The Hidden Veil

It's nearly noon by the time your piece of shit Rugol breaks down deep in the North Westwood Enchanted Reserve. It's a warm spring day at least; summer's around the corner but it's not quite here yet. You're also plenty fixed for snacks and fluids from your Square J run this morning. If you're going to be stranded in an enchanted forest, this would be as close to an ideal situation as you could reasonably ask for.

Still, being stranded sucks, and this is far, far from whatever grand entrance you had planned.

The circumstances that led you on this auspicious journey had always stricken you as too wildly fortunate to be anything but a pain in the ass at every turn. One moment, you're chilling in your Steelpoint apartment on the other side of the country. You had just wrapped up a quiet birthday celebration with a bag of takeout and some beer, convinced that the next year (and the year after that, and the one after that) wouldn't look very different from the one you just lived through. Then, conveniently, a knock on the door.

"IT IS YOU," intoned the frail old man in the building's hallway. He extended his wrinkly, arthritic finger toward your heart and declared, "YOU ARE PROPHESIZED TO BRING THE VEIL INTO THE GLORIOUS LIGHT."

Then he keeled over. Died.

Right in your entryway.

It was traumatizing, and also rude.

A couple of weeks later, a sharply dressed elf caught up to you, identifying himself as a lawyer representing the estate of J. Neville Hoberath—"The mortally challenged individual you met a fortnight ago." He was direct, suffocatingly professional; used words like "fortnight." You told him about his client's dying claim, and how you weren't sure what that meant; he laughed what was likely the first laugh of his entire existence and asked what you wanted to know. One hour and a few signatures later, you were the newest "operating owner" of The Hidden Veil Cabaret, a strip club in the city of Westwood—which, as established, was on the opposite side of the country.

By the way, your takeover was indeed prophesized. Hoberath had shelled out a whole lot of cash for some Shift-scryers to do some snooping around for him. Per the signed and notarized Certificate of Prophecy the lawyer presents you, you've been identified by three different mediums as the man destined to take over his business. It didn't matter whether you wanted it or not; the fates were already conspiring to put you there. Maybe a gas leak would cause your apartment to explode while you're busy being downsized from your job, forcing you to look at your best, most convenient other option. Maybe some dick kills a loved one and he happens to live in Westwood, so you journey out for **** and since you're in the area...

Look, maybe you just black out one random Tuesday and come to in front of the cabaret. Who gives a shit, you're getting a new life either way. Moreover, it's a life surrounded by gorgeous strippers. Granted, there are classy titty bars and there are skanky titty bars; you can't really be sure what you're getting into until you've seen it for yourself. But skanky titty bars don't have lawyers and Shift-scryers working on their behalf; you'll probably have to deal with the fact that you hit the mother fucking jackpot.

So you loaded up whatever you could fit into your busted-ass Rugol, the only car you had been able to afford at this time last year. Whatever didn't fit inside, you sold; the money just about covered your great cross-country adventure.

If only the Rugol had more than a half-chance to start on any given turn of the key. This would've saved you a lot of heartache back in Groundswell, when you were trying to get away from that guy with the hook hand at that motel that looked FINE while the sun was setting but turned out to be a fucking deathtrap come nightfall. Okay, maybe it's not the car's fault that you just happened to cross the paths of 6 now-likely-dead teens who somehow brought an ancient curse upon their heads through their reckless young-and-free lifestyles, but when that happens, you kinda want a car to start when you want it to start.

And if only it was any fun to drive for longer than 5 miles at a time when it did start. Remember back in Rocket City when you took your focus off keeping the wheel steady for a brief second, causing the car to pull right and nearly plow into a woman and her baby carriage on the sidewalk? Remember when that woman pulled a shotgun out of that baby carriage and screamed "PIG FUCKING ASSHOLE" at you like a bank robber tweaking out on fairy dust, because she probably was? Hahaha you almost died.

If only your adventure wasn't brimming with adventures like that. Too many, just too damn many to think about. And you know, they all would've been fine—funny, even!—if only, if ONLY, this complete rugburn of a car didn't utterly fuck you over, with relative inches to go, by dying mid drive WITH A FULL TANK OF GAS and refusing to turn over, leaving you stranded in the loneliest freeway in Himeros in the middle of the enchanted woods because at long, long last, fuck you.

...

...hey, come to think of it...who are you, anyway?

[Note: Only human and elf characters are currently available; the other options are for the benefit of contributors (assuming I don't scare them all off). Sorry for the cocktease!]