The Lost (IC)

[DarkLadyOfTheSith]

It's been a long week at the University of Southern California. Heck, for that matter, it's been a long term. But each of you finished your last final today, two days before the scheduled end of the term. Merlin Benson, professor of philosophy and mythology, and your DM, has been talking up a new campaign idea he's had for weeks now, getting all of you psyched up for it. Tonight, now that everyone has a few days of down time, you all arrive at your usual room in the USC library, rested, amped and ready to go. Prof. Benson set the time to start at 6:30, but you find yourselves eager to get started, and arrive early.

The room is a typical conference-style room for a college. Long table, cheap chairs, and a heating/cooling system that never seems to be just right. Still, the room's open twenty-four hours a day, and snacks and drinks are permitted. And, of course, it's large enough for twelve and to spare.

The eleven of you, Kate Jones, Douglas Fairchild, Hannah Meyer, Jason Lange, Bill Downer, Annika Treadwell, Peter Larson, Kim Williams, Brandon Smith, Gwen Deschain, and Aaron Zimmerman have been playing together for nearly a year now, and you've never heard of a campaign like this.

(Go ahead and do the meet 'n' greet-- assume you show up in the order that you all post, and spend some time chatting. I'll introduce the DM at the appropriate moment. I gave Brandon the last name Smith, since there wasn't one on the sheet. If you want me to change it, tell me.)

[McSherrie]

Kim, having come to the room immediately after her last final - C# Applications - settles into her traditional chair in the corner of the room. She pulls a sweatshirt out of her bag and puts it on, then opens her cooler and takes out a bottle of Diet Dr Pepper. She puts it down on the table in front of her, then follows it with her character sheet, sharpened number 2 pencil, and Crown Royal dice bag, all in precise spots. Then she settles back to wait.

I hope everyone gets here soon. This promises to be an interesting game.

[wxdruid]

Gwen

Gwen loves to show up first and pick her favorite seat. One of the few with a cushion. She puts her backpack full of books down and waves a friendly hello to Kim. She really only brings the basics, to many more and she wouldn't want to carry it across the campus. So, PHB, Spell Compendium, Rules Compendium and one or two others along with lots of paper to write notes on or keep track of stuff. Those go in a neat stack in front of her chair. Next she takes out the dice, her favorite tiny black dice. Of course she tends to roll low on Init with them, but high on skill checks, and she loves them. She keeps them in a cute little camel bone box that one of her siblings brought back from Qatar.

Finally she settles in her seat. She's wearing her usual XXL black t-shirt, black jeans, black socks and black shoes, although the shoes promptly come off and get kicked under the table.

Next comes her chocolate supply. Gotta have the chocolate. It's in a nice neat bag and it goes in front of her books. Out of her backpack comes the rest of the candy in a large ziploc baggie, this goes in the middle of the table for everyone. Finally, she rests, ready and waiting... Hello Kim, ready for the big game?

[McSherrie]

Kim smiles back. "Definitely ready, Gwen. How did your finals go?" She leans forward and picks out her traditional first piece of candy for the game. "Sugar rush, here I come!"

[wxdruid]

Gwen

Well...I got A's on the meteorology ones, the others? Probably got B's or C's, definitely not D's. I studied hard for all of them, of course enjoyed the meteorology ones the most. How about you? Hm, forgot her favorite green pencil. She leans down and gets it out, setting it right next to her papers.

[Alicorn]

Annika Treadwell

Annika, a tall, dark-curled wearer of khakis and a tan t-shirt bearing the word "Peace" in about 75 languages, yawns her way into the game room, still having sleep to catch up on from delightful finals. She plops herself into a seat facing away from the low-hanging sun and starts to unload her knapsack: laptop with PDF files of assorted supplements on it, lunchbox with dinner ironically packed therein, little green mesh dice sack with uniform marbled dice tumbling around inside.

"Hi, guys. I miss any interesting conversation topics?" she inquires as she boots up her Macbook.

[McSherrie]

"About the same, except replace meteorology with programming. That Sociology test was a bear though." Kim curls up in her chair, sitting on her feet and closing her eyes for a moment. "I have to say I am glad they are finished, regardless. Now we can relax and enjoy the game thoroughly." She opens her eyes as Annika joins and smiles at her. "Welcome."

[wxdruid]

Gwen

Heya Annika, just talking about finals and our grades, nothing serious. Just barely got here myself.

To Kim, Good to hear about your finals.

How about yours Annika? All good?

[Santanya]

Jason walks in, his bag full of books and hanging heavily off his shoulder. He waves a bottle of tea towards those present as he makes his way over and sits down heavily, his bag shaking the table as he sets it down. "Hey there all," he says and smiles as he starts pulling his things out, resting the books against the table leg with their spines facing up. He sits and pulls out a velvet dice bag and dumps it on the table in front of him.

"Finals are done hopefully well, and I have a summer for projects in a shop free of freshmen getting in the way," he says with a grin as he begins setting them all out, sorting by type and making sure the max values are pointed up. "Its going to be a good night," he adds and he smiles to the others.

[mdsoze]

Douglas

He had spent the day moving into his summer apartment, and was looking forward to this game. He had showered and changed, so that he didn't smell too much like moving in mid-May. He had decided to put on one of his few light colored polo shirts. It was his lucky shirt, after all. He had worn it the first time he'd birdied the 577 yard par 5 at the Wilson course, and so he liked to bring it out for special occasions, and starting up a new D&D campaign was just the kind of night.

Before he left his apartment, he collected his usual supply of books, a PHB, DMG, Monster Manual, and 7 or 8 supplements. Even if he didn't need them, he always liked to have an extra book on hand to lend to someone, or to double check a rule. Having multiple copies of books always kept games moving, and his backpack was large enough to take it. Then he grabbed a large dice bag. He liked to have at least 5 of each type of die, and he would change up a die that was running cold, and talk nicely to dice that were running hot. He also stuck a 12 pack of diet pepsi into the backpack, figuring that he'd drink a few of them, and he'd probably give a few away. Last, but not least, was the bold party chex mix. It wasn't D&D without the bold party.

His items collected, he made his way to the library, smiled at the librarian, and headed up for the usual room.

As he walked in, he saw that the room was filling up.

Hello. Our group is always so punctual. I never cease to be impressed.

Douglas chooses his seat not based on the chair, but on having enough table space to spread out his books, and his drinks, and being able to stretch out.

[McSherrie]

Kim straightens out her belongings after the table is jostled with a fairly amused expression on her face. "Hello, Jason and Douglas. Best of luck on the outcome of your finals and let us hope that this game can get started soon."

[Alicorn]

Annika

Annika takes out her turkey and salami sandwich and starts to munch on it. "My exams went all right, I think. You can never be positive with essay tests, though. So subjective. And you never know which apathetic TA gets to grade them. But I'm optimistic."

[mdsoze]

Douglas

Finals? I only had two of them. I've been done for a few days, I even replayed Final Fantasy IV just cause it had been a while. The nice part of upper level engineering classes is you end up with a lot of final projects. My metallurgy class had its final project due two weeks ago, and I already know that my titanium alloy passed muster.

Douglas picks up 6d6 and starts rolling them, looking at how they roll, reciting totals and numbers almost like Rain Man. After a few tosses, he pauses, opens up his first bag of Chex mix, and begins munching, then offering it around.

Anybody want some bold party?

[wxdruid]

Gwen

To Annika, That's good.

Heya Jason and Douglas, having fun yet? I see Douglas is already checking out his dice. I can't wait to get started. I always enjoy the beginning of a new campaign.

No thanks on the mix, brought my own dark chocolate snacks. Brought a bunch of mixed stuff for everyone else.

[TwoCents]

Kate

The faint grumbling of a car rolling up just outside was followed by a mechanical hiccup and a stream of Arabic; luckily few nearby could understand the cursing. About fifteen minutes later, Kate limped into the classroom, her hands dirty with grease and her usual military surplus bag of gear on her back. She leaned on an ebony cane carved with "SSgt K. M. Jones, USMC - Semper Fi", and her short dark hair was still wet from the shower. Kate was wearing her usual neat polo shirt and slacks, and her shoes gleamed with polish. "Ooh-rah, ever'body. Gotta wash," she said, waving vaguely in the direction of the restrooms. She dumped her bag in her favorite seat opposite Dr. Benson's chair.

Soon she returned with clean fingernails and plopped down in her chair. "Anybody know anything about the game? We're supposed to have new characters for this, right? I decided to try something different this time; a cleric, believe it or not!" Kate laughed cheerfully and began to unpack: Three cans of cola, warm. One pack of gum, cinnamon. One six-sided die, brass. One tube of dice, blue with red numerals. One tube of dice, green with black numerals. One folder with character sheet and notes from relevant books. She slung her bag, still mostly full with reference books, over the back of her chair and smiled. "So, am I the only one looking forward to a long boring summer waiting for the campus to reopen?"

She popped open a can of cola and took a hearty slug.

[Alicorn]

Annika

"Yeah, new characters. Mine's a swashbuckler/psion. Halfling, for the Dex bonus - Weapon Finesse for the win." Annika polishes off her sandwich and starts peeling her orange. "I've got about six summer itineraries to consider and I'm just hoping I can force myself to pick one before enough time elapses that I default to "hang around, work at the grocery store to make rent and gas money, and ride horseback whenever the sun doesn't feel like baking me alive"."

[wxdruid]

Gwen

Sounds like fun. I'm going with druid, I've been researching weather spells. I've collected more than 50 pages of them in a word doc, all alphabetized, sorted by level and each one references which book it's from. It makes it so easy to look them up. No need to carry around a ton of books. I'd rather play D&D than wonder when summer will be over. I wonder if our DM will be carrying the game all summer? part of the summer? or if we'll have to wait for fall to complete the campaign. She hopes not, the summer will be far to long and boring if she has to wait forever for fall.

[mdsoze]

Douglas

Yeah. I've decided to make a two weapon fighter. I played a caster last time. I like my intelligent fighters. Might as well have the stats to take advantage of all the feats I'll get.

[Wiz]

Bill

The nerd arrives, waving at everyone with enthusiasm. "Hi, guys. Everybody all geared up for the game? I'm looking forward to this one!" He unslings his book bag and takes a seat, predictably, right next to where the DM usually sits. "I was talking to Ross, the librarian over Mudd Hall of Philosophy... did you guys know that was used in that old seventies film version of the Dunwich horror. We are all studying at Miskatonic University!" He sets down a small cooler and pulls out a can of Jolt Cola.

[dauphinous]

Hannah

Hannah can always be heard well before she's seen. The left front wheel of her wheelchair developed a squeak during monsoon season last year, and it wasn't worth it to get it fixed. She came over directly after her Ethnographic Study of Indigenous Pacific Peoples final, yet one more class in a series of classes that was supposed to help her figure out what her major would be. After three years of this, one would thinks she'd have been able to settle on something. But not Hannah. Everything was too interesting. Nothing was specifically enrapturing enough to make her want to major in it.

The motorized wheelchair would have been nearly silent were it not for the *squeak* *squeak* *squeak* as she rolled down the hall from the elevator. Her father had paid top dollar for the most cutting edge piece of equipment he could find for his only child, perhaps to assuage his survivor's guilt. She didn't much care why he spent so much on all her tools (she refers to them as 'toys'), she just appreciated the fact of it, as it let her lead a life, even if it wasn't a normal one.

Hannah's chair rounds the corner into the room deftly and she motors up to a blank space at the table. She seems a little tired, but as cheerful as usual. The scar across her face, the ugly one that runs from her right jawline across her cheek to her nose (just below her glasses, so they can't hide any of it), wrinkles as she smiles at those who are already there. "Evening," she says pleasantly. She uses her right arm, the one with the prosthetic hand - like her wheelchair, it is SOTA all the way, with actual fingers and an ability to grasp things with some amount of finesse - to flip her laptop up on its extension arm and open so it can boot already.

She reaches next for the bright red bag hanging between her completely useless feet, pulling it into her lap and looking through it. She pulls out her Ziploc zipper bag with her sparkly red dice and the cup she uses to roll them. Her left arm, which otherwise just lies limply at her side, jerks once as she does this, but she ignores it. Stupid thing just does that from time to time. Then the cuff of her plain sky blue long sleeved shirt gets caught on something in her bag as she reaches in for something else with the fake hand, and she has to yank it a couple of times to get it loose. That doesn't bug her either, though. It happens. After ten years, you learn to just live with the little things.

She lifts out a bottle of water that's mostly empty. "Dammit. Would someone mind refilling this for me at the fountain, please?" She might have left it at that, but she felt compelled to offer a bribe of sorts, mostly to keep others from feeling like they have to help the cripple. "I've got frosted sugar cookies," she offers. That comes as no surprise. If her mild chunkiness isn't enough to attest to the fact that she has a weakness for them, the fact that she always seems to have at least a couple on hand certainly is.

[Daryk]

Aaron

Aaron waved hello to the undergrad working behind the front desk as he came into the library, but kept walking. The last thing he wanted was a discussion of yesterday's final. He'd been grading questions four, five and six all day, and was looking forward to something, ANYTHING else. He was still dressed for 'work', in slacks and a Land's End shirt with a button down collar, but fortunately Professor Ming hadn't required ties for grading. Ming was widely known as "the Merciless", but Aaron didn't find him all that bad. At the very least, he was easier to please than the Gunnery Sergeants at OCS.

Wending his way deeper into the library, Aaron perched his sunglasses on his forehead. In his left hand, he carried his brief case with a can cooler strapped to the outside. The device had been a gift from his father, and it had proven its worth consistently ever since. The only drawback was that it meant having to sit near a plug.

"Hey guys," he said as he entered the conference room. Taking a seat near the foot of the table next to Kate, he first unstrapped the can cooler, then proceeded to unpack his briefcase. He set out a short stack of books and papers, a pencil, and his leather dice bag with a thud. Impressed by Kate's brass d6 when they first met last year, Aaron had set about acquiring brass dice of all shapes and sizes, and his bag was heavy as a result. Next was a package of Jack Links snacks. Finally, he withdrew a 24 ounce can of Arizona Iced Tea and slipped it into the can cooler. Placing his briefcase on the floor, he sat down and rolled his chair back to plug in the can cooler, which hummed quietly.

"So, any word on what the Professor has in mind beyond '5th level'?" he asked the group at large.

Spoiler

Show

Edit: Aaron came in after Hannah asked her question simply because I was working on my post when she posted...

[mdsoze]

Douglas

Douglas hops up, and walks over to Hannah, getting her water bottle.

Sure. It's not a problem. I'll pass on the cookies for now. I prefer to save the sweets until I'm finished with my salt. Anyone want anything from the vending machines as long as I'm heading that way?

The engineer in Douglas had spent a significant amount of time trying to figure out the details of how Hannah's prostheses worked, and he figured he might as well lend a hand when she needed one.

After hearing any requests, Douglas makes his way down the hall, filling the water bottle and getting stuff, and then makes his way back to the room.

[TwoCents]

Kate

"Well, as long as we don't call on the elder gods, we should be all right." Kate stood up to chuck her now empty soda can into the recycling bin. "Two points!"

"Oh, damn that noise!," she grumbled. Kate pulled a chair out from the middle of the table and set it against the wall, and then reached into her bag. With a can of WD-40, a battery powered multitool, and a tube of Lubricant, Silicone, All-purpose, she was ready.

"Hannah, will you please let me fix that damned squeaking... the noise is killing me," she asked, waving the can of WD in a hopeful manner.

Kate knelt on the floor near Hannah's chair, one leg stretched out to the side. She peered at the squeaky wheel and waited for permission to tinker. "I have got to get that ever-loving shriek out of here." The noise wasn't that loud, but something about it obviously bothered Kate.

She looked up as Aaron entered the room, "Ooh-rah, kid. Still can't drink that warm soda? What'll you do when the power goes out, die of thirst?"

[Loghren the Barbarian]

Peter Larson
From out in the hallway, a deep voice responds
"Be nice, GI Jane. No reason not to enjoy the creature comforts while they're there."

Half-stumbling in, Peter walks into the room with a vacant look to his eyes. This isn't the usual undergrad vacant look of someone who didn't sleep through finals. No, this is the vacant look of someone who hasn't really slept for the last three years. He wears an overly wrinkled pair of jeans, a black t-shirt with a strange looking clown on it that says "Atmosphere," and his Minnesota Twins cap that probably has never been washed. Instead of his usual can of Coke, Peter carries a mostly empty 20 oz bottle of Coke and has another bottle tucked awkwardly into his back pocket. He pauses for a moment, looks around at the group, and notices Douglas's munchies, of which he grabs a handful. "Well, that's the end of THAT brief."

He collapses into an empty chair as his backpack slides off his shoulder onto the floor. He nods toward Doug. "Thanks, Doug." Peter opens his bag. He removes his only two books - PHB and Spell Compendium - along with a wrinkled legal pad. He rummages for his dice out of the front pocket. It's an old backpack, with leather on the bottom. The kind that was popular in the 90s. Despite his otherwise haphazard look, he separates his 5 sets of dice into their appropriate sets and seems to be counting to ensure they're all there. He reaches into his pocket for a moment, then asks, "Does anyone have an extra pencil? While I'm at it, Hannah could I steal one of those cookies from you?"

[McSherrie]

"Aaron could never survive in the rest of the world, Kate. They believe that carbonation cools soda enough."

As if having been expecting the request, Kim holds up a spare pencil in Peter's direction. She tries not to smile too much.

[Wiz]

Bill

As Peter's backpack hits the floor, Bill snortlaughs, "I guess you rest your case, man." He takes a swig from his Jolt. He opens his book bag and begins stacking his books neatly, they all look incredibly worn from constant handling.

[Daryk]

Kate
...
She looked up as Aaron entered the room, "Ooh-rah, kid. Still can't drink that warm soda? What'll you do when the power goes out, die of thirst?"

Aaron grinned at Kate and said, "Yes, Kate, you can use the cooler as soon as I'm done."

At Peter's request, Aaron reached into his briefcase and withdrew a pencil, sliding it across the table to him.

A gentle "ding" announced the cooling cycle was complete, and Aaron removed his chilled tea from the device. With Kate on the floor, she was in no position to object as he slipped one of her cans of cola into the device.

Edit: UN-Pencil-ninja'd! (I don't remember the exact words I wrote, but these are close...)

[Loghren the Barbarian]

Peter

Peter grins at Bill. He reaches toward the pencil Kim holds out, then hears notices the pencil Aaron slid at him and grabs that one, instead.
"Oh, alright. Thanks anyway, Kim. Thanks, Aaron."

Peter tucks the pencil behind his ear, takes the last swig out of his first bottle of Coke and then, realizing he was awkwardly sitting before, grabs the other bottle out of his back pocket and sets it on the table. He grabs the pencil from behind his ear, changes one of his feats, and then stares blankly at his sheet as if trying to figure something out.

[dauphinous]

Hannah

"Thanks. I'll try to save some, Douglas. No promises." She grins at Douglas as he takes the bottle and goes, then turns over to watch Kate get up, armed with implements of squeak destruction. "Geez, Kate. Not like you came prepared or anything. Unfortunately, I don't think the WD-40 will help. My dad already tried that. He figured it would have to be taken apart or something. 'Course, he's a software guy, not a hardware guy, so hard to say. Knock yourself out."

While Kate starts working away, Hannah pulls a clear plastic bakery box out of her pack, full of sugar cookies covered with blue frosting and white sprinkles. "I brought a whole box. I think there's enough for everybody to have a couple." Although the outcome of the effort is pretty much a foregone conclusion, she gives a shot at trying to pop apart the little plastic bubbles that are holding it shut. It only takes her about five seconds to give up, and she holds it up at Peter. "If you can open it, you can have as many as you want."

[McSherrie]

"If you tell him that, Hannah, he will eat them all." Kim has placed the spare pencil next to her own, making sure that it is parallel. She waits patiently for a cookie. "Blue icing is my favorite, you know."