Act 40: Heist Preparations And Cabaret Completion (Sort Of)

--- Joshua Durand ---

Madness pulsed and wreathed as Avery weaved it into the walls of the Cartoon Cabaret. The decrypted old entrance slowly regained life as cracks sealed shut, cobwebs cleared away, carpet fluffed itself up, and lights flickered on lighting the long hall between the entrance doors and the Cabaret proper.

Along each wall a number of old portraits and movie posters depicting a variety of images so faded and ink stained that there was no telling what they’d once shown cleared away to show fresh but empty frames just waiting to be filled.

Directly in front of the entrance doors an old podium shook and shivered as it took on a fresh new shine, marking the final revitalization of the Cabret foyer.

“Lookin’ good.” He couldn’t help but whistle as he took it all in. “Might need a bit of modern sprucing up, and some new movie posters, but we can absolutely open up with something looking like this.”

“Y-yeah.” Avery nodded with a smile as he looked it all over. “With this, we’ve uh, we’ve got everything fixed up enough to, to open the Cabaret back up.”

“Alright.” He clapped his hands together with an excited grin. “How do we do that? The sooner we get this old girl up and running the better.”

The Dream’s smile slowly faded.. “Um, actually Boss we, uh, we can’t open just yet…”

“Why not?” He asked, losing his own grin.

Avery winced. “It’s uh, I… we can technically open the Cabaret right now but…”

“But…” He prodded.

The Cabaret manager took a deep breath before letting it out. “But I-I can’t run the Cabaret by myself. I wish I could, b-but I can’t.”

“What do you mean?” He frowned. “You won’t be running it alone, I’ll be here too.”

“That’s not…” Avery ran a hand through his hair clearly stressed by this. “You can’t do the things we need done and put on shows in the waking world. At a, at a certain point it just… it won’t be feasible. Not as things get busier.”

“But wouldn’t it work until things start getting busy?” He tried. “I mean, the sooner we open the Cabaret the sooner we’ll have Madness to get everything properly sorted.”

“Maybe but…” Avery shook his head, before moving down the hall. “Even if we do that, we need someone to run the entrance, someone to run the bar, and someone to run the projector minimum. And that’s not including if we want to get the kitchen running for customers or set up someone to keep track of the dining room’s food and drinks. You and I, we, we can do two of those ourselves if you really want to but… we’re, we’re going to need at least one other Boss Dream minimum to open. And even then we wouldn’t, we wouldn’t have everything covered without at least three.”

“And if we’re going to open, we should open all the way.” He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Last thing we need is to be telling people the bar or the kitchen is closed for whatever reason.”

“E-exactly.” Avery nodded, looking immensely relieved that he got it.

He ran a hand down his face as they both stepped into the main area of the Cabaret before taking a look around, and just picturing what it would take to actually run the place.

(Yeah, thinking about how much effort goes into running the Crossing I can tell this would take more work than just two people could pull off.) He realized with a grimace. (Hate to say it, but this place ain’t good for a two man show.)

“Alright, I’ve got that museum show in a couple of days.” He eventually told the Cabaret manager. “Hopefully that’ll give us enough Madness to do whatever we have to do to get a couple more Dreams helping out around here, but for now we’ve made some decent progress. For now we’ll focus on what we can and then after the heist we’ll see what we can do.”

“R-right.” Avery agreed.

He gave the Cabaret one last look before nodding to himself. (Just got to keep chipping away at everything and we’ll have this place up and running in no time.)

Scene Consequences

-Cabaret Foyer has been restored.

--The Foyer is the entrance hall for the Cartoon Cabaret and allows you to bring Guests in, be they from other Wonderlands or the Waking World once upgraded.

-Cartoon Cabaret: The Grand Re-Opening (Act 1: Complete)

--Can now work to create new Boss Dreams for the Cartoon Cabaret, offering new upgradable characters as well as a number of bonuses and abilities based on which roles you fill.

Quest Updated: Cartoon Cabaret: The Grand Re-Opening (Act 2)

-To Actually open the Cartoon Cabaret we need to staff it.

--Hire at least 3 Boss Dreams.

--Hire at least 5 Boss Dreams. (Optional)

--Hire at least 5 Worker Dreams. (Optional)

---

Knowing that today was his last day to experiment with his powers before the museum heist, he set out to one of his usual training spots and wasted no time downing a vial of Malice.

Clapping his hands together he rolled his shoulders as that sweet symphony began to play inside of his head.

Despite his preferences on the matter he knew full well that he was more than likely going to get into a fight with the heroes during the heist, or at the very least with the cops. Which is why he intended to focus on one of the abilities that had proven itself the most useful during his numerous fights thus far.

Namely his Toon Hands, which while not as versatile as his Equip Ink or as much of a game changer as his Ink Flow, was still his primary source of dealing damage in any notable quantity. And given what he knew about the heroes be they the two power armor wearing M.A.D.s, the two highly mobile western motifs, or the flying brick of a bruiser, he knew that with most of the heroes in town he was going to need to make what hits he could land deal as much damage as possible.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Which in turn is why he was trying as many different types of damage as possible with his Toon Hands, from grabbing things, crushing them, or even prying things apart with his fingers. In all instances he found the amount of damage he could deal with his Toonified hands was notably greater than what he could do even with his enhanced strength.

Unfortunately, about half way through his experimentation he found himself drawing something of a blank. The instinctive understanding his Malice gave him about his powers coming up short in regards to some breakthrough he could tell he was right on the verge of, something about reaching out to his target and… (doing something…)

Only, every time he tried to follow that instinct it was as if his body itself was incapable of following through on what he instinctively knew he should be capable of. (Maybe… maybe our body isn’t adapted enough to this Toon Body thing…)

Regardless of the cause however, he just knew that whatever breakthrough he was reaching for was not one he’d be able to reach even if he spent the rest of the day working on this, and so he decided to change his attention to something else in the hopes of better readying himself for the big day.

Scene Consequences

-Gained (1 + Malice D6 = 3 XP) to Toon Hands

--Currently: Lv. 3 (4/8)

-Discovered Possible Perk: Toon Stretch (I): Toon Hands can now reach up to (Power Level * (I)) meters away. (Requires Lv. 4)

-For maintaining Malice Chain gained 1 Malicious Madness.

--Currently: 4

---

“Alright, if I’m going to be pulling this heist off I'm going to need a disguise of some kind to help me sneak around until I’m ready to kick the show off.” He explained to Avery as he paced around the Cabaret’s Dressing Room. “Do you think you can figure something like that out?”

“Maybe.” Avery frowned. “It, uh, it won’t be the best disguise out there, but since we’ve got some Deceptive Madness I think I can make a… general sort of disguise. I doubt it’ll hold up under scrutiny but it should get the job done. At least until you get a Boss Dream to work the dressing room, they’ll be able to do a much better job than I, uh, than I can here. B-but that’s a lower priority than everything else.”

“I’m sure whatever you make will be fine.” He smiled at the nervous Cabaret Manager. “After all, I’m sure you're worth like ten other Boss Dreams.”

Avery gave him a weak grin before shaking his head. “Nah, I can… I can work things but nowhere near what someone built for the job could pull off, Boss.”

“Just do your best and it’ll be enough.” He assured the oldest Dream in his Wonderland.

“Right…” Avery nodded, before inhaling and reaching out to the Madness they’d brought with them, an orb that kept shifting in and out of sight, its edges seeming to blend with the world around it.

After a few minutes of intense focus on Avery’s part the sphere’s shifting edges began to shrink and solidify into a more structured shape, before in a flash of light Avery held his makeshift disguise in hand.

“W-what do you think?” Avery asked nervously as he held his product up. “I know it’s not a full disguise but, uh, I worked the Madness as best I could to get these.”

“Ha, are these what I think they are?” He laughed, recognizing the cartoon classic as he took them from Avery.

“Uh… I don’t know…” Avery admitted looking a little confused. “When I was pushing for disguises this is the shape the Madness wanted to take. Do they, uh, even work? Because it’s just a pair of glasses with a mustache.”

“Ah, Avery, these are a classic cartoon disguise known as Groucho Marx glasses!” He explained to the ill informed Dream.

“Groucho Marx… like the Marx Brothers?” Avery frowned.

“The who?” He blinked.

“The, the Marx brothers, you know… the famous comedians from the movies? I mean they’re not cartoons but they were pretty famous actors in the waking world if I’m remembering right.” Avery tried to explain.

“Uh, maybe?” He shrugged, figuring that Groucho Marx might’ve been related to those brothers somehow given how old all of that stuff was. “That was all a bit before my time.”

“Oh…” Avery nodded. “Still, uh, do they work as intended?”

“Let’s see?” A little giddy he slipped the glasses on. “What do you think?”

“Uh, I still recognize you?” Avery grimaced.

“Hmm… what if I put the fedora on too?” He wondered, putting his hat on his head only for the glasses to pop off his face. “Oops, must not have put them on right.”

He reached down to pick up the glasses before putting them back on his face… and feeling the hat jump off his head. “The hell?”

Avery caught the hat before it could hit the ground and handed it back to him. “Uh, that’s… that’s weird right?”

“Yeah…” He nodded slowly, eyeing the hat suspiciously before trying to put it on his head, this time keeping a firm grip on his glasses as he did so, and this time he could feel both fighting to get off of him as if they refused to be worn at the same time.

Something he was a little more sure of when they both finally went flying with a powerful force, both bouncing off the roof and the walls in rattling impacts.

“Hit the floor!” He called as the both leapt to the ground waiting for the cartoonish bouncing to stop.

After a few moments they both cautiously looked up to find the hat and the glasses facing each other on one of the nearby make up stations.

“The fuck was that?!” He practically yelled.

“Uh, maybe… maybe they don’t like each other?” Avery offered with a shrug.

He gave Avery a dry look. “They’re inanimate objects they don’t have-” He cut himself short as he found the Groucho Marx glasses holding the fedora at knife point.

“Where… where’d the knife come from?” He found himself warily asking.

“Probably the same place as the gun.” Avery answered, pointing to where the fedora now held the glasses at gunpoint.

“This is going to keep escalating isn’t it?”

“Rule of three says-” A loud thwack drew their attention to the flattened fedora laying next to the glasses and a small mallet.

They both stared at the glasses.

The glasses stared back innocently.

Its mustache twitched side to side deviously.

Scene Consequences

-Spent 1 Deceptive Madness.

-Gained [Groucho Marx] glasses.

--Equipment Slot: Head (Meaning you can take the Glasses or the Hat on a mission but not both. (They get jealous.))

---

With his new glasses upon his face -(and just the glasses)- he set about seeing what mischief he could get up to and figuring out just what the limits on his glasses were.

First and foremost, he found that as long as the glasses were on people sort of just… ignored him, no matter how much they really shouldn’t ignore the very obvious Mask proudly displaying the fact that he was a Mask with his cartoonishly oversized hands.

Not that this effect was unlimited, as discovered when he started actually interacting with things, because while they ignored him when he was more or less passive the moment he started actually causing trouble people would notice him.

Second, a quick trip to the fight club to see how other Deviants responded to the glasses, told him that while he wore this thinly veiled disguise no one would recognize him. Including Zaum, and by a stroke of luck -both good and bad- Puck, though the latter did seem to suspect something when Joshua went to shake his hand.

(Which was kind of stupid actually.) The devil on his shoulder pointed out.

(Hey, hey, I needed to test how hard we could push the disguise without getting caught, and apparently we can push it pretty fucking hard.)

Hell, Cameron hadn’t even recognized him when he bumped into her, though she did look like she was going to punch his teeth in if she didn’t have to get to the arena for a fight of her own.

At which point he decided that sticking around to watch Cameron’s fight with some M.A.D girl was probably not worth it. Especially after telling her that he wouldn’t be able to make it himself. (Which to be fair I still wouldn’t be ready for the heist if I’d competed today.)

Regardless, he’d tested the glasses about as much as he realistically could and felt that -despite Avery’s doubts- he had a pretty solid tool to help him with his heist tomorrow.

Scene Consequences

-Gained 1XP to Thievery

--*Skill Rank Up* Thievery Lv. 4 (0/10)

-More Details about the [Groucho Marx] glasses.

--While equipped can spend 1 Madness so that until disguise is broken people will assume Joshua is an innocent bystander no matter how much the rest of his outfit stands out or if they should recognize him. Can only be triggered while ‘out of sight’ of any other unit. Does not work on [Alert] enemies. May [Alert] enemies sensitive to Madness.

---Note: Enemies will remember suspicious behavior while disguised, even if they don’t see through the disguise.