*label start

*image chap2.png

(Note: Starting with this chapter, succeeding on certain skill checks will earn your villain
Planning Points. These represent your villain picking up some bit of info or strategic advantage
that adds to their ability to plan for any occasion. Planning Points can be spent to unlock certain,
usually positive, choices in dangerous situations, helping you when you might normally fail.)

[i]Six months earlier…[/i]

It's Friday night and, as has become depressingly more common lately, you're home alone.
Mother and Father are, if their annoyingly frequent and unnecessarily lurid e-mails are anything
to go by, really "getting a kick" out of their second honeymoon in Tibet.

Meanwhile, all of your college "friends" (and you use the term loosely) are off enjoying a
moron's idea of an exciting life. Scott is wingsuiting around South America, "finding himself,"
which apparently involves bouncing his head repeatedly off of mountains. Lance is in New York,
expanding his horizons by becoming the exact same amoral, joyless stockbroker his mother
was. And Biffany is off somewhere in Africa, saving a lot of people who probably wish there was
someone around to save them from Biffany.

It's all so terribly dull.

*page_break
You console yourself by rummaging around in the mansion's enormous walk-in refrigerator,
looking for something edible amongst the piles of nouveau riche junk your parents usually keep
in here. Caviar, foie gras, five different kinds of quinoa…you're pretty sure your dad learned how
to be a rich dude by reading comic books.

Eventually, you manage to assemble the makings of a half-decent grilled cheese sandwich and,
after only getting lost twice, find your way out of the fridge. Sandwich assembled and cooked,
and minor feeling of accomplishment relished, you ponder what to do with the rest of your night.

*fake_choice
#"I should do something that improves myself."
You'll read a book! Or knit! Or…knit a book about reading?
#"I'm going to paint the town red!"
You're going to party harder than…some very hard thing! Corundum! A 9 on the Mohs mineral
hardness scale!
#"I should write Grandmother a letter!"
That delightful old matriarch would well enjoy some thoughtful correspondence!
*comment endchoice

Yeah, obviously you're not going to do that.

Carrying your sandwich, you walk down the hall for the full minute it takes you to get to the TV
room. Stupid mansion. You plunk down in your easy chair, the only piece of furniture in the
entire room that cost less than $5000 (and the only one that doesn't hurt like hell to sit in), and
flip on the ostentatiously large TV.

"More news out of Bell City tonight, where V.A.N.G.U.A.R.D. troops are still working with local
authorities to clear the mecha-spider infestation out of the city sewers. Dozens are dead at the
hands of the robotic menace, and while no parties have come forward, this bears all the
hallmarks of an attack by the notorious Doctor Arachnus. Mindy?"

"That's right, Biff. Arachnus, real name and doctoral status unknown, is well known for his
reliance on robotic minions and utter indifference to human life. Some stories say he drinks his
victims' blood, although there is no evidence to substantiate such claims. It's unclear what the
malevolent miscreant, last seen publicly on the day he assassinated President Alex Johnson in
Washington D.C., hopes to gain by filling the city sewers with mechanical eight-legged
monstrosities, but we can be sure of one thing: it's probably not something nice. Biff?"
*page_break
"Thanks, Mindy, and, may I say, you're looking lovely today!"

"Don't objectify me, Biff, it's disrespectful."

"Hey, lady, don't blame me. I'm just doing what the hack couples therapist you're making us go
to told me to do. Now, in other news, allegations continue to come to light in the corruption
scandal rocking the Federal Banking Authority.

"Leaked documents show that more than two hundred employees of the agency, tasked with
monitoring and regulating all major financial transactions in the country, are on the payroll of the
infamous international criminal syndicate known as Minotaur. It's unclear exactly how much this
influence has aided the organization with their illegal activities, which include gun-running,
human trafficking, and murder-for-hire, but conservative estimates put the damage in the tens of
billions. Mindy?"
*page_break
"Finishing on a lighter note, dinosaurs walked the earth for the first time in millennia in the small
town of Grover's Hamlet, Iowa, this week. Dinosaur holograms, that is! The Jurassic illusions,
projected from what appears to be a hidden satellite in orbit around the Earth, are life-size but
apparently harmless. According to paleontologists, the holograms are remarkably accurate,
save for one detail—a small nautilus shell hidden on each one's hide.

"While older residents grumble about the 'disruptive' nature of the mysterious light show, the
children of Grover's Hamlet have quite a different opinion…."

News footage plays of children running through the streets of the small town, laughing with joy
at the prehistoric "invasion." Their parents look on with more concern.
"Hey, Mindy, that one looks like your mother!"

"Keep talking, Biff. It's all going in my alimony papers."

As the news team continues to bicker, you take a moment to reflect on what you've seen.

*choice
#"I hate that they always edit out the good parts of Doctor Arachnus's attacks."
Eh, you'll be able to find the juicy stuff on the net tomorrow, anyway.
*set lethality +1
*goto next
#"I bet Minotaur leaked those documents themselves. Classic."
They get to keep all the money and destabilize the regulators. You have to love their elegant
approach to getting filthy rich.
*set activist %-10
*goto next
#"If I booked the flight tonight, I could be in Iowa tomorrow."
Try as you might, you've never managed to make it to a Nautilus "crime" in progress. This
might be your chance to watch him or her in action, maybe get a few pointers!
*set theatricality %+10
*goto next
*label next

You are shaken from your reverie by the distinctive melody of breaking glass. From the sound of
it, a window on the ground floor just shattered. Probably not of its own volition.
*page_break
You grab the remote and switch the TV's input to the mansion's closed-circuit camera system,
the source of much of your childhood paranoia. You quickly flip through the dozens of cameras
arrayed throughout the mansion until you come upon an unsettling scene.

Several people are standing in the mansion's downstairs den (as opposed to the upstairs den,
the rec room, the TV room, or your dad's "office," which earns those dismissive air quotes by
nature of containing two pool tables but no computer). Most of them look like the kind of people
you'd get if you searched the phone book for "Thugs, Disreputable." They're all big, burly, and
armed. Standing at their center is an older woman who wouldn't look out of place quietly judging
people at a church social, if you ignore the ill-fitting suit covered in skulls and the heavy pistol
bouncing nervously between her hands. She appears to be speaking animatedly to the others.
You turn up the mic on the camera….

"—everything that isn't nailed down! These people are stupid loaded, and I want you stupid
people to load the loaded stuff into the loading van, stupids!" She seems to think this was a very
clever thing to say, given the little gun flourish she finished it with. The thugs seem
unimpressed, and rightly so.
"The whole family is out of the country with their servants, off in England or some stupid thing!
The place is ripe for the taking. We'll make a killing tonight, boys, or my name's not Professor
Murder!"

England? Your family's not in…oh, for God's sake. The Carmichaels. This idiot thinks this is the
Carmichaels's mansion, and now she and her idiot thugs are going to ransack your house and
kill you because she can't read an address properly.

Well, to hell with that.

*choice
#Run for the panic room.
If making your way to the secure, high-tech nexus of the mansion's security system is
cowardly, you don't want to be brave.
*goto panic
#Make a quick dash for the downstairs armory.
For years, you've been suggesting overpowering firepower as the solution to problems, and
nobody has ever agreed. Today, there's nobody to say no.
*goto armory
#Stick to the shadows and look for traps to set.
When you were a kid, there was only one movie you loved more than [i]Batman[/i], and that
was [i]Home Alone[/i]. Time to put all that training to use.
*goto traps

*label panic
*page_break
As the steel-reinforced door locks shut behind you, you feel grateful, for the first time ever, to
the fast-talking security company stooge who talked your dad into dropping six figures on the
mansion's security hub (forcing you to put off your junior-year trip to Florence from spring break
to summer, a social faux pas your high-school reputation never really recovered from). As
computer monitors cycle through the mansion, showing the intruders moving from room to
room, stuffing valuables into sacks, you grab the police hotline installed on the wall…only to be
met with no dial tone, only silence. You honestly weren't expecting someone dopey enough to
prance around calling herself "Professor Murder" to think far enough ahead to cut the mansion's
external data connection.

It's time to take a moment to think.

*choice
#Rig the mansion's fire suppression systems to take down the thieves.
*goto fire
#Get on the mansion's intercom system to scare them senseless.
*goto pa
#Activate the security countermeasure system.
*goto countermeasure

*label fire
The mansion is outfitted with dozens of tanks of fire-suppressant foam, ready to fire at the first
sign of anything burning that might damage the house's resale value. Normally, there are
security protocols in place to stop them from firing at normal temperatures, but you think you
might be able to fake the system out by overloading the sensors.

*if ingenuity > 50

You spend a few minutes typing, drawing on all of your experience screwing around on script-
kiddie hacking forums. Just when you're about to tear your hair out at yet another "Invalid
command, please try again," the system goes green. The security computer becomes
immediately, disastrously convinced that the mansion is burning down. It springs into action,
spraying more than half the rooms with the rapidly hardening fire-suppressant foam. This comes
as something of a surprise to Murder's goons, many of whom are glued in place by the white
gunk.

Unfortunately, the "fire" also activates the panic room's backup emergency failsafe, unlocking
and forcing open the door so that the occupants don't get roasted alive by the nonexistent
flames, meaning that this place has probably outlived its use as a safe haven. Still, you've taken
out several of the invading criminals and learned a bit about keeping yourself cool in a crisis.
*set murderstrength -10
*set planning +1

(You have earned a Planning Point!)

*goto roundtwo
*else
You spend several minutes screwing around with the computer system, but the fact of the
matter is that all of your experience at getting DOS to print out "BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS" a
hundred times in a row isn't really helping you here. The best you can do is screw with the
computer-controlled pressurization on the foam tanks, rupturing one right next to a goon who
was busy digging through your mom's third backup jewelry box. He falls back, knocked out.
Apparently the system dislikes explosions: all of the monitors cut to black, while the panic room
door slides open with the condescending smugness of a butler inviting an embarrassing distant
relative to take his or her leave. You skulk out.
*set murderstrength -5
*goto roundtwo

*label pa
Almost every room in the mansion has a small, nondescript intercom hidden in the wall near the
floorboards. And despite what you have sworn to your mother on multiple occasions, as a kid
you used to be pretty good at using them to scare the crap (literally) out of any of the dozens of
humiliatingly weak-chinned, annoying lapdogs she's owned over the years.
*if terror > 50
This situation probably calls for more finesse. Instead of broadcasting to all of the rooms at
once, you begin cycling from room to room. Did that thug just hear a distant gunshot? (No, it
was you cracking your knuckles.) Does that roguish gunsel with bad memories of jail hear the
sound of approaching sirens? (He does not, he hears you.) Within about ten minutes, you've
worked Murder's crew into such a state that, when you do open the channel wide and give your
best mocking, terrifying laugh, several of them drop their weapons and run for the door. Almost
worth letting the rest know where you are, you think, as you force the panic room door open and
slip back into the mansion proper.
*set murderstrength -10
*set planning +1

(You have earned a Planning Point!)

*goto roundtwo
*else
It turns out that professional criminals are a little harder to spook than an inbred toy poodle with
a prescription for doggy anti-anxiety meds. The goons are merely non-plussed by your initial
warbling "whooooooo" ghost sounds. They're actively amused when you try to convince them
that there's some sort of invisible snake wandering around. And when you deploy your most
menacing, most terrifying cackle, one of them starts laughing so hard that he cracks his head on
the den's mantle, knocking himself out. You decide to count that as a win, even as you force the
panic room door open while Murder's shrill voice orders her men to find you.
*set murderstrength -5
*goto roundtwo
*label countermeasure
You're vaguely aware that the house has devices placed in several rooms for exactly this kind of
emergency, but you're honestly a little unsure of them. Your normally lax parents were
frustratingly good at making it extremely clear how severe the punishments would be if they
found you playing with this stuff. That being said, you do know the password to access them,
and quickly type it into the security console. A panel unlocks, revealing a pair of joysticks.

"It's just like a video game!" you say out loud to yourself, and then quickly look around to assure
yourself that no one heard that incredibly cliché line.
*if combat > 50
Sadly, your expectations of wall-mounted flamethrowers and drop-down assault turrets are not
to be. Each room is equipped instead with a small stun gun. Your experience on the firing range
serves you well, and you manage to neutralize several of Professor Murder's goons before they
start destroying the guns. Said destructions activate the panic room's failsafes, causing the door
to open, and you sneak away before they come looking for you.

(You have earned a Planning Point!)

*set murderstrength -10
*set planning +1
 *goto roundtwo
*else
Today, you learn a useful fact for the future, if you end up having one: playing a lot of shooters
on your YboX doesn't translate well to blasting home invaders with stun guns, which is what
you're doing (poorly) right now. You take out a single thug, mostly by mistake, before
accidentally zapping the door to the room you're currently hiding in. Through some combination
of bad wiring and Murphy's Law, you manage to short the entire system out. You slink out of the
panic room.
*set murderstrength -5
*goto roundtwo

*label armory
*page_break
"The armory" is a grandiose title for what is, essentially, a small storage closet that happens to
contain things that could kill people. Most of the weapons on display here are prized more for
their value as collector's items than as means of self-defense. Still, there are a few viable
options. The fully functioning replica of the gun from the Filthy Ronny cop-vengeance movies,
bought by your dad during a drunken online auction binge. The bow from the summer when
"Damn it, we're going to go out as a family and kill our own food!" (Also known as 'The summer
you snuck out to fast-food places all the time.') And a stun gun. There's no cool story for that
one—it's just a stun gun. They're useful when you're rich and paranoid.
*label weaponchoice
*choice
#I want to make them crap themselves. I take the pistol.
*set terror %+10
*goto pistol
#I need to stay quiet. The bow'll have to do.
*set theatricality %-10
*goto bow
*hide_reuse #I don't want to kill anyone. The stun gun's the right choice.
*set lethality -1
*goto stungun

*label pistol
As you grab the ridiculous hand cannon, you hear movement behind you. Ducking behind a
table, you desperately try to remember which drawer your mom stores the ammo in. You freeze
as someone stomps in, laughs gruffly, and begins ransacking drawers on the other side of the
room. The thug dumps one of the drawers onto the floor, and something rolls under the table
toward you. You grab the bullet and quickly load it into the gun just as Murder's goon sees you
and prepares to cry out.
*choice
#Fire at the goon, aiming to kill.
*set lethality +5
 *goto killpistolshot
#Fire at the goon, aiming to wound.
*goto woundpistolshot
#Use the gun to threaten the goon.
*goto threatenpistol
*label killpistolshot
Before the goon can finish crying out, you pull the trigger. Your aim's not great, but at a distance
of three feet, it doesn't have to be. The first thing that happens is that his head snaps backward.
Then a lot of other things happen that you don't process especially well at the moment, but
which will serve as fodder for your recurring nightmares in the years to come. Aware that the
shot must have alerted Professor Murder (shudder) and her (other, still alive) thugs to your
location, you quickly grab more bullets from the floor, desperately wipe them clean, and flee.
*set combat %+10
*set murderstrength -5
*goto roundtwo

*label woundpistolshot
The thug cries out in pain as you aim at his leg and fire. You didn't pay enough attention in
anatomy class to know what kind of veins are in that part of the leg, but as the thug falls to the
ground, you notice that he sure is bleeding a lot. He continues to moan in agony, certainly
drawing more of his comrades to the armory. Wasting no time, you flee for another part of the
mansion. You console yourself that, one way or another, Murder is going to have to take care of
her man, which should work as a useful distraction.
*set murderstrength -10
*goto roundtwo

*label threatenpistol
Rising from behind the table, you casually point the gun between the goon's eyes and begin to
speak. "Friend, there's two ways this can end. Would you like to know what they are?" Eyes
wide with terror, the man nods slowly, careful not to make too sudden a movement. You smile at
him, coldly. "In one, you do something stupid, I pull this trigger, and you die here like a moron.
It's not much of a future, is it?"

The thug carefully shakes his head, eyes locked on yours.

"In the other, you tell me everything you know about Murder's operation. How many men are on
your crew, whether she has any crazy powers or devices. Then, I knock you out and tie you up,
take down your poorly dressed boss and former associates, and, when the cops come to clean
up, I don't mention anything about the man who mysteriously escaped from my armory. I like
that one, don't you? It offers many benefits over the first, but the most important, to my mind, is
that it is longer. Much, much longer. What do you think?"

He looks into your eyes, and you do your damnedest to project cold, dark certainty at him.
You're not sure where these words are coming from, but you feel a thrill running through you,
intermingling with the fear.

He tells you everything.

*set terror %+10
*set murderstrength -5
*goto roundtwo

*label bow
You lower the bow from the wall, only to realize that there are no arrows stored in here. At the
same time, you hear approaching footsteps. Thinking quickly, you hide yourself behind the
armory door. One of Murder's criminal associates barges into the room and gives a little laugh
as he sees the modest array of weapons. Then he gives a little gurgle as you bring the
bowstring down around his neck like the world's bulkiest, most awkward garrote. He's stronger
than you, but you don't have a thick wire wrapped around your throat, so the fight is just about
even. Finally, he slumps to the ground, unconscious. You find a few notes from Professor
Murder (full of misspellings, which really throws the whole 'Professor' thing into doubt) detailing
a few parts of their plans, which you commit to memory.
*set murderstrength -5
*set theatricality %-10
*goto roundtwo

*label stungun
You grab the stun gun, checking its charge level. It's full, although you know (from some very
stupid, very drunk) personal experience that the small device only carries enough of a kick to
knock out a grown person one time out of two. You're not crazy about those odds, and even
less crazy about them a few seconds later, when you hear someone walking down the hall
toward the armory's open door.

*choice
#Quickly rewire the stun gun to up its output.
*goto rewire
#Take my chances with the stun gun at its current level.
*goto current
#Abandon the stun gun and decide to use a different weapon.
You don't want to kill anyone, but you don't want to be killed, either. Looks like it has to be
either the pistol or the bow.
*goto weaponchoice

*label rewire
*if ingenuity > 50
You've been playing with electricity since you were a kid. It's the work of moments to turn the
docile little stun gun into a hissing, sparking monster. The look on the incoming goon's face is
priceless as you leap at him, Electric Mayhem Death Wand outstretched. The other
expressions, as he spasms on the ground while electricity flows through him, are also pretty
good.
*set theatricality %+10
*set murderstrength -5
*set planning +1

(You have earned a Planning Point!)

*goto roundtwo
*else
It takes no time at all to pull out the stun gun's battery, flip it backwards, and shove it roughly
back into the casing. According to your favorite sci-fi show, Dr. Space Journey, you've just
reversed the polarity, turning the stun gun into a spatial screwhammer. You laugh madly as you
leap at the incoming goon, barely noticing that the stun gun isn't actually working. You end up
bludgeoning the thug over the head with it, although you take a few rib punches in the process.
*set theatricality %+10
*set murderstrength -5
*set combat %-10
*goto roundtwo

*label current
The stun gun has enough juice for three full-power blasts. If the first one doesn't take the
incoming goon down, the next one will. Or he'll shoot you. That's also a possibility.

You make things a little easier on yourself by scampering (you try not to think of it as
scampering, but, watching the security footage later, scampering is the only word to describe it)
behind the armory door. When the thuggish, heavily tattooed man walks into the room, he
barely has time to register the signs of recent occupancy before you've thrust the small device
against his neck and pressed the trigger.

He roars angrily, turning toward you. Before he can shoot you dead, which is, from the
understandably upset look on his face, his intent, you shove the stun gun against his chest and
fire it again.

If anything, this only makes him madder, and the goon backhands you viciously. You're just
clearing the stars out of your head when you hear the click of his gun cocking. You reach
forward from where you lie on the floor and zap his ankle once more with the stun gun. You
barely manage to roll away before his now-comatose body slams into the ground next to you,
accompanied by the smell of slightly cooked flesh.

But hey, you tell yourself as you run from the room, at least you didn't kill him!
*set murderstrength -5
*set activist %+10
*goto roundtwo

*label traps
*page_break
You realize that you have one major advantage over the goons who have invaded your home:
you know the layout. Even if they have a map, thanks to Professor Murder's bungling it's not
even a map of your home. You've spent your entire life in this place, learning all of its hidey-
holes, its little quirks, the places that make it easiest to keep out of the way of well-meaning but
self-absorbed and irritating parents. Or, you know, murderous psychopaths.

A few ideas for traps come into your mind as you reconnoiter the mansion's upstairs rooms.
However, if the sound of approaching ransackers is anything to go by, you'll only have time to
implement one.

*choice
#Set up trip wires on the staircase.
*goto tripwires
#Booby-trap the upstairs doors.
*goto doors
#Trap the most-valuable things in each room.
*goto closets

*label tripwires
There are three staircases that connect the upper floors of the mansion to the ground floor.
Grabbing a roll of wire from a nearby storage closet, you manage to place near-invisible
tripwires across two of them before Murder's crew gets too close. From a conveniently hidden
alcove, you listen as the booted thugs make their way incautiously up the stairs. Long seconds
pass…and then you hear a loud curse as someone walks mid-step into a taut, chest-high wire.

With a sound like a busy night at a bowling alley, the thug falls backward, crashing into the man
following him. Both tumble down the stairs in a clatter of limbs and weapons. At the same time,
goons moving up the second staircase hit their tripwire, with comparable results. From your
hiding place in the shadows, you feel something well up deep within you. You consider holding
the laugh in, but it seems to have a will of its own. You throw your head back, and a menacing
guffaw echoes through the dark mansion.

You hear Murder's shrill, annoying voice cry out in the dark. "There's someone here, stupids!
Find it! Kill it! Obey me!"

You abandon your hiding place, sticking to the shadows as you go.
*set murderstrength -10
*set terror %+10
*goto roundtwo

*label doors
You move quickly, gathering up anything heavy you can find and placing it precariously on top
of every door you can get to. It's a lot like the old prank where you put a bucket of water over a
door, except in this case the "bucket" is a thirty-pound iron statue of a horse given to your dad
by a former President of China, and the "water" is a possibly fatal concussion.

From a hiding spot under one of the house's many staircases, you hear Professor Murder's
goons make their way through the upper floor. The first one to recklessly barge through a door
gets a hideous marble paperweight to the brain for his troubles. The traps catch a few more of
the goons before they wise up and open doors more cautiously. Still, you've taken out some of
Murder's crew and learned a little bit about setting traps in the process.
*set murderstrength -10
*set planning +1

(You have earned a Planning Point!)

*goto roundtwo

*label closets
You sneak from room to room, identifying whichever bit of loot will most likely draw a robber's
eyes, and find some way to make grabbing it a perilous proposition. Tripwires in front of an
ancient Ming vase. The cabinet containing the fine china rigged to fall forward at the slightest
touch. A flat-screen TV rewired to zap anyone who touches it. With a few minutes of work,
you've converted the upper floor of the mansion into the world's least friendly museum.

Running to a small, hard-to-see closet, you hide and listen for the results of your work. The
traps manage to catch a few of the goons off-guard, but the actual damage is fairly minimal.
Still, you did manage to freak the robbers out, and you grabbed your dad's guaranteed-
authentic replica samurai sword while you were prowling around, so you're in a better position
than you were ten minutes ago.
*set murderstrength -10
*set combat %+10
*goto roundtwo

*label roundtwo
*page_break
Breathing heavily, you run through the halls of your family's mansion. While you've taken out at
least some of Professor Murder's crew, you know that more of them are moving through the
mansion, and they almost certainly know by now that the place isn't as unoccupied as they
thought.

And despite that, you surprise the hell out of yourself by smiling. This situation is dangerous,
terrifying, upsetting…and fun. For the first time in what seems like years, you don't feel like
you're in danger of being bored to death. Stabbed, shot, maybe strangled to death, yes. But
you're not bored.

All of these thoughts go out of your head, though, as you round a corner and run into a stone-
eyed killer with a knife and no interest in witnesses.
*choice
#I intimidate the goon into turning and fleeing.
*goto roundtwointimidate
#I tackle the thug without a second thought.
*goto roundtwotackle
#I pretend to see someone behind him, then hit him.
*goto roundtwoingenuity

*label roundtwointimidate
*if terror > 50
You smile coldly at the goon, looking completely unfazed by his weapon and his scary face
and by the fact that he's, like, twice your size. "You shouldn't be here," you whisper in your
calmest voice. "Only dead things are here." Then, you step backward, into the shadows of the
dimly lit mansion, and give a sad little chuckle. The goon, suitably freaked out, turns and runs
down the hallway.
*set murderstrength -5
*set theatricality %+10
*set planning +1

(You have earned a Planning Point!)

*goto murderpartone
*else
You raise your hands over your head and shout "Boo!" in your most frightening voice. The
hardened criminal just rolls his eyes and advances on you, knife drawn. His mother should have
taught him not to walk with rolled eyes, because he trips on the carpet and lands on top of you.
The knife is between the two of you, and for a second you think you've been stabbed. Then you
realize that the knife is also between two of the thug's ribs. He grunts angrily, staring into your
eyes from beyond some far place as he dies. It takes you a while to recover enough to roll the
corpse off you. But at least you've learned a little bit about what "scary" really means.
*set terror %+10
*set murderstrength -5
*set lethality +1
*goto murderpartone

*label roundtwotackle
*if combat > 50
You throw yourself at the goon with reckless abandon. Your parents taught you a lot about fair
play, honesty, and always giving the other guy a fair shake. You throw all of that aside as you
beat on the home invader with no regard for decorum or decency. Eventually he falls
unconscious, and a little bit after that you stop hitting him.
*set theatricality %-10
*set combat %+10
*set murderstrength -5
*set planning +1

(You have earned a Planning Point!)

*goto murderpartone
*else
You tackle the guard ineffectually, flailing at him with wildly swinging arms. By sheer luck, you
manage to catch him in the temple before he can stick his knife in your lungs, and he goes
down. You stare at your hand, amazed by your newfound power. Searching through the goon's
pockets, you find a medical alert bracelet that informs you that he has epilepsy and should avoid
any sudden head trauma. You feel slightly less amazing.
*set murderstrength -5
*goto murderpartone

*label roundtwoingenuity
*if ingenuity > 50
You pull the old "I see someone behind you, so you'd better turn and look so I can hit you" ruse
on the knife-wielding maniac. That doesn't work, so you improvise, switching to the almost-as-
old "I pretend to not see someone coming up behind you so that you don't notice them" trick.
This also fails, which means the goon does turn to look to see the person you're pretending to
pretend not to see, and you smash a nearby vase over his head.
*set theatricality %+10
*set murderstrength -5
*set planning +1

(You have earned a Planning Point!)

*goto murderpartone
*else
You pretend to see someone behind the goon. In your mind, this involves happily waving and
shouting "hello" in the most convincing manner you can muster. Somehow, this fails to get the
man to turn around and look. On the other hand, your frantic waving dislodges a small bronze
statue on the nearby mantle, which falls on the robber's head before he can stab you to death
with his stabbin' knife. You keep waving for a moment out of shock, and then stop when you
remember that there's no one else actually there.
*set murderstrength -5
*set ingenuity %+10
*goto murderpartone

*label murderpartone
*page_break
You hear a loud commotion from the kitchen. Suddenly, two pairs of thick hands grab you from
behind, and you find yourself marched into the brightly lit room.

In the kitchen, you see Professor Murder lounging at the kitchen table. Her ill-fitting suit looks no
less ridiculous in person than it did on the mansion's security cameras. You're struck by how
little time has passed since you were last in here, before your boring night was disrupted by this
chaos.
*if murderstrength > 5

Surrounding her are two or three more of her associates, their numbers thinned but not wiped
out by your previous efforts. Murder watches her men drag you in with a crazy person's version
of confidence. Her hair is long, gray, and poorly kept. Her eyes are bloodshot—and staring. You
also notice a strange small device clipped to her lapel. It looks sort of like a camera, with a
staring green eye. After a moment, she speaks.

"Well, well, what do we have here? An intruder in my perfectly laid plan? The house is
supposed to be empty, you know, and Professor Murder doesn't take kindly to trespassers!"
You see two of her henchmen exchange slightly worried glances at this diatribe, but they're
apparently used to their boss making little to no sense.

Still, even if her words aren't exactly clear, the Professor's murderous intent is. If you don't do
something, and quickly, she's going to kill you.
*goto murderchoiceone
*else

Aside from the two goons carrying you, the kitchen is empty. You feel a small thrill of pride,
knowing that, if nothing else, you've made this psychopath's job considerably harder.

She stares at you, panic hiding behind the madness in her eyes. She distractedly sweeps a frail
hand through her thin, gray, unkempt hair. You notice a strange device clipped to her lapel. It
looks like a camera, with a green eye staring directly at you. Before you can wonder about what
it could be, the madwoman speaks.

"So, this is the stupid little sneak that's been creeping around my mansion! Hurting my boys,
slowing me down. Well, you know what we do to sneaky little stupid sneaks, don't you?" The
woman is clearly cracked, but that doesn't make her any less dangerous. If you're going to get
out of this alive, you've got to do something.
*goto murderchoiceone

*label murderchoiceone
*choice
#Try to get her talking to buy time.
*goto murderlogue
#Make a dash for the walk-in refrigerator.
*goto fridgefight
*selectable_if(planning > 0) #Execute a cunning plan. (Costs 1 Planning Point.)
*goto cunning

*label murderlogue
"Who the hell are you, lady? How did you devise such a cunning, intricate plan?" You've
watched enough footage of rampaging supervillains to know that there are very few who can
resist the urge to go on at length about how clever they are. True to form, despite her minions
rolling their eyes, the Professor begins to speak animatedly.

"Is it possible, fool, that you do not know of…Professor Murder? Once the finest assistant
professor of applied semantics ever employed by Metro City Community College, until that dark,
stupid day, lo these many years ago, that the nefarious Dean Michaels revoked her tenure. You
profess not to know of her turn to her true destiny, her true calling, of crime, and also murder?"
The Professor begins talking with her hands, rising from her seat and pacing.

"Certainly you have heard of my daring raid on the college bursar's office!" You shake your
head. "The diabolical assassination of the advisory board for the School of Liberal Arts?"
Another head shake. The Professor is getting angrier and angrier, waving the gun in her hand
around wildly. Her steps bring her closer to where you stand.

"Perhaps not, my ignorant ignoramus! But certainly, when the authorities find out that I've
ransacked the home of the illustrious college president, Ronald Carmichael, killing…whoever
you are—"

"This isn't President Carmichael's house," you interject.

"—stealing his priceless treasures and burning the stupid place to the grou—wait, what?" The
Professor turns, shocked. Instead of answering, you break free from the hands gripping you and
charge the old woman. Unsurprisingly, she goes down easily, and with a quickness you didn't
know you possessed, you grab the gun, aiming it at her goons.
*goto murderchoicetwo

*label fridgefight
Taking advantage of a momentary lapse in the goons' attention, you break free from their grip
and run for the kitchen's vast walk-in refrigerator. A shot rings out behind you as Murder fires
her comically large pistol. It just misses you as you yank the door open and dive into the
packed, icy room.

Moving swiftly, you lose yourself among the shelves of dairy products and years' worth of
leftovers. You hear your pursuers following, and duck behind a giant slab of meat hanging from
a hook in the ceiling. Shoving against it, you feel it connect with a goon, who goes flying against
a shelf of milk bottles. Despite this moment of triumph, you hear a gun clicking, and turn to see
Professor Murder taking aim.

Before she can fire, though, her foot slips on a puddle of spilled milk, and she falls. You take
advantage of the moment, resisting the obvious pun and grabbing the weapon.
*goto murderchoicetwo
*label cunning
*set planning -1
It strikes you that there a lot of things Professor Murder doesn't know. Whose house this is, for
one. How to find a decent tailor, for another. And she especially doesn't know that you
accidentally left a burner on in here when you were making your dinner earlier. She doesn't
know that the chair she's sitting in is poorly balanced and notoriously easy to tip over. She
doesn't know that giving you time to watch her people, watch her moves, and come up with a
plan was just about the stupidest thing she could have done.

You raise your hands in a gesture of surrender that just happens to put them in position to rattle
the rack of pots that stretches along the kitchen ceiling. The one that your mom keeps swearing
she'll get around to fixing, since they're always dropping off. A giant brass saucepan crashing to
the floor is enough of a distraction to let you step forward and gently tap Murder's chair
backward with your foot.

As soon as her ratty, heavily hair-sprayed hair hits the still-lit burner, it goes up in an explosion
of fiery chemicals, which causes the goons to flinch. She screams, running for the nearest sink.
In her haste, the good professor's gun clatters to the floor, and you scoop it up with surprising
speed.
*set notoriety +10
*goto murderchoicetwo

*label murderchoicetwo
*page_break
So, here you are. A supervillain at your mercy. A gun in your hand. Goons watching you, waiting
to see what you'll do. And you know what you should do, really. You should have done it half an
hour ago: grab the cellphone out of your pocket, call the police, and be done with this. You'll
hold Murder and her boys in place until the cops get here, and then go back to your normal,
boring life (with the added excitement of talking to insurance people about how you're going to
cover all the damage).

After that, you'll find a job somewhere. Maybe in the private sector, maybe with a not-for-profit.
You'll meet someone, fall in love, start a family. Get old and boring and rich, just like your
parents. Die surrounded by loved ones, with nary a regret and a lifetime of memories.

How does that make you feel?

*choice
#I resent the idea that I could ever have enough money.
*set activist %-10
*goto murderchoicethree
#It makes me so bored I think I might cry.
*set theatricality %+10
*goto murderchoicethree
#I can't let the world go on the way it is.
*set activist %+10
*goto murderchoicethree

*label murderchoicethree
*page_break
Half-distracted, you look at the unfortunate Professor, who watches your (previously her) gun
warily. "What's that thing on your lapel? The camera," you say.

She looks down at it. "My Darkspace credentials? You fool, you'll never comprehend the
majesty—" You wave the gun, and she shuts up. You turn to one of her minions and ask the
question again.

He responds, a little confused. "Some sort of supervillain thing. Uploads footage of jobs to the
Internet so that those other crazies can see it."

You look at the camera. It stares back at you, with its green unblinking eye. And the idea occurs
to you, as small as a thought, as big as a destiny.

You could take it.

*page_break
You've got money. You've got ideas. Hell, if you play your cards right here, you might even have
the start of a crew. And you could certainly do a better job of it than the wild-eyed crazy woman
sitting, terrified, on your floor. And with that camera broadcasting to Darkspace, the near-
mythical supervillain social network, you could have even more. You could have excitement,
fulfillment, respect.

You could be a supervillain.

Reaching forward, your other hand holding the gun steady, you pull the camera from Murder's
lapel and attach it to your own. She whimpers angrily but says nothing. It's time to decide what
to do with this has-been.

*choice
#I kill her, here and now. No half-measures.
*goto murderkill
#I humiliate her in front of her goons and the camera.
*goto murderhumiliate
#I knock her out and leave her outside the police station.
*goto murderknockout

*label murderkill
*set lethality +5
*set notoriety +10
*set murderdead true
Professor Murder opens her mouth to speak, but you're in no mood to listen. Her death is quick,
not because of some ill-placed idea of mercy, but out of cold efficiency. You turn to her stunned
crew, who probably weren't expecting this sort of measured lethality from a trust-fund kid living
in a mansion.

"She's gone, I'm here. You work for me, now." Your voice is steel. Nobody questions it.

*goto chaptertwoepilogue

*label murderhumiliate
*set notoriety +15
As the Darkspace camera watches, you order Murder to take off her jacket. Clad in a ratty T-
shirt, it's clear now more than ever that this is no force of earth-shattering malfeasance, only a
mad old woman. Holding the gun steady, you order her to sing "I'm a Little Teapot" as her goons
look on.

She tries to protest, but the gun in your hand makes the request deadly clear. She sings in her
quavering voice. She even does the little motions. It would be funny, if it weren't so sad. When
she's finished, you gesture with the gun, telling her to get the hell out of your house. She does
so, sobbing as she goes.

Her goons watch you warily. You smile at them, gun still in hand. "Gentleman, I believe you've
all just been placed back on the criminal job market. As it happens, I'm looking to hire."

*goto chaptertwoepilogue

*label murderknockout
*set notoriety +5
*set terror %+10
You bring the butt of the gun down on the old woman's frail skull. She whimpers a bit and
collapses to the ground. You bark out orders to one of her minions to get her tied up and
dropped off at the police station. The large man bristles at the command.

"Who the hell are you?" he asks, stepping toward you, though still wary of the gun. You stare
into his eyes and see the fear hiding beneath the bravado.

"I'm the person who just put you out of a job. And the person who can put you and your boys
back into one, a hundred times more profitable than the ones you scored with this old bat. All
you have to do is follow my orders, get her out of my damn house, and get rich. What do you
say?"

Later, you're not entirely sure what made him back down. Maybe he heard the sense in your
words. Maybe you got lucky. And maybe he saw something in your eyes, something that told
him that there's only one way for this to end.

He's the first of your minions. He won't be the last.

*goto chaptertwoepilogue

*label chaptertwoepilogue
You get contact information from your new soldiers, then send them on their way with a promise
of new work soon. You take half an hour to roam the trashed mansion, wondering what your
parents will think when they see it.

You spend a few hours toying with the Darkspace camera, using its built-in firmware to log in to
the dark website. Unsurprisingly, your takedown of a lightweight like Professor Murder has
grabbed little attention. Fair enough. It might actually work to your advantage. You don't need
everyone seeing your face, after all.

You get a welcome message from Obsidian_Heartbreak, the site's administrator. He sends you
a link that allows you to reset Murder's account information.

Among other things, it asks you for a login name. By tradition, he explains, it's the name you'll
always use as a member of the supervillain community. Not something to take lightly.

The first name that springs to mind is The Most Villainous of All Villains, but that's a little wordy.
Perhaps Evil of Evils? Or maybe something subtle like MEG, which only another evil genius
would recognize as an acronym for Most Evil Genius. Or you could just use something easy for
your inferiors to grasp, like Great One.

Then there are the dramatic names: Technomancer, Battle Master, The Specter…the
possibilities are endless!

After stressing over it enough to give yourself a headache, you finally think of the perfect name.
It expresses everything you hope to do, and be, in this new, exciting life. You type it into the
form:

*input_text name

*page_break
(Are you sure you want to be ${name}? Remember, this will be your name for the rest of your
villainous career!)

*choice
#I'm sure!
*goto EndChapter
#On second thought…
*goto NameChoice

*label NameChoice
After giving it a few minutes' thought (again!) you finally think of the perfect name. It expresses
everything you hope to do, and be, in this new, exciting life. You type it into the form:

*input_text name
*page_break
(Are you sure you want to be ${name}? Remember, this will be your name for the rest of your
villainous career!)

*choice
#This time I'm definitely sure!
*goto EndChapter
#Wait, let me try again….
*goto NameChoice

*label EndChapter
Once that's done, you take a few minutes to doctor the footage of your encounter with Professor
Murder. Not much, just enough to obscure your true identity. Then you grab your laptop, all of
your ready cash, and everything you'll need to access your trust fund, scrawl a brief note and
tape it to the fridge, and vanish into the night. From this moment, your old life is over. You never
really look back at the person you once were.

Now, you are ${name}.

*achieve villain

*finish