====== Autumn Store Bulletin ====== ===== Technical Difficulties ===== Emporium would like to issue a formal apology for the recent disturbances to our gravity, light, and PA systems. We assure you that these and similar technical difficulties are already under review, and pose no threat to employee or customer safety. We hope that none of these disturbances have taken away from your in-store experience, and encourage you to take any resultant concerns to our customer complaints desk, where we will be best able to respond to your specific needs. In the meantime we would like to remind our junior employees not to attempt to fix any of Emporium's metaphysical systems, but to report any errors to their superiors, as we have dedicated personnel on hand who will be better equipped to resolve the issue. ===== Assurance Reassured ===== Despite some concern about the dangerous and excessive levels of purple found in store, the feedback on stock levels and employee helpfulness have been exemplary in the extensive Auditor report - most notably from ROxANNE and Ron/Bill/Vince/John/Rob/Tom/Bob/Phil. Emporium has finally achieved the vaunted Stamp of All Purpose Quality™ Level 2! Why not join us in raising a glass of punch to celebrate? ===== Employee Promotions ===== Congratulations are in order, filed, signed in triplicate, and dutifully stapled. All employees are valued at Emporium, but at the start of this season we applaud the employees who have gone above and beyond in their duties to the store. We welcome Ron/Bill/Vince/John/Rob/Tom/Bob/Phil as our new Brand Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary; Voidbound Indigo as Expeditionary Security Operative; and ROxANNE, on probation as Business Improvement Vintener! ===== Autumn Fashion ===== Dress for the season of harvest and luxury! From perfume of homely hearth fire to baking gloves that allows you to hold the beating heart of a volcano, to capes dyed by the distilled vibrancy of ten thousand acres of sycamore, at Emporium, we have everything you want. Do drop by and see the dynamic autumnal display! Refreshment provided! //A picture of the display shows a nervous, blushy, awkward Autumn posing alongside the elegant featureless mannequins, all decked in lush and luxurious attires. A wide variety of fruit and vegetable lie around them, including a lot of pumpkins.// ===== Missing Sky ===== The sky is gone. Following issues with the maintenance of the speed of light, the sky above Emporium has been removed for unplanned maintenance. Management is aware of the issue, and reassures customers and staff that the misty grey void now visible from the Emporium parking lot, and through windows, is perfectly safe; merely an aesthetic change. We apologise for any inconvenience, and will restore normal operation soon. ===== Kerbie Kerfuffle ===== We at Emporium are happy to announce that the missing stock of Kerbie toys has been found. We are less happy to note that they have apparently come alive and are wandering the shop floor. Given their newly gained status as living beings, it should be noted that the Kerbies are no longer for sale. For the purposes of store policy, they are now to be classified and treated as Cryptids. If you encounter any information regarding how an entire brand of children's toys became living beings, kindly forward it to senior management at your earliest convenient. ===== Cooking Fair! ===== In many worlds, Autumn is a time for the harvest, for the celebration of crops brought and plenty of food. And what better excuse than a harvest celebration, for a cooking contest! Participants - employees and customers alike - are invited to prepare a dish that celebrates their homeplane's culture, with full access to Emporium's grocery aisles and stocks, absolutely free((By participating you confer upon Emporium rights to prepare and sell your dish in the Empty Vessel. You and your own home-plane's rights to the intellectual property and production of this food are not affected.))! Not only is this an opportunity to get a great taste of what other planes have to offer, as well as all the magical effects they may have, but we at Emporium are sponsoring a **One SoulCoin prize** for the winner! The fair officially opens in the Empty Vessel at 8:30, with judging at 9:30 - we are allowing entrants access to **limited time manipulation facilities** for dishes that need longer to cook, ferment, or age. Please see store employees Johnny Gangster, or Ezbihotz, for details. =====Employee Wages Delayed===== Due to an unfortunate administrative error, the payment of employee wages has been delayed by a small amount. Rest assured that this will be rectified within the next few hours. In the meantime, please accept our apologies on behalf of Orbital with some complementary pumpkin spice punch (new in this Season). =====Security Issues===== In an entirely unrelated matter, this is a reminder to please report any suspicious, hostile, or dangerous activity to Head of Security Phloupostrophe, or any employee currently on security detail. Such activity would include, for example, unaccompanied customers, disgruntled employees, or ill-intentioned Cryptids in, say, the vicinity of the Soul Vault. For example. ===== Coo-Coo and Emporium negotiations? ===== Circulating around the Store are a pair of pamphlets, [[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oKQicHtjnDgp6ywm0_OgjCDYryElYr5H/view?usp=sharing|one of which]] is from the 'Emporium Customers Union' (a pressure group of concerned customers, widely believed to unofficially represent the official Emporium line), and [[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pmWu8gWesOAAb-doxkETBebCHYVaXZ6E/view?usp=sharing|one of which]] claims to represent the official line from the Coo-Coos. This may indicate that the two sides are coming closer to agreement and reconciliation, or it may indicate an escalation in this conflict that has disrupted so many people's shopping experience. Stay tuned for more on this, as it develops. ===== Book XI, Chapter 51 ===== (A small poster is pinned to bottom of the board.) "Summer is coming to an end."\\ "All things do."\\ "Do they truly?"\\ "Once."\\ Lying comfortably on two pinstripe beach chairs, sipping cocktails, The Heroic Protagonist and his nemesis-friend are enjoying a moment of respite. Which does not last - it never does. \\ "Yarrrrrr!"\\ Spectral pirates with ethereal cutlasses that are rusty yet still sharp enough to hurt have appeared out of nowhere!\\ The heroes rise with practiced exhasperation, yet before they could draw their weapons, a brilliant light erupts from across the beach. There stands a mighty figure, whose antlers glow gloriously, capturing the summer light in all its perfection. The trees rustle, almost bowing in respect. The ghostly pirates look at them through their empty, hungry eye-sockets, yet are frozen in awe. Next to the antlered figures appears another Entity, a Glory with cloud-like wings and rose-pink eyes, whose Aura glows a beautiful gold.\\ The pirates are drawn to the gold. So much gold! They aren't even sure what to do with it. But they are not what the visitors seek. What the visitors seek is not here.\\ Too rarely do we find what we seek. It is not always a mercy to seek and then find. \\ From the acclaimed Saga of the Starry Superstore, by the great The Author! Who are these mysterious visitors? Will Triumph and the masked Chimera find what //they// seek? Will the mask Chimera //ever// reveal her name? What did Triumph dream of, when he stared into the void? Find out, in Book XI, Ch51! ===== ███████ ████ ===== //OC: This is not on the official store bulletin, but circulates around the Store's informal message boards and channels, before being deleted in minutes. You can decide if your character has seen it.// Customers interested in networking around the acquisition of speciality goods (materiel; bulk goods; energy sources; weaponry; other stocks based on availability) outside the soul-based economy should visit the Laundry Area. Be discreet. Ask for M.