit in this country that you see that will scare the fucking bejeezus out of you, but apparently even in Dungeons and Dragons, everyone is scared of ghosts.
 * McKenzie: "Are you saying that the treasure is a bunch of intellectual property rights?"
 * Zach: I walk over and kick the door... I kick it so hard that it flies open and shuts again. I didn't get a good look.
 * Solomon Brumby: "But you will never get the list of names, because I hid it on my person in a very special place that you will never find."
 * Gadai: "I'm gonna investigate it, because I know I'm about to have to stick my hand in a slicer and I want to avoid it."
 * Plank: "Yeah, 'cause what we should do in a haunted bakery is split up..."
 * Luke: Yep, you take the rod out, and this thing wants to attack.
 * McKenzie: "I don't want Wenzo rubbing off on me."
 * Plank: "I have a quick idea I wanna run past you guys first. I throw all the papers off the desk, I lie down... I ask both of you to lay on top of me."
 * Cinnamon Shadowberry: "That is ridiculous.You guys are so fucking ridiculous. Oh, I wish cameras had been invented because you guys look fucking stupid, oh my god."

Australian Culture References

 * "To give [someone] the willies" (verb) is slang meaning to frighten or scare someone.
 * "To piss it up" (verb) is to drink heavily
 * When McKenzie is described as "a bit of a Flat Stanley", it is likely in reference to the children's book series Flat Stanley, which is about a two-dimensional boy, and not any of the sex acts described on Urban Dictionary.
 * "Stubbies" is a brand name for a company that sells men's fashion shorts in Australia and New Zealand.
 * The town name, Gunnacarkit, is from the Australian slang "to cark it" meaning to die, especially suddenly.
 * Solomon Brumby is a reference to nursery rhyme character Solomon Grundy, but also refers to the Australian term "brumby" for a wild or unbroken horse. Well-known in the 90s for TV show The Silver Brumby. Brumby's Bakeries is also the name of an Australian bakery chain establihed in 1975.
 * The magazine "Take 5" is a weekly magazine in Australia known for its outlandish titles, shock stories, and reader contributions.
 * "Bint" (noun) is Australian (and British English) slang, a derogatory term for a woman or girl that may imply she is a low-class sex worker. It comes from the Arabic word for "daughter" but has become much more offensive in meaning.

Trivia & Gaffes

 * This week, the players are asked what gives their character the willies:
 * Gadai is given the willies by Channing Taters.
 * McKenzie is given the willies by poor people.
 * Plank is given the willies by wombangers.
 * Wenzo's Spookaroo costume is a devil - he is dressed all in red with a pair of freshly-cut and still bleeding animal horns strapped to his head. Plank is dressed as a giant piebug, while McKenzie is wearing an orange dress with some vines in her hair and is calling herself a pumpkin. Gadai dresses as McKenzie, using McKenzie's clothes, having grasped that Spookaroo is a time to dress as something scary.
 * When Suzanne asks if the chest has "a stack of tiny legs", she is referring to The Luggage from the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett.
 * The eight food items referenced are:
 * Sausage rolls - a cylinder of sausage meat (seasoned/spiced finely-minced meat) wrapped in pastry which is usually cut in a criss-cross pattern
 * Finger buns - bread rolls, usually the size of an 8" (20cm) hotdog bun, topped with glace icing and sometimes sprinkled with hundreds and thousands (US English: sprinkles)
 * Doughnut balls - fried sweet dough balls
 * Bear claws - a type of sweet pastry with almond paste and sometimes raisins, shaped so as to somewhat resemble a five-toed paw or foot
 * Brownies - baked chocolate treats, ranging from cake-like to fudge-like in texture
 * Mini quiche - miniature versions of quiche, which are open pastry cases filled with egg custard and other fillings
 * Spotted dick - traditional British dessert of suet pudding with dried fruit, generally served with custard; sometimes now made in a lighter cake-like fashion
 * Fairy bread - slices of white bread topped with butter or margarine and then hundreds and thousands (US English: sprinkles)
 * For the second time, the group successfully uses an Immovable Rod - an event so rare that Paris gets inspiration for it..
 * Suzanne mishears the fairy's name as Shatterberry, while Paris and Zach both mishear it as Shat-a-berry.