[nWoD] Campus Vigilantes 2: Halloween

[Lycan 01]

Jonah looks at the last few texts. First Matt begging to be saved from watching some folks getting it on, and then Leon saying something was wrong backstage. If this were a horror movie, the scholar would have thought the couple having sex had been killed first. But this isn't a horror movie, right?

On my way Jonah texts, before slinking through the crowd and trying to find his way backstage. He adds a little stagger and sway to his step, so if anyone sees him, they'll assume he's acting more drunk or disoriented than sneaky and stealthy.

[Misaat]

" What the! That wasnt like that before! im sure of it!"

He thinks as he remains hidden waiting for the couple to get out.

[savior indra]

Kale felt the vibration of his cellphone in his pocket and decided that whatever it was, it could wait until the song was over. Besides the others would be fine without him, they were no strangers to physical combat. Michelle on the other hand was an entirely different story.

[-Sentinel-]

Adam

Allison made no sign that she either believed or disbelieved Adam when he spoke of hunting the supernatural, but she did hand him her notepad, somewhat reluctantly.

“You just take a look and give it back, okay? I need it.”

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Zach L. - ?
Anthony R.
Samuel K.
Jamie P. - ?
Leon C.
Rick T.
Marco A.
Wayne B. - ?
Ahmad A.
Mark E.
Hong C.
Andrew W.
Michael A.
Chris S.
Thomas B. - ?
Sean M.
Vladislav W.
Matthew G.
"Castro" - ?
"Elvis"
"Jar Jar"
"Clinton mask" - ?
"fat suit guy"
"pimp"
"plague doctor"
"Satan"
"rabbi"

[several more pages filled with names and costumes, some of them crossed out]

---

1

Jaime

“You'd better not mess with the evidence again,” Jamie Price warned, pocketing the bullets. “Or start spreading rumors. I'll be keeping an eye on you. Don't give me that freedom of the press bullsh!t... My job here is still more important than yours.”

---

1

Kale

Kale could feel the envious gazes on him – Michelle was the girl many guys dreamed of, but none could get, no matter how hard they tried. It was probably because they could not understand her; they had never lost a boyfriend or girlfriend in a senseless, random massacre. As they danced, Michelle remained silent for a long time, but suddenly she decided to ask the question that must have been nagging her for a while.

“Tell me, Kale... what's that under your costume?” Her tone was amused and curious. “Doesn't feel too comfortable.”

---

1

Semira

Zach looked puzzled, but did not ask. It would probably not take him long to find a new dancing partner.

---

1

Leon and Matthew

“What do you mean, public indecency? We weren't in public,” protested Steve. “Are you a cop, or what? What are you doing in here anyway?”

“Steve, look,” breathed Amy. She had just noticed the writing in the mirror.

Steve followed her gaze. His eyes widened. “Oh... sh!t. We need to tell Jamie.” Forgetting to zip his pants, he took his girlfriend by the hand and hurriedly left the room through the stage.

Leon slowly ran his index finger on the writing. The paint did stain his finger, but it smelled absolutely nothing he could discern. That, in itself, was very strange. He looked at the mirror again.

HE
STILL
LIVES

He could have sworn the final S had been missing twenty seconds earlier... He looked down at his cellphone to see if the picture he had taken confirmed his suspicions. But the mirror shown in the picture had no writing in it, only Leon's own reflection.

And just like that, the actual writing on the mirror was gone, and Leon's index finger was perfectly clean. As if it had never been there in the first place.

---

1

OOC: The ones going backstage will get there in the next update.

[Odentin]

Adam frowns as he looks it over, furrowing his brow, "You certainly have the handwriting of a medical professional..." He says wryly, conveniently "forgetting" that he's a pre-med student, "What's it all mean?"

Even as he scowls at the list, he checks his cell phone, "Something's happened backstage. Something we both need to see, apparently. Come on." Having said that, he attempts to guide her backstage, hopefully explaining her list on the way...

[Misaat]

Matthew steps out from behind the mirror and sprints over to Leon.

" We need to go tell this to the others... "

[McGonigle]

"Pity I'm pretty sure I'm better at both our jobs," Jaime commented to herself as she continued to walk away. She needed to look up some other facts before writing but if all else fails she was pretty sure Jamie had provided her with

Jaime commented she went and sat down at the side of the room, and had a look at her phone. Texts had came in while she was being aggravated by Jamie but she wasn't going to give him the chance to potentially read something incriminating. She pulled up the picture message and opened it.

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Considering she'll look at the texts in reverse order, i.e. newest first if it's just a mirror she probably won't move backstage. Instead sending a sarcastic reply of 'a mirror.'

[ToySoldierCPlus]

OOC:

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Before Jaime sends a response claiming that the writing is on a mirror, Leon sent a text, not a picture message. The picture was taken after the message was sent. Jaime has no way of knowing what Leon found backstage.

Looking between his now dry fingers and the now-empty mirror, Leon ponders what it could mean. "I already summoned them. 'He still lives...' There are two problems with this. First, who is 'he?' Ian, presumably. A zombie? No, no... A ghost? Plausible, given the mirror. Something else entirely? Maybe." He glances up at Matt. "Feel free to throw in your own ideas. The second issue, of course, is that whoever was writing this managed to finish it while I was watching, without being seen. And it was being written on this side of the glass. When I turned on the lights, it said 'He still live,' no 's'. Now there is an 's', which raises some very serious questions. And, of course, Jamie's going to show up, and be pissed, and we're going to argue, and I'm going to have to explain to him that he's in over his head and needs our help, and he won't want to hear it, because he's a cop and I'm just some biology nerd. I wish Christian was here. He'd be able to talk some sense into Jamie."

[savior indra]

"Body armor. Just a safety precaution, which is why I wanted you to stay close to me tonight. If I take a bullet, I'll live." said Kale with a bark of laughter.


OOC

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Has the song ended/is close to ending?

Given the OOC statement is true,

Kale takes out his phone and checks the message before asking Michelle, "Hey can you come with me backstage, something's happened."

[-Sentinel-]

Song: International Love (remix), by Pitbull, ft. Chris Brown (thanks Savior Indra)

---

1

Kale

"Body armor. Just a safety precaution, which is why I wanted you to stay close to me tonight. If I take a bullet, I'll live."

Michelle stared at Kale as if wondering if he was kidding. “...You actually put on body armor for a party? That... uh... honestly, Kale, are you aware some people think you're a bit... strange? And you're not doing a lot to dispel that impression.”

"Hey can you come with me backstage, something's happened."

She chuckled. “That's not some sort of cheap ploy to get me alone in a dark room, is it? 'Cause I've seen better.” Her smile vanished when she saw how serious Kale was. “Um... right. Sorry. I'm coming.”

---

1

Adam

Allison arched an eyebrow. “Not sure I'm glad your friends know about what I'm doing. As I told you, I can't trust anyone in here. Hell, I trusted my brother more than I ever trusted you.”

But she followed him all the same. If Adam was hoping for some more explanations about the list, he was disappointed, but Allison made no immediate move to get her notepad back.

---

1

Jaime

As Jaime walked away from Jamie Price, a dissheveled Elvis with unzipped pants and a cowgirl whose shirt was buttoned all askew emerged on the stage and ran towards the rookie cop. Jaime could easily guess it had something to do with whatever Leon had found backstage.

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In the light of ToySoldierCPlus's OOC note, feel free to join those who go backstage.

---

1

Everyone involved – Backstage

Most of the floor space in the narrow, high-ceilinged room was taken up by audio and stage equipment, instruments, chairs and mirrors. The lights were on. Matthew and Leon were already there, staring at a large mirror with a somewhat mystified expression. At first glance there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary, except a discarded bra on the floor near a fallen chair.

Michelle pursed her lips when she saw Allison. "Evening," she said coldly.

"Mmm-hm," answered Allison, not even sparing her a glance.

[Lycan 01]

Jonah looks around. "Um... I dunno, aside from the bra, everything looks kinda normal back here..." the scholar idly observes. "But I'm probably missing something important, so fill us in."

[Odentin]

Adam speaks as he moves, "Crossed out are people who acted normally, question marks are, what...suspects? What about the ones with nothing? I can tell you now Leon and the Plague Doctor are on my team. Not who you're looking for."

As they enter the backstage area, Adam arches an eyebrow and looks about, moving his gaze from the bra to Leon, "You wanna show off your lingerie? Or did you bring us back here for a good reason?"

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What would it be to figure the chickenscratch out?

[ToySoldierCPlus]

Leon doesn't turn around. "5.47 minutes ago, I received a text from Matt, asking someone to come backstage and spook a horny couple who were getting busy. I responded. 3.28 minutes ago, I arrived backstage and turned on the lights to spook the couple into leaving. 3.11 minutes ago, I saw writing on this mirror. The writing read, "He still live." After telling the couple off, I texted all of you to join me here and see it. I snapped a picture with my phone, and continued to investigate the writing. It was fresh, written in a blood red liquid. Not paint or blood based on scent analysis. When I looked back up, the writing had been expanded. The complete message was, "He still lives." 2.78 minutes ago, the writing disappeared. Checking the picture I had taken as evidence revealed that it had not appeared in the picture."

He turns around. "I think it's fairly obvious what this means. We're dealing with something supernatural, which is outside of Price's league. Whatever it is, Ian is involved in some way. I don't know how, yet, and I realize this must be hard for you to hear, Allison. However, I need your cooperation on this. You knew your brother better than anyone else. Was he into anything related to the occult? Wicca, paganism, black magic, reincarnation, anything? If he's found some way to transcend death, we're going to have a problem."

As an afterthought, Leon adds, "Perhaps worse is if someone else has found a way to bring him back. I never got to tell anyone what got me into this job. The short version is that I saw a man made of corpses stitched together into some kind of unholy mockery of Frakenstein's monster fighting a monstrosity that I can't even describe now. A violation of all laws of biology and nature alike. The corpse-man touched the monstrosity and turned it to stone, and in that moment I saw it for what it truly was: a monster. There are weird things out there, with strange abilities, and stranger forms. Reanimation, ghost summoning, and reincarnation aren't even on the list of improbabilities at this point."

[Lycan 01]

Without skipping a beat, Jonah pulls out his phone and goes online to check various Hunter and reliable paranormal resources, trying to dig up everything he can for ghosts and demonic incursions. He is mainly focused, though, on racking his brain and trying to remember anything and everything he's ever learned about paranormal activity like this. "Anybody know where the kitchen is? We'll probably need salt. Maybe try to make some holy water..." he observes in a casual manner that is probably unsettling to the non-Hunters.

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Finally, I'm useful!

The main thing I'm doing now is checking Occult to know/remember how to deal with ghosts and/or demons, or to at least to figure out what we're probably dealing with. And I'm going to spend a WP for it. So, Int + Occult + Will dice = 10, I believe.

Occult: (10d10)[9][6][2][4][6][2][4][8][1][1](43)
10 agains: (3d10)[4][9][6](19)


...

2 successes. Dammit Jonah, y u no useful?! >.<

Also, I'd like to look up ghosts and demons and stuff on the internet, but I assume that's a secret roll, so I won't bother with rolling it.

Jonah gets slightly distracted by Kale's story. "Huh. Better story than mine," he mutters absentmindedly. "I went to a fancy dinner party, got invited to a 'hunting club,' and wound up hunting a Ghoul. Fun times..."

He probably shouldn't have mentioned the club thing. But he's too busy trying to be the lore-monkey for the team to realize what he's saying...

[Odentin]

Adam shakes his head, disregarding Michelle's presence entirely, "Ghost might be a possibility, but how do you know it wasn't a hallucination? Other beasties can do that to you..."

He takes a glance over at Allison and frowns before looking back at Leon and continuing, "If it is a ghost, you consider this might be what caused the original massacre?"

[savior indra]

"There's other reasons. Like I said my friends and I believed that someone may be planning to kill people, so we prepared accordingly." explained Kale as he and Michelle headed backstage.

---------------------------------------- [ heading backstage ]

"So I don't hunt the supernatural specifically." said Kale as he turned towards Michelle and Allison.

"I try to make the world a better place by removing whatever holds it back. The supernatural sometimes falls under that category." explained Kale.

"I agree that this is beyond that rent-a-cop's abilities. We need to make sure that we're prepared to deal with whatever is happening. Is anyone wearing the kevlar I bought?"

[-Sentinel-]

Adam

"I can tell you now Leon and the Plague Doctor are on my team. Not who you're looking for."

"If I'd found you two years ago with a list of potential school shooters that had Ian on it, I'd have told you the exact same thing," replied Allison. "Not who you're looking for. Do you think you know your friends better than I knew my brother?"

She ignored his other questions.

---

1

Everyone

Michelle's mouth opened and closed several times while Leon spoke. She turned to the others almost pleadingly, perhaps hoping to see amused faces that would confirm this was only an elaborate Halloween prank, but saw only grave and serious expressions around her. She grew even more bewildered when Jonah and Adam added their own theories to Leon's.

"...What... are you all talking about?" she stammered. "You all drunk, or what?"

For her part, Allison was listening intently. When Leon questioned her about Ian, she answered: "No, he wasn't into spiritual stuff... he had nothing but contempt for all that. He was an atheist and a rationalist."

"No wonder he went bad then," sniffed Michelle. "I mean, with no moral rules left to guide him..."

Allison shot her a deadly glare. Michelle held her gaze defiantly.

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DISCLAIMER: I strongly reject and even despise the belief that morality stems from religion, being nonreligious myself. Just so no one thinks Michelle is expressing anything close to my view...

Something about Michelle I may not have mentioned yet: she's a born-again Christian.

Jonah raked his brains for anything he knew about ghosts and demons. He had never met either, so he relied on relatively trustworthy sources like Network Zero, but even they were sometimes inconsistent. It was said that some of the more powerful ghosts had the power to create illusions, but Jonah had no idea if demons could do the same. According to folklore, ghosts remained in the mortal world either to fulfill some unfinished business before moving on, or because they were afraid of whatever afterlife awaited them. Less was known about demons; they apparently varied greatly in power, and some could grant wealth, power, knowledge or even supernatural abilities in exchange for an often immoral service that could vary between a small sin or an unspeakable atrocity.

Using his smart phone, Jonah made a quick Internet search and found some websites that offered exorcism services, for a price of course. It was hard to tell which ones were the real deal and which ones were not, but the cheaper exorcists who claimed to cast their spells from home almost certainly belonged to the second category. Other websites mentioned anti-ghost or anti-demon holy objects; some even sold them, usually with three- or four-figure price tags.

There was clearly a lot of money to be made from fighting the supernatural... Why, then, was Jonah always broke?

[Odentin]

Before the backstage: "Thought you'd say that. Still not sure you'd have been wrong."
__________________________________________________ _________________

After the backstage: "Michelle, you're being part of the problem, here, not part of the solution." He glances at Kale, "I am. Hopefully it won't be necessary."

He lets out a long, weary sigh, muttering to himself, "Oh who the fµck am I kidding...?"

[savior indra]

"Let's not insult each other and focus on the real issue here." said Kale calmly as he stood between Michelle and Allison.

"Jonah what are our options at this point. Because i don't think we know nearly enough to create a plan."

[SurlySeraph]

Sem pipes up. "Waiting around and tackling anyone who looks like they have a gun is an option!"

[ToySoldierCPlus]

Leon shakes his head. "Too few of us, too many party-goers. Besides, we'd wind up tackling too many innocents. If I took my screw off and put it in my labcoat, I'd look like I was carrying a gun.

Turning to Michelle and Allison, he adds, "We're not drunk Michelle, just like we weren't drunk when took down the vampires that were running Rasputin's at the beginning of the year. Nor was I drunk when I dissected the blood-suckers. Got some very interesting data out of it, too. I digress. The things that go bump in the night exist, and what's worse, they prey on humanity. We've made it our job to stand up and say, 'No, I won't be the prey any more. You are the hunted, and I am the Hunter.' Allison, I appreciate the information. For what it's worth, so was I before the end of last year. So we can presumably rule out Ian finding some way of transcending death, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have been possessed by something, or that someone else couldn't have found a way to call him back to do this."

[Misaat]

Matthew Quickly sends a message to his contact from network Zero.

" What do you know about Ghosts? "

Then he turns towards the rest of the group.

" Guy's if everyone is backstage here... Who's watching the people at the party? "

[Odentin]

"Price." Adam says contemptuously.

We have to hope this thing can't jump from host to host. Find the host, restrain it, and hold it until we can figure out how to, what, exorcise the thing?"

[ToySoldierCPlus]

"Why wouldn't it be able to jump from host to host? If we restrain its host, how do we know it won't be able to jump out? Anyway, assuming it can't, how do we ID its host?"

[Lycan 01]

Jonah continues to tap at his phone. "Well, some of the more reliable sources say that sufficiently powerful paranormal entities are able to create illusions. Having unfinished business or being afraid of 'the other side' are potential causes for a ghosts creation, in folklore at least. As for demons, there's less information on them, but they tend to be extremely powerful and dangerous. They prefer to make deals, though. Your classic 'Dr. Faustus' scenario..." the scholar shrugs. "Exorcism services or special anti-supernatural items seem to be popular solutions, but most of them look like shams and rip-offs. Though, a few of them have 4-digit price tags, and you've probably gotta be doing something right if you can get away with charging that much per service."

"Well, looking at what we've got, I'd say it's a ghost. We've already messages appearing and then disappearing, and it would explain how several dozen bullets got into the candy bowls without anyone seeing them. Whether the ghost is Ian, or whether Ian was an unwitting pawn in its plans, I'm afraid I can't say right now," he shrugs, and gives an apologetic glance to Allison. "But if Ian had no interest in theology or the paranormal, I see no logical way for him to have encountered a demon. And if he had bumped into one, I doubt he'd have taken up whatever sort of deal it offered. So yeah, ghost is way more likely."

Jonah looks around. "Hey, did anybody ever commit suicide in this place or something? Maybe a frat hazing went wrong? Something like that could have created a vengeful spirit, perhaps. Oh, and it goes without saying, but we're going to need to be more creative than just 'shoot it.' 'Shoot it a lot' isn't going to work either..." he sighs. "We might have to do an exorcism, or some sort of cleansing rite. Or, you know, help it find peace. But if it's of the homicidal entity variety, that last one will probably be easier said than done..."

Jonah pulls his phone back out, and starts doing research to see if there have been any high-profile suicides, murders, or accidents on campus in the last decade or so.

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Yay more research!

Secret rolls, goooo!

[Odentin]

"Same reason bloodsuckers burn in sunlight but not under UV lamps."

He sighs and takes a moment to try to remember anything his father might have taught him about ghosts...

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Int occult: (6d10)[9][1][3][7][8][5](33)

He takes a look at Allison's notepad one more time, "This should be a good place to start. A few people acting odd."

[ToySoldierCPlus]

Leon smirks. "So, fouled-if-we-know-it-just-does? Peachy. Still, I can't say I've had much contact with ghosts. I'm more familiar with the corporeal variety of bogey men."

[McGonigle]

“My personal opinion is that a shoplifter would probably be out of Price's league, he struck me as amazingly competent.” Jaime chipped in from where she was standing near the doorway. “So what we actually know, what we are dealing with is:
a) Capable of making a message that can fade without it requiring physical contact.
b) Managed to get bullets into the sweets.
c) Knows as much about the massacre as the average student.

Now even though a clearly suggests that it is supernatural, or has access to a projector. We do not have enough to draw any inference on the creatures identity. We shouldn't be ignoring the party to gossip about ghosts. Now leads we can assume the bullets magically appeared there, on the other hand we haven't ruled out the possibility that they were placed there before the party. If the former we can only twiddle our thumbs, the later on the other hand we can act on.
I'm keeping a watch on our hosts table, any of his cronies or frat bro's could be responsible.”

As she commented she kept a watch on the dance floor, trying to make out the group of the host amide all the chaos, and also looking out for Jamie.

[ToySoldierCPlus]

Leon shakes his head. "The message wasn't projected. It was written, in, as I said, some sort of blood-red liquid. Not blood or paint, though." He sighs. "We should head back out to the party, though. Since the message is gone, there's really no reason for us to stay back here."

[SurlySeraph]

Semira puts a hand on Jaime's shoulder and stands beside her, looking out. "Not Zach, and yes I'm sure. Maybe one of his SKP bros. Most of them are pretty hammered, should be easy to trick into admitting if they actually did it. I'm not convinced this is anything, ah, weird, but I doubt any of them will."

"Could just be some sneaky bastard, got in a window or hid in the basement or something. The basement..." She shivers a little. "Restricted area, but I expect Zach has access. I could grab him and take a look around while you keep an eye up here. Or we could ignore it and just divide up checking Zach's friends."