https://youtu.be/WFztMq_aQtQ?si=4VKhBuXUmKU6B5hl
“Hey dude, wake up, the GPS is making me take a detour, and we gotta gas up. Wanna stretch your legs?”
You awake, bleary-eyed, stiff back, and bladder full. Glancing at the clock, you let out a yawn, and rub your eyes. Is it really midnight?
“I was out for ten hours? Jeez. Yeah, sure, I gotta take a mad piss. Where the hell are we, anyway?” you ask. Ben glances over at you with a smile, seemingly unphased by the nearly half-day drive. With a jittery finger, he points towards the map on his phone mounted to the car’s dashboard. Figures, he’s probably finished off that big thermos of coffee by this point.
“Kansas, we’re getting close to Colorado.” he says, moving his hand lower on the dash to turn the radio down.
“Colorado? I thought we were cutting down through Oklahoma and Texas?” you ask. Ben shrugs, and drives into an exit lane, heading directly for a truck stop. Your stomach growls. Gas station food sucks, but a cheap breakfast burrito doesn’t sound bad right now.
“The GPS said there was some gnarly accident on our route, and if we went through it, we’d be in the thick of all that traffic going west on I-40. Trust me, you don’t wanna be stuck in bumper to bumper in Amarillo.” he explains, pulling up to a gas pump. As soon as Ben put the car in park, you unbuckled and hopped out, shaking the cramp out of your leg. Not wasting time, you went inside the truck stop, making a beeline for the bathroom.
After finishing your business, you grabbed the only burrito left under the heat lamps at the hot snacks counter, a can of cold coffee and a bottle of water. By the time you got to the register, Ben was inside as well, filling up his thermos with more coffee. You hope he didn’t plan to stay up for the whole drive. Once you actually got to your destination, you still needed to get through the festival check-in and set up your tents for the week. With that thought lingering in your mind, you grabbed an energy shot off the impulse display. If he was gonna crash when you got there, you at least wanted enough energy to set up your own shelter.
The werewolf girl running the register was only half paying attention to your transaction, and seemed more invested in talking to her coworker who was stocking smokes. With how she was clearly undressing him with her eyes, you couldn’t help but frown slightly. It’s not that you disliked how overt some monsters could be, you were honestly just kind of jealous of the guy. Like the werewolf here, all the monster girls you saw back home near Moorhead were gorgeous, and seemed like a perfect ten in all accounts, but they were always glued to the hips of their boyfriends. When the portals opened, and the monster leadership made their intentions clear after the initial chaos, you still found it odd that there weren’t more single monster girls showing up around where you lived, but you chalked it up to being in a small city far from the main portals. But hey, wasn’t finding a single monster girl half the point of this trip anyway?
The werewolf finished your transaction, handing you your change and wishing you a good night, snapping you out of your thoughts. You grabbed the bills and your bag of goodies, heading back towards the car, this time taking your place in the driver’s seat. You counted out your change while Ben made his way back, and a big grin spread across your face. If miss thirsty werewolf had been paying attention, you wouldn’t be twenty bucks richer. Score!
Roughly nine hours later
You yawned and stretched your neck, waiting for a red light at an intersection in Albuquerque to turn green. Ben had thankfully not drank his coffee, and was saving it for later in the drive, deciding to sleep as much as he could before morning. He made it through most of the way through Colorado, only waking up when you swerved the car to avoid hitting… something. You weren’t sure if it was your eyes playing tricks on you, or if that gas station burrito wasn’t agreeing with you in a weird way, but some big furry thing on two legs ran across the road as you were getting close to the New Mexico border. Listening to old episodes of Kold Calls probably didn’t help matters, either. Ben kept joking that it was probably a Grizzly chasing her husband, or soon to be husband, but you weren’t so sure.
Whatever it was, you put it out of your mind the closer you got to your destination, and by the time you got close to Albuquerque, the both of you were starving. Ben messed around with his GPS for a few seconds, and now, you were moments away from stopping at a Waffle House. You hoped it was as good as it had been hyped up to be.
Minutes later, the two of you were seated at a booth, and had placed your order with the Holstaur waitress. Ben was looking up the festival schedule for the day on his phone, swiping through page after page.
“It looks like the first bands go on around noon, a couple small acts on the side stages, and the EDM tent doesn’t kick off until dusk. If there isn’t a traffic jam heading eastbound from here, we should have enough time after setting up our campsite to wander around and get a feel for the place.” he said, and a flutter of movement over his shoulder caught your eye. Glancing behind him, you saw a pale woman wearing an amber sundress in the next booth over. She had long, jet black hair, and a pair of similarly colored furry ears poking out of her head, one of which was still twitching. She turned, her brown eyes making contact with yours, and a wide smile grew on her face. In less than a blink, she was at your table, sidling in alongside Ben, who was looking as bewildered as you probably did.
“Hello! I couldn’t help but overhear you, but are you two going to Lunapalooza?” the strange kitsune asked. You noticed a single black fluffy tail curl around from behind her and settle into her lap. Ben blinked, and nodded. She then looked back at you, her eyes locking to yours. You found it a little unsettling that it seemed like you couldn’t look away.
“Uhh… yeah, yeah we are. Why? And who are you?” you mutter out. The kitsune let out a small laugh, and placed a hand on her chest.
“Ah, excuse me! I am Mara West, fortune teller by trade, and you are?” she asked back. Ben and you quickly introduce yourselves, and she smiles. “Wonderful, it is good to meet you! This may sound a bit ‘out there’, but I believe you two are the ride to the festival that I have been praying for. You do have enough space in your car for a third person and a large bag, right?” she continues, leaning closer to Ben.
“Whoa, lady,
slow down. We haven’t even gotten our breakfast yet. What makes you so sure we’re your ride?” he asks. Her smile grows, and with a flick of her wrist, a deck of cards was in her hand. She began to shuffle them quickly, and laid three of them on the table, one for each of you.
“Well, I would owe you greatly for the ride. My plan is to share my skills at the festival, for a price of course, either at my tent, or wandering around the festival grounds. For you two, I would offer no charge for my skills during the duration of the festival. But! Talk is one thing, a demonstration is clearly in order. If you would, please flip your cards.” she elaborated, while continuing to shuffle. Ben flipped his card, which showed a smiling man staring skyward, carrying a bindle, with the sun behind him. You drew your card, and it was a robed man with a staff, holding aloft a lantern. Mara flipped her card, and it was a woman in a blue robe and winged headdress, sitting between two pillars, one black, and one white. “The Fool, The Hermit, and The High Priestess. Very fitting!”
“That doesn’t quite prove to me that you’re some kind of soothsayer…” Ben mumbled. Honestly, you kind of agreed with him. Mara giggled, and laid a spread of cards face down in front of him. She gestured for him to pick one first, and he did so, but she stopped him before he flipped it over.
“That card is how you got your tickets for Lunapalooza.” she stated simply. Ben rolled his eyes, and flipped the card. It was The Wheel of Fortune. He stared at it for a few moments, then chuckled and shrugged.
“Good guess, I suppose.” he said. The kitsune looked back over at you, and gestured for you to draw from the spread. You tried to pull one card, but another stuck with the one you grabbed. You went to take a different one, but Mara waved her hand.
“If they’re stuck, they’re meant to be together. Take them both. It represents your leg of this journey.” she explained. You did as she said, and drew the two cards, flipping them over. One was The Chariot, the other was The Moon. “Something you can’t quite explain crossed your path early this morning, did it not?” she asks, grinning as she watched your expression change. Your mind went back to that thing at the border.
“Okay, that’s fucking
weird. Maybe you are a fortune teller.” Ben said with another chuckle. Mara joined in with his laughter, and nodded.
“I will admit, it puts some people off, but I find fate brings me across the paths of those most receptive to my skills.” she added, and looked at you. Or at least it kind of felt like it, but it also felt like she was looking past you. “If you’d like, I can give you a small background reading right now. You could consider it a… '‘Status Check’'.” she finishes with a smirk, gathering her cards back up, and beginning to shuffle once more.
Roll 7 D6s for your SPIRITS stats. Any skills, interests, abilities, and so on may also be suggested. For example, Ben is decently skilled in drumming, and has brought along a Cajon box drum.