Madness Bakery

A strange looking bakery that seems to be half dough, half flesh. It pulsates like a heart.

The moment you open the door to Madness Bakery you can tell that something is wrong. Both of your hearts are beating faster than they should be, and all of the red in the world has been replaced with that new kind of red that seems a little crazier than normal red.

The interior of the bakery is throbbing in time with your pulses. Mated pairs of donut snakes slither in blissful coils across the shelves of the glass display case. A croissantipede scurries underneath a counter. Scintillating motes of white flour dance in the air like tiny, carbohydrate-rich angels.

Your hand -- at least you *think* it's yours -- it's hard to be sure any more -- throbs where you touched the door handle. You look down at it and see a thin carpet of black ooze crawling between your fingers.

## **Right after entering:**

As the door closes behind you, your head is filled with an enticing sound that you immediately localize to the center of the room. On the counter, there is a turntable spinning slowly but instead of a record on top it has a spooky whirling face made of dough, and instead of music, it is producing a dreadful certainty that this face wants to eat your soul. Crêep

Behind the counter, you see a hunched-over old woman rummaging through pastries on a shelf. You approach her. "Oh, thank goodness," she says, "I'm so glad to see another human."

She turns around. She is... not human. Baguette Lady

## **After defeating the monsters:**

Sweat stands out on your brow. You struggle to keep it together. Strange colors intrude on the edges of your vision as you survey the scene.

You can see a door labeled 'OFFICE' behind the counter.

Two complex-looking baking machines sit on a counter in the rear of the bakery. One is labeled "Bagelmat-5000 Industrial Bagel Oven and Biomechanical Artificial Womb," though you might have imagined a few of those words. The other just says "POPULAR" in glowing pink letters.

Behind the machines is a shelf strewn with people you went to high school with, all dressed as different books. Or perhaps just... books. It's hard to tell through all this snow.

### **The Cookbooks**

A shelf full of cookbooks, many of them seem to be filled with madness. You can take one, but that seems like it'd be a little crazy.

Get Cookbook of the Damned

### **The Popular Machine**

A big metal object with a display window and one big button. You examine the popular machine, but you have no idea why it's so popular -- it's not even working!

You open an access panel on the side and discover why: there's a part missing.

If a popular part is inserted, the machine can be used to produce popular tarts

### **Bagelmat-5000**

The Bagelmat-5000 gazes longingly at you with its strange, needle-like pupils. Either that or the needles in the Bagelmat-5000's two gauges indicate that all systems are nominal and that the machine is ready to make some bagels.

A label on the front reads, simply enough, "INSERT DOUGH." You turn the word "dough" over in your mind. "Dough. Dough. Dough dough." It's funny. It's a funny word.

You snap out of your dough reverie, annoyed with yourself. This place is probably killing a lot of brain cells.

- **After inserting wad of dough**

You shove a wad of dough into the slot on the top of the machine, and press the big bagel-shaped button on the front. There is a whirring followed by a gurgling followed by three bagels dropping into the tray at the machine's base.

Get 3 bagels

### **Office Door**

**- Open the door**: You try to turn the knob of the office door, but the keyhole keeps licking your palm, and it tickles.

**- Try again**: You try grab the door's tongue with your left hand and turn the doorknob with your right, but you get your parts wrong and end up simultaneously licking and kicking the doorjamb. Neither is effective, though both are entertaining to your senses. You giggle.

You need to *focus*.

**- Open the damned door**: You reach for the door, but it flings itself open before you even touch the knob. A booming voice emerges from the haze of the office beyond:

"WHO DARES DISTURB CAKE LORD?"

You creep into the office, hoping your eyes will adjust to the madness.

"I ASKED YOU A QUESTION, DUMMY."

"Oh, umm," you reply, finally finding the source of the voice -- a man whose head is a birthday cake. "<playername>, I guess. <playername> dares disturb Cake Lord?"

"THEN <playername> ... IS A FOOL."

Fight with Cake Lord

## **After fight**

You step triumphantly over the fallen form of Cake Lord to see a severe-looking woman glaring at you from behind a desk.

"Oh, hey!" you say. "You must be... uhh..."

"Madeline," she says, "Madeline Harkness."

"Hi Madeline! I'm <playername>, and I'm... er... I'm here to rescue you, I guess!"

She scoffs. "Oh, goodie. Another Adventurer, here to *rescue* me by destroying all of my stock."

"Stock?" you reply. "I didn't see any stock, all I saw was monsters. And I beat them all, and then I beat the boss, and now you're free!"

"What you did," she says, sighing, "was get a big accidental dose of ergot from the front door, start hallucinating, and trash my entire bakery. And your encore was breaking into my office and destroying a wedding cake I spent six days on. So... thanks a million!"

"Well, to be honest," says Madeline, "I should've seen it coming. I was hoping maybe the hallucinations would be mild, and just make people want to buy more donuts."

"This story about how I trashed your shop is fascinating," you interrupt, "but the Armorer and Leggerer said something about a pie you were supposed to have delivered. You know anything about that?"

"Oh, sure," she says, "it's the one baked good you haven't destroyed yet, so I guess you can have it."

Madeline hands you the pie and says "Y'know what? I'm clearly not cut out to run a hallucinogen-encrusted bakery. I'm moving up the supply chain. From now on, I'm only selling the raw materials. Let somebody else deal with this retail nonsense."

She leaves through the bakery's back door.

Get No-Handed Pie