text: [Themes: Horror, America, sexual content, romance, occult, rpg, vampire, scatological, monster girl, violence, strong profanity]
  
  > look around
  Bead Store, on the floor
  The Bead Store smells strongly of incense and stale joints, and it almost overpowers every other sense. There are shelves on all sides of the store, but none in the middle of the store due to the drawn pentagram.
  
  On the far side of the store is the register counter, and next to that, the broken PC that Audrey wanted me to take a look at.
  Alongside the shelves is a tall crystal ball holder.
  Sydney, Casey, Gibs, and Audrey are here. Gibs has Gibs's lacrosse stick.
  
  Gibs stirs for a bit, and gives everyone in the room a look of disgusted confusion. He leaves a rather pregnant pause. He finally gives his own comment on the explosion: "What... the fuck...
  was that?
  
  Audrey slowly picks herself up off the ground. I crawl over towards her. "Did you..." she starts. She sees the cable in the middle of the floor.
  
  "That was incredible!" says Casey, as she gets up and dizzily staggers around. "We have to do that again!"
  
  > get the holder
  I'm carrying too much to take that.
  
  Audrey, Gibs, and Casey are all up after the knockdown. Sydney is still down and out, though.
  
  "Syd?" asks Audrey. "You okay? Syd?" Audrey picks up the serial cable from the floor. "Oh, no..." she stumbles back as if something cut her legs out from underneath her. She knocks her head up against the counter and slumps to the ground without displaying a bit of evidence that she felt any pain. She stares ahead, so vacant...
  
  She snaps out of it. She looks up to me. "Jarret... " She swallows -- hard. "I think we summoned something. I think we summoned a
  ghost."
  
  If anyone else had said it at any other time I would have began a sarcastic riff. But she's not kidding around. "Are you okay? Did you hurt your head at all -- " She shakes her head in the negative. "Look, I'll check on Sydney, OK? Just relax, just stay still for a second..." Sydney is the only one still unconscious.
  
  > wake sydney
  I get up off the floor and go over towards Sydney in an attempt to wake her up. I place my hand on her shoulder... and suddenly her eyes snap open. She recognizes me quickly and gives me a look which communicates that she could have me at any time she wished in
  a split-second.
  
  Her eyes begin to swirl. She begins to turn transparent, she starts to float... she rises off the ground, breaking the look of pure sex and hypnotism that she shared with me, and looking over the others.
  
  "Always the inadvertent knight in shining armor, no, Jarret?" she whispers. It's still Sydney's voice, but softer, much more melodic.
  
  "Syd?" asks Audrey. "Are you --"
  
  "Oh, I feel wonderful," she says, answering the question
  before Audrey can finish it. "It has been so long since I have walked among you all... Too long. I have forgotten how good it feels to take a breath of air rather than soot..."
  
  She crosses her legs and raises herself a bit higher. She begins to slightly glow.
  
  > look at the holder
  It's a wooden stand, roughly four feet in height. It has three protruding grips on top to hold a smallish crystal ball (which is present). The base is circular in shape and rather thick.
  
  An animate human skeleton staggers into the store from outside. Its walk is slow, considered and focused, as if controlled by an inexperienced puppeteer. It has in its fingers a bloody and seeping severed head, which it discards to one side of the room.
  
  Audrey lets out a quick scream of shock when she sees it hobble in, and I grab her arm and get her behind me. The skeleton's head swivels quickly from right to left as it gives the four of us on the ground a haunting peer.
  
  I scan the room and recall what's in my pockets and trying to find a decent weapon.
  
  > take the holder
  I'm carrying too much to take that.
  
  The skeleton attacks and hits me!
  
  > Attack skeleton
  "Choke it all down!" I scream. I hit the skeleton!
  
  The skeleton screeches horribly -- a dry, dusty rasp somehow escaping from its ribs and jaw.
  
  The skeleton attacks and hits me!
  
  > Status
  I have a few minor scratches but am otherwise fine.
  
  The skeleton attacks and hits me!
  
  > kick the head
  I cruelly break the severed head!
  
  > hit the skeleton with the holder
  I clobber the skeleton with the crystal ball holder.
  
  (The crystal ball holder breaks as a result, and I throw it down.)
  
  "Choke it all down!" I scream.
  
  The skeleton collapses and falls to the ground.
  
  "Excellent, Jarret," Sydney rasps to me, from above. "It could not handle being hit that way..."
  
  "Skeletons are susceptible to blunt attacks." I shrug in a despondent attempt to mask my fear. "Y'know, Syd, I was thinking of just pulling off my trousers there for a second and breaking it into kibble with the Hammer of Thunderbolts that lives in my pants, but I didn't want to knock down all my friends in the process."
  
  She ignores my comment, as if unable to process it and feeling me not worthy of inquiry. The skeleton's weakness has been in every revision of the Monster Manual over the years. It's one of the first
  --
  
  "It's one of the first things you learn when playing D&D," says Sydney. A terrible smile crosses her face.
  
  It's terribly effective.
  
  I try to show no fear. (No additional fear, anyway.) "But that's an artifact of the game," I say. "It's a made-up construct. Something to give them a little more personality. There's no real-world basis for any of it." Keep thinking, Duffy, keep your mind busy, don't let this telepath get into your hea--
  
  "Probably not," she says. Her eyes turn empty and glow. "But who can tell? You have complicated my return slightly, but not for much longer. The look into your mind I obtained when we touched was so insightful. You're made up of so many deep, arbitrary little undead rules, rules you need to learn and exceptions you need to note."
  
  "What? Those aren't mine! I didn't make them!"
  
  "They will be. They are. You will find this place governed by them when you return to it. My power within this world will grow and that should keep you busy..."
  
  The room becomes much colder. Barnaby grabs me by the collar and leads the four of us out of the Bead Store.
  Gibs drags me out of the Bead Store as I try to plead with Sydney (or whatever is possessing her) to use anybody else as her template tonight, to give us back our friend, to let us all go. The room just keeps getting colder, and my words and breath form puffy clouds that fall short of reaching her. She never wavers in her silent smirk.
  
  We leave the Bead Store and collect ourselves out in the foyer. Most of the lighting in the Mall is now completely gone; lit instead by the moon through the skylights.
  
  "Fuck this fucking mall," says Gibs. "Let's go get Trott and get the fuck out of here. Jesus Fucking Christ."
  
  "I don't think we can just leave," says Audrey.
  
  "Why not?"
  
  "The thing that possessed Sydney said that the Mall will be governed by the arbitrary rules she found floating about in my head," I say. "With the showing of the skeleton, I think she means the undead rules."
  
  "What undead rules?" asks Gibs. "What are they, specifically? Which undead are we going to encounter? What will they act like?"
  
  "Who are all you people?" says Casey in a voice like Gibs's,
  making fun of all his questions.
  
  "There's a progression," I say. "In the D&D undead table, it goes skeleton, zombie, ghoul, shadow, ghast or wight, wraith, mummy, spectre, vampire, ghost, lich... and then 'special.'"
  
  Gibs reflects on that for a couple seconds. "Ah. Sure. Special like Special Olympics, or -- "
  
  "Special like they can kill with a scream or single touch."
  
  "Yeah." Gibs shrugs. "I guess that's pretty special."
  
  "Wait," says Casey. "Do you hear that? There's something groaning out there, in that direction." She points to the west. "Can you guys hear it? It sounds like there's a lot of them."
  
  "I'll get us out of here," I say, quietly. I don't know if the others are paying attention to me. "I'll keep us all safe..."
  East Side Corridor
  There's only one more stretch of corridor on this level before one gets to the elevator, which leads down to the ground floor. To the south of this area is the Bead Store, exits otherwise lead west and east.
  Audrey, Casey, and Gibs are here. Gibs has Gibs's lacrosse stick.
  
  > Go south
  The Bead Store smells strongly of incense and stale joints, and it almost overpowers every other sense. There are shelves on all sides of the store, but none in the middle of the store due to the drawn pentagram.
  Alongside the shelves is a tall crystal ball holder.
  A postcard, the Magic: The Gathering cards, Barnaby's Big Gulp drink, the X-box are here.
  Sydney and the skeleton are here.
  
  Gibs follows me.
  
  > take the holder
  Taken.
  
  It's really cold in here.
  
  > take the magic cards
  Taken.
  
  The cold begins to really sting. It's too cold to stay in here, so I scatter back outside the Bead Store.
  
  There's only one more stretch of corridor on this level before one gets to the elevator, which leads down to the ground floor. To the south of this area is the Bead Store, exits otherwise lead west and east.
  Audrey and Casey are here.
  
  > look at cards
  The cards are used in a game called 'Magic:The Gathering.' It's sort of like poker for nerds, except that the cards have special powers and so forth. I've never really gotten into it. Anyway, this is a small box containing wrapped packs of cards. There are about fifty or so in a box.
  
  > go east
  I'm at the eastern side of the Mall. To the north is Choad's Sporting Goods. My store is a bit to the east, and the Bead Store a bit to the west.
  
  There is a table here, set adjacent to the Sporting Goods store.
  
  Gibs goes over to the gate of the Sporting Goods store and gives it a tug. "It's locked... what, do all the gates fall down when the power goes out or something?"
  
  "That's my understanding, yes." I casually inspect the gate. "Ever since somebody brought a bomb into the arcade there have been a host of security procedures not in other, normal malls. Trott knows how to work the security console, though. Let's go find him."
  
  > go east
  This is far east as the Mall goes. The Mall technically dips a bit as one goes west, as it was originally constructed upon a landfill. There's a three-sided advertising kiosk in the middle of the corridor.
  
  To the west is the Beads Store, Sporting Good Outlet and the (closed) Arcade.
  
  My store, the Gaming and Role-Playing Emporium, is to the south.
  
  > Go south
  Benji's Gaming and Role-Playing Emporium
  My store is covered in darkness and shadows, giving it a far more foreboding look than it's otherwise ever had.
  
  The rest of the Mall is to the north. The door to the back room leads east.
  
  > Go east
  (opening the back office door first)
  Okay, the door is now open.
  I enter the back office hand-first, groping for the light switch. I find it, but flipping it has no effect. This act is not lost on Gibs.
  
  "Good work, there, Tesla," he says, albeit rather quietly. "The electricity is out everywhere."
  
  It takes a moment, but our eyes adjust to the darkness.
  
  The back office is made up of a number of shelves which hold boxes of 'Magic' game cards, and other stock we don't want out by the customers. There's barely enough room for two people to stand side-by-side here. There are two exits, one back to the store and one that leads to the garbage hall (and eventually, beyond that, to the security area).
  Sitting on the shelves is a cardboard box.
  
  "Trott's not here..." I say to Gibs.
  
  Gibs doesn't say anything. I turn back to look at him and his face has blanched. He snaps out of it but doesn't look at me. He points ahead and whispers, "Look at the window to the door, Duffy..."
  
  > look at the window
  I creep up to the window of the hallway door and take a closer look at it. A bloody handprint has been smeared  upon the other side.
  
  > look in box
  Inside the cardboard box is the gaming glove.
  
  > Wear glove
  I'll have to take the socks off my hands first.
  
  > remove the socks
  I take off the socks.
  
  > Wear glove
  I slip on the thick, pleather gaming glove. I begin to feel downright sexy.
  
  > look at Glove
  The Sierra Hobbies Gaming Glove is an inky black novelty gaming companion for the hurried Games Master. It's full of mnemonics, scribbled shortcuts and tables to allow for a smoother (and more stylish) game of D&D. No Dungeon Master that takes his craft seriously should be without!
  
  I'm currently wearing the gaming glove.
  
  > open door
  Opened.
  
  > Go north
  Gibs and I enter the long hallway that sits behind a number of stores. It's here to allow us to drop off whatever cardboard and trash we accumulate during the day for janitorial services. I know from memory that there is a door on the east side that opens into a sort of mini-lounge for the mallcops, but there isn't enough light to really make it out very well.
  
  > go to the east
  (opening the second corridor door first)
  Opened.
  
  The Lounge is far more spacious than the last few areas, and has enough room for a couple of couches, a television, a big plant, and a water cooler.
  
  On the far side of the room is a door which leads to a long walkway (on the other side of which, I think, is the actual Mall Security headquarters).
  
  "This isn't what I expected a Mall lounge to look like," says Gibs.
  
  > look at cooler
  The water cooler usually holds a few gallons of water, but it's currently empty. Busting up urchins all day makes a man
  thirsty, narmean?
  
  > examine the plant
  It's just a generic pink pot that can store green vegetation and wildlife. It's about half a foot in diameter.
  
  > go east
  I can't go that way. I can go west to the garbage hall or north to the mall back hallway.
  
  > examine the television
  The TV is 19" in size or thereabouts, quite small, really. It doesn't work due to the lack of power in this section of the Mall.
  
  > Go north
  (opening the lounge door first)
  Opened.
  
  This hallway is strangely shaped, and I am unable to make out everything within it. On the far side of the hall is a door that leads to the Security Room, but I can only barely make it out from here. The only real items in the room are a pair of doors and a large garden-variety plant in the corner.
  
  There is no transparent moon roof or anything in this room, so Gibs sticks his lacrosse stick up against the door so that we get light from the Lounge.
  
  "Do you think Trott got into the Security Room?" asks Gibs. "Do you think he made it this far?"
  
  > examine the plant
  It's comprised of a large potted base filled with soil, and a leafy, oversized garden plant of some unknown (to me, anyway) variety.
  
  Taking a closer look at the plant reveals a zombie hiding behind it!
  
  "What the fuck is that?" says Gibs. "Jesus -- look out, Duffy!" Gibs rips the lacrosse stick from the doorjamb. The resident light disappears as the door closes and locks with a click and I can only make out a quick glance of the creature before us before we're enveloped in complete darkness.
  
  Gibs takes a roundhouse swing at the creature with his stick. He doesn't connect, though. The creature emits a hoarse groan. I can hear it shuffling closer.
  
  > look at the plant
  It's comprised of a large potted base filled with soil, and a leafy, oversized garden plant of some unknown (to me, anyway) variety.
  
  "Get me some goddamn light!" shouts Gibs. I hear him struggle a bit more. "Hit this fucking thing!" I hear Gibs begin to gurgle and choke.
  
  Gibs's lacrosse stick falls to the floor -- Gibs never managed to get a shot at the creature with it.
  
  Waves of stench emit from the creature; it's some sort of dead fish and carrion stink that forms a nigh palpable cloud in the room.
  
  > Exits
  There are exits to the north and south from here.
  
  The creature screams deeply and Gibs's arms flail about, knocking me to the side. I make out Gibs slumping to the ground as he's let go. The thing turns with sudden quickness before beginning to shamble towards me with arms outstretched and awkwardly groping for me...
  
  The creature attacks and hits me!
  
  > hit the creature with the holder
  The crystal ball holder is broken and useless.
  
  > take the stick
  Taken.
  
  The creature attacks, but misses me!
  
  > hit the creature with the stick
  I clobber the creature with Gibs's lacrosse stick.
  
  "And then I kicked him in the head till he was dead!" I say,
  quoting Baldur's Gate.
  
  The creature collapses and falls to the ground.
  
  Gibs slowly staggers up, gently feeling his throat. "Ooof... guess you got him. Thanks, man," he says.
  
  "You bet," I say. "You OK?"
  
  "Yeah... my throat's a bit sore, but I'll be all right."
  
  > Status
  I have a light wound.
  
  > go to the north
  The security room door is closed.
  
  > open the door
  The security room door is locked.
  
  > Inventory
  I am carrying my glasses (being worn), some socks, the crystal ball holder (broken), the Magic: The Gathering cards, the gaming glove (being worn), and Gibs's lacrosse stick.
  
  > knock on the door
  After a brief pause, I hear a "klitch!" sound come from the Security Room door, around where the lock is located.
  
  > open door
  Opened.
  
  > go to the north
  We open the door and see Trott bolt right up from his chair.
  
  "Oh, geez... thank Christ it's you guys. Wait, did you get past that -- "
  
  "Yeah, we did," I say. "I think we killed it."
  
  I take a look around the room. There's a big console against the west wall which controls the gates, electricity and breakers for all the shops in the Mall. I imagine that Trott has been trying to get it operational for sometime now.
  Trott is here.
  
  > talk to Trott
  Please select one:
  
  (1) "What were you doing in here? Taking a nap, you
  testicle?"
  (2) "The mallcop got turned into a zombie. What I can't figure out is why you weren't."
  (3) "How did you get past that thing?"
  (4) "Hey... did you know that was us?"
  (5) "Hey, the lounge door got locked. Can you unlock it?"
  
  > 3
  "Well, it took a chunk out of me." Trott lifts his shirt up to show some deep claw marks just below his rib cage. "I first saw it when I went through the door to our back room. I was able to get back, and it started groping at the window every few seconds. I timed it, opened the door, and just bolted back here. I sure had no idea where it was or if it had followed me... looks like it was just on the other side of this freaking door!"
  
  Please select one:
  
  (1) "What were you doing in here? Taking a nap, you
  testicle?"
  (2) "The mallcop got turned into a zombie. What I can't figure out is why you weren't."
  (3) "Hey... did you know that was us?"
  (4) "Hey, the lounge door got locked. Can you unlock it?"
  
  > 2
  "What do you mean, 'turned into a zombie?' That guy was a nobody. Just some schmuck who was as bad at his job as anyone else in this dump. We're all mindless zombies in here."
  
  "No, not like that," I say. "Whatever summoning Audrey was trying ended up working. Her friend Sydney is possessed by someone. That someone stated that we'd find the Mall governed by the undead rules. I guess it's turning the Mall denizens into the undead."
  
  Please select one:
  
  (1) "What were you doing in here? Taking a nap, you
  testicle?"
  (2) "Hey... did you know that was us?"
  (3) "Hey, the lounge door got locked. Can you unlock it?"
  
  > 3
  "Yeah, one sec," says Trott. He makes flips a switch on the console. "Should be all set," he says.
  
  Please select one:
  
  (1) "What were you doing in here? Taking a nap, you
  testicle?"
  (2) "Hey... did you know that was us?"
  
  > 2
  "When?"
  
  "When we were fighting that freaking thing," I say.
  
  "Oh. No," says Trott. "I heard the fighting but I guessed that it was another creature or something. I was hoping that you'd all take each other out, like when imps start fighting each other in Doom."
  
  "In what?"
  
  "Doom. The game, Doom? Don't tell me you don't know
  what Doom is. Oh dear. Ohhh, dear."
  
  "Hey, I don't give you crap for not knowing what Man Down Defense is," I say, trying to use sports knowledge against Trott.
  
  Trott stops for a beat and calmly says, "That probably didn't come off quite as scathing as you thought it would have." Unfortunately, he's right. Damn 'im.
  
  Please select one:
  
  (1) "What were you doing in here? Taking a nap, you
  testicle?"
  
  > 1
  "What? No," says Trott. "I've been here -- what do you mean, a 'testicle'? Cripes, I -- "
  
  "I'm just kidding around. Would you have preferred 'gonad'? What did you do when the lights went out?"
  
  "I was in the back room when the lights went out. I heard the auto-kick-in for the gate... kick in, so I went out and verified that the thing was locked and that it wouldn't open from the inside. What happened anyway?"
  
  "Duffy interrupted his girlfriend's seance," says Barnaby.
  
  "It wasn't a seance," I say.
  
  "I know. I just wanted to see if you'd be able to resist anal-retentively correcting me."
  
  Trott waits a bit before he says anything further. He doesn't like Gibs much.
  
  "Anyways," says Trott, "The only way to get out is to get the mallcops to let me out. I made my way back through the first door when I saw that thing. It took a chunk out of my side, but I eventually got by it, ran in here and locked the door. What was that? It wasn't a bot. It was wearing the clothes of one of the security guys who works at the Mall. But what happened to him?"
  
  Please select one:
  
  (1) "Do you know how to work the console?"
  
  > 1
  "I think so," he says. "Much of it was damaged before I got here, but I can turn on power and raise the gates to some of the individual stores."
  
  "Can you raise the gate to the Sporting Goods store?"
  
  "Ummm," Trott says, as he looks over the console, "Yeah. That one I can turn on. Do you want it on now or later?"
  
  Please select one:
  
  (1) "Later... the girls are out there alone."
  (2) "Now is good, it's probably safe."
  
  > talk to Trott
  Please select one:
  
  (1) "Later... the girls are out there alone."
  (2) "Now is good, it's probably safe."
  
  > 2
  "Okay... " Trott flips a few switches on the console. "It's up."
  
  "Thanks."
  
  "OK, before you go, why don't you take this phone? The Mall only pays for it to work as a CB radio for the mallcops, but if you need more gates raised, just let me know through it."
  
  "All right, sounds like a plan," I say. "I'll try to keep you posted as to what is going on out there."
  
  > leave
  I can't go that way. I can go south to the mall back hallway.
  
  > Go south
  This is an oddly-shaped hallway that connects the Lounge with the Security Room. There are doors that lead to both rooms.
  There is a potted plant here.
  The creature is here.
  
  > examine creature
  The thing's face features a dramatic gaping burn wound on the forehead, presidentially presiding over a quick voting bloc consisting of two or three jagged teeth. It's wearing some tattered mallcop clothes, but my expert opinion is that the creature is in fact a zombie.
  
  It  is currently knocked out.
  
  > Go south
  The Lounge is a largish, open room with a high ceiling. There are a couple of old couches here, along with a television, water cooler and plant life of unknown make and origin.
  
  Exits lead north and west.
  
  > Go west
  This is a long hallway that sits behind a number of stores. The store owners and workers put their trash in this hallway for janitorial services. There is a door to the security lounge to the east and a door to the back office of Benji's store to the south.
  
  > Go south
  The back office is a cramped and tight little room with shelves on both sides.
  
  There are two exits, one back to the store and one that leads to the garbage hall (and eventually, beyond that, to the security area). Sitting on the shelves is a cardboard box.
  
  > go to the south
  I can't go that way. I can go west to Benji's Gaming and Role-Playing Emporium or north to the garbage hall.
  
  > Go west
  Benji's Gaming and Role-Playing Emporium
  My store is covered in darkness and shadows, giving it a far more foreboding look than it's otherwise ever had.
  
  The rest of the Mall is to the north. The door to the back room leads east.
  
  > Go north
  This is far east as the Mall goes. The Mall technically dips a bit as one goes west, as it was originally constructed upon a landfill. There's a three-sided advertising kiosk in the middle of the corridor.
  
  To the west is the Beads Store, Sporting Good Outlet and the (closed) Arcade.
  
  My store, the Gaming and Role-Playing Emporium, is to the south. Audrey and Casey are here.
  
  "Hey, Dungeon Master," says Audrey. "Did you find Trott?"
  
  "Yeah. He's back operating the security console for us." Huh. 'DM,' she said. She normally only calls me that when she's in a good mood about our chances.
  
  "He didn't want to come with you?" she asks.
  
  "Maybe he would have, but he'll be able to open the gates we want if I contact him through this," I show her the phone.
  
  "Did you guys try the gate at the Sporting Good store already?" asks Gibs.
  
  "No, not yet," says Audrey. "We just got bored waiting for you, so we headed over this way."
  
  "Also," says Casey, "We went over to where the escalator was. You wouldn't believe how foul it smells over there!"
  
  "How bad is it? My previous high score in this department is my roommate Pang's custom Dance Dance Revolution pad that he
  keeps downstairs and only uses with bare feet in some bizarro-logic attempt to keep it 'nice.' I mean, is it worse than -- "
  
  "It's worse," Audrey says softly, her eyes closed in the pain of the persistence of this memory, "Much, much worse."