Take A Card

Cassie stood a head taller than before - - and what a head! Her blonde hair and dyed black bangs had disappeared, replaced by a gigantic pink dome the size of a pumpkin. Her eyes were jet black, sparkling with heightened intelligence, and perceived the world in an array of new colors normally beyond her range of vision. She could see the waves of heat washing off her hands as well as beneath the skin, clearly making out the mutated bone structure that had fused her fingers together, leaving two large digits and a thumb. Alien thoughts were whispered at the corners of her mind, telling her to do things. "You have a special mission to undertake for Holy Mother Venus. Capture the Gaming Mage, Herman Mercer!"

Drifting down from alien ship hovering above the hole in the mall's roof, Cassie began moving through the Acorn Mall floating a foot above the ground... A new shop had opened up in the old space where the Denmark Fish Emporium used to be. The sign above the doorway immediately caught Cassie's eye. It read The Dead Man's Hand in letters made to look like finger bones. Cassie would have never figured the uptight Acorn Mall Business Association would let a place like this open up. Without a moment to lose she floated inside.

Cassie had expected shelves full of scrolls and the heads of weird monsters mounted up on the walls, cases full of magic blades, and counters brimming with potion bottles. The inside was actually a little disappointing. Mostly just posters for various role playing games and cases full of collectibles. That is, it was disappointing until she saw the shopkeeper dusting off a skeletal hand. Inside a glass case was a skeleton's hand, a little lick of fire dancing above each fingertip like the flame of a candle.. Cassie wondered if this guy was the owner. He looked more like someone who used to be an All State High School track star than a sorcerer. His nametag read Herman Mercer.

"Surrender, Herman Mercer, to the will of Venus" The shopkeeper seem nonplussed by the floating Alien Goth Witch. Cassie reached for her magical flames, and was disoriented as her transformed brain did not make the mental connection to summon the power. Looking inward, Cassie found that those areas devoted to magick had atrophied during her evolution to make room for her expanded telepathic abilities. As she began to reconfigure her hyper evolved brain, Cassie reached out with her Telekinetic abilities to grasp the scrawny mage.