Garbled

I’m looking through papers on a writing desk. I have my reading glasses on and am wearing flowy wide legged pants, a tank top, and a cashmere cardigan. My face is scrunched up from concentration so it’s possible I look more masculine to you.

You are wearing whatever you want to be wearing and have in your hands a folio filled with papers.

The first one reads something like a chapter outline. It’s titled: IN THE OVEN.

You can read it quickly, effortlessly, and understand what the chapter’s about, but you’re left with a salient question.

Who’s Garance? you may ask.

“Huh?” I reply, still going through papers.

This chapter is about someone named Garance, you say. Who’s that?

“A friend of Lila’s,” I say absently.

You knew that much from the summary and can say so.

I sigh and say, “I don’t think it’s here.”

What isn’t here? you might ask.

“The thing I’m looking for. It’s, like, a spell. A protection spell. I thought it was with these Azza-Jono papers or maybe the Island papers but …” I flap my arms. “It’s not here.”

Garance? you ask again.

“What about her?”

Who is she?

“A friend of Lila’s, like, a movie producer kind of person. Not the creative exec, type, though. She’s like an accountant for movies or some shit like that. I don’t know exactly.”

You say all that’s in the outline.

“Dafuq you askin’ me for then?” I ask and go to a bookcase and start scanning the spines there.

You might say something like even though those details—along with a lot of other very personal ones, including an affair and an abortion and things—are present, you don’t really get a sense of who she is.

“She’s a friend. I don’t know what else to tell you,” I say and then glance around the room for the bookcase ladder. I see it, go to it, and move it toward the section of the bookcase I was at second ago. “Excuse me,” I say, even though you’re not directly in its path.

Play procedures

• If you know the spell I’m looking for because you’ve read ahead or know the story already, you can offer it to me. I will thank you profusely and if we have the kind of relationship where it would be appropriate, I’ll kiss you, too. If we have a really raunchy relationship, I’ll blow you or eat you out or both, you know, depending on what’s going on down there and what you want.
• If you don’t know the spell specifically, but are familiar with These Are the Things I Know and/or The Black Book of Fear, you might think to suggest those. If you naturally thought of it and want to tell me, that’s what happens. If you didn’t but it makes sense to you now that I mention it, you can make a memory, perception, or insight check of moderate intensity to determine if you think to tell me or not. Failure means you get one memory tangle. If the Black Book of Fear is in your inventory when this happens, the memory tangle appears within its pages, as well. Which is, you know, bad.
• Should you have a song in your grimoire that will provide protection, you may offer it to me. I’ll mumble something about Odin having some number of spells and songs, and then say thanks and wander off.