Amaruve, Fiorello, and Jean: you're not out of the scene! There's still a chance that there's more to this place than meets the eye. Fiorello pipes up. "It just occurred to me: Remember the back room this establishment possessed in the '1920s'? This place is SWARMING with young earthbounders, now, but it might be worth a look... I'll watch over Tony and Perspicacious. Jean, Amaruve? Would the two of you see what you can find?"

Moves: 26 + Ghost: 3


Moves: 23 + Ghost: 3

Ready Player 2: 17 and 1

Patrick gets distracted from his goal of killing, er I mean, seducing April, as he watches the others start their game. He walks over to the arcade cabinet and around the back side. Does it have an access panel or a slot he can look inside... Is this thing even plugged in? What's more, can this thing really make a profit? (Brains, Accounting: 14(1))

Quote from AsbestosPenguin >>

Moves: 23 + Ghost: 3

 (I'm afraid you rolled far too many dice! The last three rolled totaled 13... Your lowest 3 totaled 5. I will be a kind overseer and deduct only 9 total, which still puts you over the 15 mark)

In your VR headsets, you find yourselves running through a strange black and white maze. Suddenly, jumping from behind a corner is a pair of rattlesnakes! You both sidestep the snakes neatly and continue to run through the maze. You jump over or knock out all of the small enemies who cross your path. Perspicacious, Tony has pulled just barely ahead of you. In the distance, you see an enormous pile of gold guarded by a sphinx. You find yourselves at a cross-roads
1) Behind you are the snakes you've temporarily escaped
2) In front of you (in the distance) are the sphinx and the gold
3) To the right a tunnel branches out.

What will you do, Tony and Perspicaciou?

Quote from BDaddLy >>

Patrick gets distracted from his goal of killing, er I mean, seducing April, as he watches the others start their game. He walks over to the arcade cabinet and around the back side. Does it have an access panel or a slot he can look inside... Is this thing even plugged in? What's more, can this thing really make a profit? (Brains, Accounting: 14(1))

 (With a roll of 15+, we'll say...)

Amaruve, you walk around the machine and start fiddling with things. You actually notice that, while all of the other machines in this space have large black power cords, this one absolutely does not! You spot a panel in the back of Mammon's gold that seems to contain a sickly green light. Before you can pry it open, however, you hear Kreezie behind you (imagine his voice as being very nerdy, high pitched and cracking.. the whole deal).

"Hey! Hey whaddya think you're doing friend?!" Kreezie exclaims. (Gonna need a way out of this jam! What will you do?)

Quote from Aveiro_ >>

Quote from AsbestosPenguin >>

Moves: 23 + Ghost: 3

 (I'm afraid you rolled far too many dice! The last three rolled totaled 13... Your lowest 3 totaled 5. I will be a kind overseer and deduct only 9 total, which still puts you over the 15 mark)

In your VR headsets, you find yourselves running through a strange black and white maze. Suddenly, jumping from behind a corner is a pair of rattlesnakes! You both sidestep the snakes neatly and continue to run through the maze. You jump over or knock out all of the small enemies who cross your path. Perspicacious, Tony has pulled just barely ahead of you. In the distance, you see an enormous pile of gold guarded by a sphinx. You find yourselves at a cross-roads
1) Behind you are the snakes you've temporarily escaped
2) In front of you (in the distance) are the sphinx and the gold
3) To the right a tunnel branches out.

What will you do, Tony and Perspicaciou?

 Tony cackles madly, “Gonna have to do better than that, Perc! That gold is mine!” Tony is gunning for the gold.

 "The machine's fixed?" Patrick asks giving Kreezie a sharp jab in the chest with his finger. (Muscles, Intimidate: 16(4))

"What's that creepy dude?", Wrecks asks before Patrick is interrupted by the kid. So indeed, this is not an ordinary game, Fiorello thinks and he urges Wrecks to snoop around and be a ghost in the machine to see if he can help or at least give a heads up to the two players as the challenges head their way.

Perspicacious scoffs, then leads Ted down the side tunnel. Tony should know better. The obvious path is never the right one.

Quote from BDaddLy >>

 "The machine's fixed?" Patrick asks giving Kreezie a sharp jab in the chest with his finger. (Muscles, Intimidate: 11(4))

 Kreezie looks as though he's going to argue with you, but then (seeing the glint in Patrick's steely eyes) he backs away. 

Carrying forward your Brains roll: You pop open the back hatch and find inside... absolutely nothing. There's that sickly, wispy green light, sure, but other than that... You reach your hand inside and you can't feel anything at all. It's almost as though the machine is just an empty shell.

Fiorello floats over the the game to watch Tony and Perspicacious race toward a mountain of gold.

Quote from AsbestosPenguin >>

Perspicacious scoffs, then leads Ted down the side tunnel. Tony should know better. The obvious path is never the right one.

 
It turns out Perspicacious is absolutely right this time! The ground crumbles beneath Tony's avatar's feet and he pitches forward into a vat of acid. His side of the screen fades to black, but then he reawakens next's to Perspicacious- but down one life (Tony has 1 extra life remaining. Perspicacious still has two extra lives). The snakes continue to chase you- there's not a moment to lose!

You continue to race through the maze. Ahead, there is some kind of puzzle or obstruction. It looks like an enormous pocket watch, and its minute and hour hands are spinning in opposite directions. There doesn't seem to be any way around it. You can:

1) Quickly solve the puzzle (I'll answer a couple of clarifying questions each on discord)
2) One of you can use your power boost to blast through the puzzle, or
3) You can try to fight the snakes

Post your action and roll 'Video Games' (Tony) or 'Moves' (Perspicacious)!

Tony pops into existence once more, “THAT’S BULL!” But quickly picks up speed once more!

Tony is going to try to solve the puzzle, Video Games: 22 and 2

Moves: 12 + Ghost: 6

Ted sees the giant watch, and pulls up short. “Whoah! I’m pretty experienced in time travel, this oughta be easy!” Perspicacious takes a look over the watch, noticing the 5 and 11 look like they’re made of snakes. With the other snakes closing in behind them, she yells out to Tony, “The numbers, look! We need to stop it at 5:55!”

Tony will pull it, “Alright, if I die, it’s on you!”

Tony pulls at 5:55!

Quote from Aveiro_ >>

... It's almost as though the machine is just an empty shell.

 (In the biz we call this a dumb terminal. Perfectly normal 1980s tech.)

(Patrick does not know this, and it's probably untrue given the context if this campaign. =P )

Amaruve reaches over his shoulder and pulls a black and yellow striped box from his proton pack and slides it into the cabinet.

Quote from JcAndD >>

Tony will pull it, “Alright, if I die, it’s on you!”

Tony pulls at 5:55!

 
The wall of snakes grows near. Tony waits for Perspicacious' signal to alert him to the hands' alignment at 5:55 (which, after all, is the snakiest number) and pulls the crown tab. Perfectly set, the hands stop at exactly the right moment. Wall panels all around you slide open with an 8-bit KA-CHUNK and out pour a waterfall of red snakes. The immediately race back to slam into the wall of green serpents and go about the business of messily devouring them. 

You hear a short victory tune and the pocket watch disappears. You don't have much time to waste though. The red snakes bought you some time, but now they're looking in your direction!

You race through the maze! You come to an intersection with three tunnels branching out from it:
1) To the left the hallway appears to end at a brick wall
2) The the right the hallway leads deeper into the maze
3) In front of you lies the mountain of gold and the enormous sphinx. It's much closer, now.

Make your choice and roll like before!

Quote from BDaddLy >>

Amaruve reaches over his shoulder and pulls a black and yellow striped box from his proton pack and slides it into the cabinet.

 
Patrick makes an educated guess. It doesn't do anything, but the guess was educated, at least! It is interesting, though: the ghost trap slides in perfectly and seems to lock with a satisfying click. It's bathed in the green light, but as it doesn't contain any ghosts, nothing happens. You remove the trap easily enough. (Based on your brains roll) You reason that, if you had a ghost in the trap, this arcade game might (inexplicably) be designed to store them.

That's odd. 

Jean, you notice that the arcade is becoming a little less crowded. Tony and Perspicacious have attracted an audience with their run of Mammon's Gold, that doesn't explain why the rest of the room would seem so empty now. You also notice that Kreezie keeps looking over at Patrick and you (particularly at you) from the counter- nervously straightening his nametag, tucking in his shirt, smoothing his greasy hair...