Are You Afraid of the Scares?

*Our beloved and award-winning producer Taylor is off! So our intrepid heroes take a non-canon break by the fire to tell tales both creepy and kooky, and, altogether, ooky. Also, one member of the party DIES! Have fun!*

An “interlude” episode set apart from the main campaign in a semi-canonical state. It is introduced by The Innkeeper’s Uncle and centers around the party telling scary stories to pass the time and save their lives.

## Summary

The party rests between adventures, settled around a campfire cooking pieces of a marshmallow golem. Stirfry mourns that he can’t sleep so Cordelia suggests that they tell scary stories. Stirfry and Albee attempt to tell a story line by line until Cordelia interrupts with a story about a ghost. She recounts how she used to go into towns to say it was her birthday (she treated these as actual birthdays, making her age very unclear). She met a tall woman who invited her to a house a mile away, where she was ambushed by several ghosts. They tore the legs off her jeans (back before they were cutoffs) before she ran away.

As the tale finishes, a twisted man named Buttspread Steaks arrives to praise her storytelling. He points out that the marshmallow golem was his protector and that he had planned to kill them all in revenge, but decides he’ll let them live if they can tell him a scary story each.

Stirfry goes next, telling a story of a doctor who creates life by putting a single cell into his toaster. It becomes a robot that tells everyone in town that it loves them, unsettling the locals while irritating the doctor as the only one the robot does not tell this to. When he demands he return his creator’s love, the robot says that it wishes to live life for life’s sake rather than any obligation. It destroys itself while saying that if only its creator had loved it instead of the other way around.

Buttspread Steaks is incredibly disappointed by the story. He slices Stirfry in half, killing him in a matter of seconds and warning the others that energy and charisma are not enough. Seeing how powerful his weapon is, Frederick suggests that Buttspread must also have a tool powerful enough to heal someone back from such damage. Buttspread reveals he has an inverted sword (a block of steel with a sword-shaped hole) that can revive Stirfry if they all tell suitable tales. Cordelia puts her coins on Stirfry’s eyes, sending him to The Other Side where Stirfry starts ordering patrons to make him burgers.

Bellow tells a story of how he received mysterious letters while he was home alone one summer. It asked if he liked scary stories, and he exchanged letters with the person discussing the tropes and themes of classic horror stories. He ultimately receives a letter telling him to look outside the window, but before he can he receives a letter from his parents. They say they’re having a great time on vacation and invite him to join them, so he ignores the other letters and leaves. Buttspread approves of the story’s deep understanding of horror and moves on to Albee.

During Bellow’s story, Cordelia regrets her decision and removed her coins from Stirfry, instantly sending him to Heaven. He briefly talks with an angel about harps and music before Cordelia changes her mind again and sends him back and forth between Heaven and Hell.

Albee tells about sharing her room with her sister Beatrix. While Beatrix slept, Albee would see a ghostly shape of her sister on the wall. When she reaches out to touch it, the figure tore her pants off. The revelation terrifies Buttspread, passing his test as Frederick begins his tale.

He tells a story of when he met a banshee, meeting local villagers worried about the legend that banshees that curse someone to die after meeting them. Frederick doesn't believe in such a curse and goes to meet one on the moors. The banshee weeps because whoever she meets dies, but Frederick says he'd rather not. The banshee accepts his request, so long as she can claim two other souls later in his life at a random moment. To this day, Frederick does not know when she will arrive to claim them.

Buttspread objects, claiming he's not afraid of banshees and that the story makes no sense. He's interrupted when the banshee tears his chest open and leaps through his body, killing him on the spot. The banshee claims she got his cue from the story to come help him, and that she was also the ghostly figure in everyonee else's story (and technically the toaster). Albee takes Buttspread's healing sword and with the help of her teammates she manages to slash and heal Stirfry. He comes back to life from nearly learning to play chess from angels to ask the party what pawns do.

## **Trivia**

* Bellow’s story is a parody of the Scream movies.
* Stirfry’s “scary” story loosely resembles Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein.