Intermission 1: A short recruitment session

“Oh Luuuuuucy, we’re home!” said Faith, dramatically appearing in the doorway.

“Don’t listen to her, I’m sure you hate that one,” said Sophie right after.

Lucy looked up from her Switch, a confused expression on her face.

“We just wanted to say sorry for Mia not telling you it’s her big day. She can be a real antisocial bitch sometimes,” said Sophie, “We kinda instigated her having a sucky initial weekend, since we pranked her by making her think we forgot. The point is, I guess, that she just wanted to spend her-”

“The point is, we’re extending the olive branch. Come play our game with us! It’s really unbelievably fun and we need four people for it so you’d be our saving grace,” said Faith, interrupting Sophie. They planned a Good Cop, Bad Cop sort of thing, but somewhere in the moment it morphed into Rambling Cop, Rambling Cop.

“Ummm… thanks for the invite but I’m on the seventh ante of Jokerless in Balatro, so I really just want to finish this,” said Lucy meekly. She sat on her bed, leaning on a large pillow against her wall. Her dress was billowed up around her legs. Her lower half looked nearly engulfed in a frilly lace fluffball. Her short pink hair draped down to her shoulders but cutely flipped up and out at the tips.

“Are you sure? We really need you or the game isn’t gonna work,” said Sophie.

“I thought Mia said it wasn’t any fun? Are you guys playing something else?” asked Lucy.

“Oh, Mia was just kidding, that was part of the game! She was just hiding-” Faith said.

Sophie cut her off before Faith gabbed about the full moon Sophie almost gave Lucy earlier. She said, “The game’s got a Fight Club thing going on where we’re not supposed to let people know about Fight Club. You know, it’s an antique and it actually has some interesting mechanics going on…” Sophie lied about the Fight Club rule, but told the truth about her interest in the new game. She started up her motor mouth and spent a good couple dozen seconds rattling off how the machinery worked and how they couldn’t possibly play without Lucy.

“Alright, alright. Give me a few minutes to finish this up. You guys can wait five, right?” asked Lucy.

“Yes, yes, yes! Lucy is the man!” cheered Faith. She flew back to the couch, using her arms as imaginary airplane wings, and landed next to Mia.

“Your best bud is gonna join us…” whispered Faith with a big grin on her face.

“Thanks, Luce,” said Sophie genuinely. She turned around to follow the airplane, and hiked up her jeans again before plopping onto the ottoman.

Lucy caught herself looking as Sophie pulled up her jeans to cover her exposed thong. She blushed at herself peeping at Sophie’s butt crack without her knowing, but just shook her head and got back to her game.

Sophie whipped out her cell phone to scroll through social media. The others followed suit. Mia was actually a bit mad at these two for not asking her first, and Faith was frankly just bored with a few minutes to pass, so the trio all glued their eyes to their own phones and passed the time waiting for Lucy. Faith occasionally shared a meme with Mia, but she remained unenthused with the redhead.

Five minutes went by before they heard something. “Yes! Woooo, four of a kind!” Lucy proclaimed quietly in her room.

A few moments later and the cutesy pink-haired petite woman appeared before them, sans Nintendo Switch, which she put on its charger. She had her tea in hand and gingerly walked over to the couch with a curious look on her face.

Mia averted eye contact, but the other two welcomed her in and everyone put their phones away.

Faith scooted her and Mia to the right, patting the left side of the couch so Faith could sit between the roommates.

Sophie leaned forward on her ottoman to explain the game. The empty room behind her got a good look at her whale tail and half of her uncovered butt, unbeknownst to any of them.

Sophie explained that there were challenge spaces, and other spaces they hadn’t landed on yet. She explained that they each had a punishment already so Lucy was actually winning. She pointed out Mia’s bonus card for completing her challenge. Sophie left out all mention of what the challenges or punishments entailed. Then she remembered the rules on the side. She reread the info to Lucy, “Enfanji. A game for those who seek to find a way to leave their clothes behind. You roll the dice to move your token. Doubles gets another turn. The first player to reach the end wins.” She read it very slowly and deliberately because she was reading it upside down from the other side of the coffee table.

“And that’s pretty much everything we’ve got,” said Sophie matter-of-factly. Internally she thought she did a great job explaining it, but Mia and Faith were confused why she went so out of order and scatterbrained with it.

The others may have gotten their minds a little twisted, but Lucy seemed to have absorbed all the knowledge. She didn’t look at all confused and just nodded her head with each new piece of information.

“Okay so it’s Mario Party but with only solo minigames? And what about that right there?” asked Lucy, pointing to the other dice tray on the opposite side of the board. It also had a paragraph of sinister text that the others had never looked at as they believed it to be a symmetrical board with the same paragraph on the other side.

Everyone leaned in and Lucy read it aloud. She read slowly because it, too, was upside down for her. “Adventurers beware: Do not begin unless you intend to finish. The exciting consequences of the game will vanish only when a player has reached ENFanji and called out its name.”

Lucy added, with a cheery disposition, “Huh. You guys picked a weird game. Well, what am I supposed to do?”

“Hold on guys what does that me-” Mia started saying but was cut off as Faith handed Lucy the dice, who excitedly rolled them into the tray.

A six and a three. “Ooooo…” Lucy said, genuinely impressed as her piece slid forward nine spaces onto a green space. “Why am I a- is that a pizza box?” she asked. The others just shrugged.

Lucy looked around at them. The other three were tensed up as…

P’TIING!

Lucy nearly jumped through the roof. She uncoiled her legs like a spring and hopped a good couple feet off the couch in surprise.

“Why didn’t you guys warn me?” Lucy cried as the other three laughed at her minor misfortune. They were all anticipating it and still jumped a little themselves.

Her piece had landed one space behind Mia on a green space. Her three cards that peeked out of the board all had the word Event in green at the bottom. Lucy looked through the options and happily read them aloud. They were “A Bit Nippy In Here”, “Tread Carefully”, and ”Switcheroo!”

“What’s an event?” Lucy asked, and Sophie started explaining the entire game again. Lucy cut Sophie’s explanation short by plucking a card from the board.