>>6469746
>Trust Burnt Cynic - Mac. Skeptic or Scoop Playbook. A hard boiled reporter from Chicago, his travel eastward with a gritty and urgent narrative style to his articles; once heavily involved in the Political beat in Chicago and developed an interest in Civil Rights as a frequent witness to restaurant and rec center sit-ins organized by the Congress for Racial Equity in Chi-town. Left Chicago for New York after stepping on the toes of a local boss one too many times and was given a choice. Work is work even if it’s campfire schlock like these stories of ghouls and ghosts, since politicians now keep him at arms length.

>Exhausted Haunted Runaway - Ann. Spooky Playbook. A teen who ran away from home and Ann is just a name you’re wearing right now, and if you need to abandon it you have others prepared. There’s something about the city that feels useful, that feels like you should be here, and this kind of paid internship may help you figure out what’s happened…been happening to you, and maybe you’ll be able to exorcise the invasive things that haunt you, waking or asleep.

>Unyielding True Believer - Lee. Flake Playbook. When you were younger, you ate everything up you could between the pulp magazines, conspiracy rags, and books on folklore. Devouring the strange reports and books in the library about the unknown. By the end of your teens, most of your friends stopped believing, and to not be lonely you did your best to tone down being a freak chasing little green men or ranting about the Humboldt footprints…but maybe here you’ve found your people and there’s work to be done.

>Faithful Shining Optimist - Goodman. Action Scientist Playbook. The dreams of the jet age stretch before us and allow new light to be cast into the shadows of the unknown. Dr. Goodman seeks to join the Society through this field research and publication arm and uncover new truths about the world and advance the cause of science for the benefit of all. So venture forth on this quest in a race to truly discover the unknown country and learn something wondrous along the way while you two fist your research notes in a way you never could in a lab.

>Ambitious Brash Sleuth - Mercedes - Meddling Kid or Gumshoe Playbook. Harlem born and raised, and mystery has long been your history. You’ve got your eyes on the prize and once you finish up school and investigating strange phenomena will be a fine way to pad your resume and bide your time before you make the minimum age cut for the police academy in a few years. You’re expecting a few hoaxes, but you’ve lived in this city long enough to know that some times…it’s the real deal.

Part two of list coming, vote not yet open

>>6469747
>What They Seen - Leah. Panromantic or Searcher Playbook. After living and leaving an unorthodox life out west, before and behind illicit cameras, she found herself working the night shift at a rural gas station to make ends meet and witnessed the unexplainable. Flapping in from the endless dark to her shining oasis on the road investigating her and a case of soda pop spilled. She learned something about herself that night and fell, but missed the chance to snap a picture after getting lost in those glowing red eyes. Finding renewal between old passions and new guidance she’ll put her own eye to shutter once more.

>Where Sacred Walks - LaRock. Curse Eater or Expert Playbook. Of the Sts’ailes in what is now British Columbia...his family claimed they were keepers of secrets on behalf of the Sasq’ets before they left them. Because of this, he knows much of the things unseen by most. Just as well for the assumptions made about him out in the world, the Society has offered for his expertise in first nations myth and his skills at hunting things more mundanely…as far as they know at least.

>Navy Behind Thee - Jonah. Veteran or Mundane Playbook. It’s been almost a decade since ‘rea ended and you’ve decided to retire from service since you’ve more than done your share on ship and base. Just who are you away from the uniform then? When you saw all this about poking around spooky shit you thought it was interesting, more so than many of the other options you could have had lined up.

>Blood Cursed Dame - Tara. Monstrous Playbook. Turned roughly forty years ago, she still appears as a woman in her prime. She has come from England to America seeking to learn more about the night she belongs to, chasing legends of a means to check her thirst, and find the babe she thought lost the night she was turned. She writes with a careful academic diction and has long made connections into the Society for Psychical Research through Oxford audited courses. Though paler than her birth, her complexion closes some doors and opens others in New York’s stratified society.

Voting now open for a long ass while. Talk it over, take your time.

>>6469747
>>Ambitious Brash Sleuth - Mercedes - Meddling Kid or Gumshoe Playbook. Harlem born and raised, and mystery has long been your history. You’ve got your eyes on the prize and once you finish up school and investigating strange phenomena will be a fine way to pad your resume and bide your time before you make the minimum age cut for the police academy in a few years. You’re expecting a few hoaxes, but you’ve lived in this city long enough to know that some times…it’s the real deal.

>>6469749
>>What They Seen - Leah. Panromantic or Searcher Playbook. After living and leaving an unorthodox life out west, before and behind illicit cameras, she found herself working the night shift at a rural gas station to make ends meet and witnessed the unexplainable. Flapping in from the endless dark to her shining oasis on the road investigating her and a case of soda pop spilled. She learned something about herself that night and fell, but missed the chance to snap a picture after getting lost in those glowing red eyes. Finding renewal between old passions and new guidance she’ll put her own eye to shutter once more.

>>6469747
>Exhausted Haunted Runaway - Ann. Spooky Playbook.

>>6469747
>Unyielding True Believer - Lee.
>Faithful Shining Optimist - Goodman.

Between these two, but if there's a tie them my vote goes to Lee

>>6469747
>Unyielding True Believer - Lee. Flake Playbook. When you were younger, you ate everything up you could between the pulp magazines, conspiracy rags, and books on folklore. Devouring the strange reports and books in the library about the unknown. By the end of your teens, most of your friends stopped believing, and to not be lonely you did your best to tone down being a freak chasing little green men or ranting about the Humboldt footprints…but maybe here you’ve found your people and there’s work to be done.

While we wait for voting to close (when the clock strikes midnight NY time Monday into Tuesday) does anyone have any conjecture or expectations of what I'm setting up, based on first post and the MC candidates?

>>6469846
SCP + Goosebumps-like stories?

>>6469856
Little bit, there will definitely be a few creature features involved, from below and a thing from on high. The tone will depend on the character selected, whether its one of the more normative people, the ones who go bump in the night, the ones who bump back, or the one who wants to get bumped by the night.

>>6469846
Maybe X-Files with some Men In Black mixed in there? Possibly sprinkled with a dash of Midsomer Murders type of investigations on top.

>>6469861
Both good draws for inspiration. And not just the Men In Black films, the original men in black funny books published are part of a legacy of inspiration for this.

>>6469749
>>Navy Behind Thee
yarrg, I miss the sea

>Exhausted Haunted Runaway - Ann. Spooky Playbook. A teen who ran away from home and Ann is just a name you’re wearing right now, and if you need to abandon it you have others prepared. There’s something about the city that feels useful, that feels like you should be here, and this kind of paid internship may help you figure out what’s happened…been happening to you, and maybe you’ll be able to exorcise the invasive things that haunt you, waking or asleep.
>Ambitious Brash Sleuth - Mercedes - Meddling Kid or Gumshoe Playbook. Harlem born and raised, and mystery has long been your history. You’ve got your eyes on the prize and once you finish up school and investigating strange phenomena will be a fine way to pad your resume and bide your time before you make the minimum age cut for the police academy in a few years. You’re expecting a few hoaxes, but you’ve lived in this city long enough to know that some times…it’s the real deal.

Good to see you running a new one, Art!

Alright. Going to bed w/ about an hour left for voting, and tallying votes in the morning. I will be cross and frustrated if we’ve a tie.

>>6469749
>Exhausted Haunted Runaway - Ann. Spooky Playbook. A teen who ran away from home and Ann is just a name you’re wearing right now, and if you need to abandon it you have others prepared. There’s something about the city that feels useful, that feels like you should be here, and this kind of paid internship may help you figure out what’s happened…been happening to you, and maybe you’ll be able to exorcise the invasive things that haunt you, waking or asleep.

>Blood Cursed Dame - Tara. Monstrous Playbook. Turned roughly forty years ago, she still appears as a woman in her prime. She has come from England to America seeking to learn more about the night she belongs to, chasing legends of a means to check her thirst, and find the babe she thought lost the night she was turned. She writes with a careful academic diction and has long made connections into the Society for Psychical Research through Oxford audited courses. Though paler than her birth, her complexion closes some doors and opens others in New York’s stratified society.

>>6469749
>What They Seen - Leah. Panromantic or Searcher Playbook. After living and leaving an unorthodox life out west, before and behind illicit cameras, she found herself working the night shift at a rural gas station to make ends meet and witnessed the unexplainable. Flapping in from the endless dark to her shining oasis on the road investigating her and a case of soda pop spilled. She learned something about herself that night and fell, but missed the chance to snap a picture after getting lost in those glowing red eyes. Finding renewal between old passions and new guidance she’ll put her own eye to shutter once more

Our story will begin with Ann later today.

Papers are shuffled and a document is settled upon and read for a small moment before a short heavyset bespectacled man with graying hair glances up from the document over the rim of his glasses at you and nods in affirmation.

“Ah there you are, yes, Ann,” he affirms chuff and huff bookending his noticeable British accent across the desk from you, though you aren’t so versed as to be able to assign any origin point more diverse than that as you’ve read about before, “Welcome aboard to the New York Psychical Journal, Quarterly, officially your title will be student researcher, but as Mrs. Cross mentioned in the interview you will be fulfilling other roles as needed or as you make for your own initiative within our organization,”

“Yes, Director Bonnet,” you say simply, happy that in this moment you aren’t hallucinating the thing miming your words back into your ears.

Right now, since getting to the city, you’ve felt more at ease and in control. The presence of the city, of so many people, seems to quiet that which you’ve struggled with in the recent past…at least during the daytime.

You ran away from home to protect the people you love from it, and yet on this journey it has been helpful. Whispering things in your ear you couldn’t possibly know. Moving things to your benefit, your woe, or its own mischief.

Here, here you may be able to figure out what it is. It can’t go worse than when you sought the aid of a priest when you first got to the city.

“Everything is also set for your student housing stipend, and we can revisit it if you need to move closer to wherever you’re enrolling come the fall,” he nods, looking things over as a gray hand slips onto the desk unseen besides him and falls flatly onto another manilla file close to the edge.

School would eventually be hard. With everything you were able to get faked, not being enrolled after moving to the city so close to the end of term wasn’t the red flag you were worried it might be here or the other places you applied for part time and student jobs. You’re happy you got the one that interested you…though the internship at Hanover Modelling would have been the better bankroll for certain it probably wouldn’t afford you the resources or expertise you would eventually need to exploit.

You are “Ann Claremont,” it is a false name with fake documentation you obtained after getting to the city and having access to the kind of people who do that kind of thing with no questions asked.

>>6470123
Weapon Inventory
Smith & Wesson Model 39, a 9mm Pistol you took out of someone’s luggage on the bus into the city when everyone was still asleep a few weeks ago, you had a hunch it wouldn’t be missed until that person was a few states away. It's a fairly new piece though you are mostly ignorant for now as to its maintenance. 2 Harm, Close & Loud.

Attributes
Charm +1, Cool 0, Sharp +1, Tough -1, Weird +2

You are a teen girl with pained eyes and neat clothes.

Your Darkness…
>Hallucination
>Guilt
>Secrets

You are haunted by something that only you can see whether it is real or a Hallucination, born of Guilt of a Secret locked away that made you take flight from home to protect your loved ones. It wears the face of a friend who died when you were younger whom for a long time you had forgotten because of the trauma you think...and you are uncertain if it’s her ghost because it looks like you would have imagined her had you actually grown up together. For now you’re borrowing her name and she taunts you about it at times. Others whispering things you or she couldn’t know and moving things when it suits her. She is petty though, and vindictive. Sometimes she would be helpful if the mood struck her and she would move things for you, whisper into someone else’s ear...

Your Spooky Moves beyond Basic Moves, expressed through this phantom that brings your
>[Restricted/Not Accessible]
>Hunches: When something bad is happening, or is about to, where you are or aren’t…you may be aware....
>The Big Whammy: you can use your Weird instead of Tough to Kick Some Ass, convincing that which haunts you to hurt something you want it to hurt.

The gray hand moves fast, scattering the folder and its papers to the floor beside him in a flourish before it too is gone. You hope that mischief has sated her, and that she’ll not do something like that again so soon since you aren’t going to react and give her the satisfaction.

“Oh dear,” he sputters and goes to scoot back to lean down and collect the papers and photos.

One such combination, paperclipped together, moves slightly out from under the desk into your field of view by a rapidly vanishing finger. A photograph of a man torn apart, it isn’t a crime scene photo though, it’s clearly from too far away. The paper is scrawled not neatly legible, hurried notes you can’t parse before his hand slaps down meatily and drags it back.

“Anywho, ow!” he explains from under the table as it shudders, seems he bumped his head underneath his desk before he sheepishly pops back into his chair, “Tomorrow we’ll be introducing all the initial staff and getting to work on assignments,”

It is quick enough to be a pop, and you aren’t sure how he did it sheepishly beyond the radiant embarrassment pouring off of him.

>>6470124
“Our benefactor, J. R. will be making some kind of mission statement about our goals and purpose in publication,” he explains while rubbing the back of his head where you’re sure he smacked himself against the heavy wooden frame of his desk, “and going over some of the resources we hope to have up and running by midsummer. I heard you and Ms. Knight will be roommates for the summer?”

He’s referring to Mercedes. You’d met a number of people while interviewing for work here and other places, you had figured Mercedes as your competition, but instead the two of you would be working together. While chatting after your interviews with Mrs. Cross you had an inkling she was looking for a roommate and you broached the subject. She’s a few years older than you and already has a mind toward her collegiate plans.

Inkling…must you use euphemisms with yourself? Yes. Yes you do. It’s how you’re staying sane through all of this.

As for your benefactor, J.R. is apparently a nickname. He owns the newspaper that consumes most of the Guardian Building, but his name isn’t plastered around because a company he owns holds it. You haven’t met him yet, and during your interview Mrs. Cross had to take a phone call from him. All you really know for sure is that he seemed to bristle when she called him “Junior.”

“My word, Ms. Claremont are you alright,” Director Bonnet questions, “You’ve gone a bit pale?”

“I’m…I'm fine, Director. Just caught a glimpse of that picture is all,” you admit hoping to garner some sympathy.

“Oh,” he is sullen, “I had tried to snatch that back before you…my sincerest apologies. This is work from our staff photographer who has been a few steps behind a cases of interest,”

>”I should be going,” you need to get back to the apartment after that.
>Extend your hand, “May I?” she wanted you to see it for a reason and this is your job now.
>”If you’ll excuse me, I need to have a word with Mrs. Cross before I go,”

Voting is Open unto the next morn with no hard cut off until I call it. I've got D&D tonight so don't expect more than one update today. Though if you have some questions about Ms. Claremont or the initial staff along with your votes I'll be happy to proffer some information as it might be known to her or her passenger.

>>6470125
>”If you’ll excuse me, I need to have a word with Mrs. Cross before I go,”

>”If you’ll excuse me, I need to have a word with Mrs. Cross before I go,”

I am wondering if this is connected to media I should be familiar with?

>>6470125
>Extend your hand, “May I?” she wanted you to see it for a reason and this is your job now.

>>6470164
Probably.

>>6470125
>>Extend your hand, “May I?” she wanted you to see it for a reason and this is your job now.

>>6470125
>>Extend your hand, “May I?” she wanted you to see it for a reason and this is your job now.

Awake, somehow managed to hurt my ankle in my sleep, and writing.

Rolled 2, 3 + 2 = 7 (2d6 + 2)

Rolling Weird.

>Ann doesn't do "Use Magic" as a Spooky and has circumstantial access to alternative Weird basic moves.

File: Vintage 1960's office.jpg (48 KB, 500x650)

48 KB JPG

“May I?” you request and extend your hand toward the Director.

She nudged it into your field of vision purposefully, you might as well find out what she wanted you to know. Perhaps on equal footing to your passenger’s intentions is that this IS your job now, even if you area bit squeamish.

“I shouldn’t think to trouble you with such graphic gro-”

“Pleaes, Director Bonnet,” you muster up your serious face as best you can despite the mild nausea at the glimpse you caught, “I can’t shy away from this kind of thing if it’s the work we’re investigating or reporting on,”

You glance aside to your own thoughts.

“Besides, given Mercedes’s goals she wouldn’t let a thing like this slow her down,” you muse at your roommate, colleague, and possibly rival’s designs on becoming a police detective one day…but also feel the weight in your purse of your stolen 9mm and recall the scent of blood only you notice when it’s held, “So I can’t either,”

The Director’s expression shifts to one of concern to softer if serious understanding.

“Of course, Ms. Claremont. Quite an admirable ethic,” he takes a breath and straightens the folder he reassembled and passes it across the desk, though his understanding is underlined by a sudden weight of scrutiny.

No doubt gauging your reaction and seeing what you offer in comment on the documentation.

Folder in hand, you open it. The photo is not on top but a disheveling of the handwritten notes are. Taking a moment to sort them by the more legible at this distance script you are reading a report by staff photographer Leah Latarnik whom you have not yet met.

It’s an account of research and sources she’s building about a series of murders she and staff investigator Jonah Steele have been pursuing. Perhaps literally, as they’d been sitting on a police scanner and raced to this scene in time to poke around before the NYPD entirely shut things down. Ms. Latarnik used a fire escape an alley over to get as high a vantage point as she could and apparently waited to take her shot in time with the flashes of other arrived professional shutterbugs on the ground to avoid detection while Steele asked around. A few of the beat cops were willing to chat it up with a fellow Veteran. She notes Jonah joked with her there was a reason they have to tell sailors that “loss lips sink ships,”

This is the fifth murder like this. Specifically the fifth where someone’s rib cage was ripped open and a heart stolen. Four cuts across the man’s face and his hat crushed. The photo is between the pages now and you see it and touch it with a start as HER rotting hand suddenly clutches the wrist that holds it.

And a flash.

>Sensitive Basic Alternative Weird Move: 7. On a 7-9 you gain a Hazy impression about something important.

>>6470489
You’re seeing for a moment a distorted and muted scene through eyes that weren’t your own, for a moment feeling broader shoulders than your’s hauling a greater center of gravity than you’re accustomed to up a fire escape ladder with noticeable practiced force. Skipping ahead to the roof’s edge as eyes sharper than your own lock onto the grisly wet scene below being crowded by trench coated detectives as officers keep the rising distant echoing murmur of the crowd back and catch sight of your lanky but lean partner off to the edge of the gathering mob before your…not your’s, her long eyelashes brush against the viewfinder. That moment and perspective and in the sting of her flashbulb the alley is darker and quieter as you’re on the ground.

Earlier. The man who would later lay dead in the alleyway is breaking away from calling after the attention of a group of women unsuccessfully and lighting up a cigarette waiting for the next cutie to pass by. A voice like gravel asks from in the shadows if he can get a light. Unconcerned and maybe a bit drunk, the man says sure and heads to something in the dark approaching him. Scrapes and clacks on concrete closes in on the man going into darkness in this spinning distorted time. The clearest thing you see is the coat covered arm swiping at his face, the rough texture of dark gray blue hand with one finger too few coming to his face before the world all snaps back to the soft yellow and brown of Director Bonnet’s office.

You clear your throat and shake what you’ve seen from your eyes and return to reading.

“The first four victims were more isolated and much later at night,” you review the document after sliding the photograph to the other side of the folder, “A prostitute walking home from the Staten Island Ferry docks. A gambler in Chinatown. A beat cop in the meat packing district. A cab driver in central park. A north moving pattern before this man was killed in the early evening on the Upper West Side,”

Your Director is locked onto, his expression suddenly unreadable but…she whispers to you that he’s curious and concerned before slipping behind your back and vanishing again.

“An Anti-Jack the Ripper,” you muse and perhaps shudder, “indiscriminate, opportunistic, and messy. I doubt the police have a clear idea of the murder weapon, and to do that as quickly as everyone supposes means they’re crazy strong,”

It's there that you catch it in your periphery. In the photo a bent garbage can lid on the alley floor, an indentation in the metal that looks like a cloven hoof.

“Are they feeding the hearts to a pig?” you wonder aloud in the amused beginnings of a giggle before catching yourself in a moment of embarrassment.

“What makes you say that, Ms. Claremont?” Director Bonnet’s words are level as he leans over steepled fingers.

>>6470491
“Oh, no…nothing. Just the way this can lid is bent. In this light it looks like a hoof,” you turn the photo back to him and he adjusts his glasses honing in on where you point.

“I see, well it’s good to find something amusing amongst the macabre,” he reasons and his scrutiny and the tension of the room slackens, “Given these doings, would you prefer I call you a cab back to your apartment?”

“No, we aren’t so far north as to be on this pattern,” you concede handing the folder back to the director, “I look forward to meeting everyone tomorrow,”

“Yes, and I’m sure everyone will be keen to officially welcome yourself, Ms. Knight, Mr. Goodman, and Mr. Lee to the fold on the morrow. I didn’t think our outfit would expand quite so quickly,”

“I’m quite looking forward to working with everyone,” you smile and get up to leave.

She is standing behind him as you rise. Watching you from behind a curtain of mudstained dried hair of an imagined grave. Leaving the room, you do not see Director Bonnet pulling up the folder of your documents and paperwork before making a notation on your application. When she decides to, she may tell you what she watches him write, as she places one hand on the desk and the other on the back of his chair to lean down and look at the question he poses in your file. When he is done, in displeasure she will tilt back and spin his office chair knocking him to the floor in a confused shout.

What did he write about you to offend your passenger to the point of this vindictive act?

A question he poses underneath notation by Mrs. Cross that you were resourceful, desperate, lying about being seventeen, and definitely the kind of person the society needed in their good graces as discussed previously.

“Possibly Psychometric?”

It’s getting late into the afternoon.

>You want to go back to the apartment and decompress after letting a walk through the city soothe your irritable passenger
>You want to go to a teen lounge in midtown and embrace human presence on your wavelength that you missed by your truancy
>You want to go straight back to the apartment and see if your roommate knows a good lounge or club to just be around people
>You want to go to the scene of the last murder and poke around, see if you can get ahead on things and really prove your worth
>You want to go to an abandoned industrial space on the other side of the river to practice with your stolen 9mm.

Voting open.

What are you guys thinking about the quest so far. Ann's passenger? The colleagues you've glimpsed so far? Director Bonnet?

>>6470493
>>You want to go back to the apartment and decompress after letting a walk through the city soothe your irritable passenger

>>6470493
>You want to go to an abandoned industrial space on the other side of the river to practice with your stolen 9mm.
In Rome do as the Romans, Miss Ann. Plus I'm tired of always playing good girl from the get go.
>>6470495
I like the ghost, seems to be a good buddy. Bonnet is fishy. The culprit might be a hoofed heart eater demon.
I don't know about Ann, I'd like a visual description

>>6470528
For her new job in her current identity as Ann Claremont, she is wearing neat clothes. A blue pleated skirt below the knee, dark short sleeved blouse, blue scarf, black beret pinned to her currently dyed black hair using more easily applied and cheaper men's brush on dye. Her pained eyes are green, and by necessity she is far from a good girl and the ghost is, unbeknownst to Ann, truly the thing she fears most.

Bonnet is indeed a fishy sort, isn't he. He longs for a good basket of Fish and Chips. Soon though he will discover at least one British style pub on this isle at the center of the world and continue to find old oxford connections within driving distance.

>>6470493
>You want to go to a teen lounge in midtown and embrace human presence on your wavelength that you missed by your truancy

Standing by, next vote that doesn't continue the tie closes voting.

>>6470493
>You want to go to a teen lounge in midtown and embrace human presence on your wavelength that you missed by your truancy
TEEN!
LOUNGE!

Rolled 5, 6 + 1 = 12 (2d6 + 1)

Into the Club scene. A Dancehall in Manhattan where the kids and celebrities do the Twist...Peppermint Lounge awaits.

>Rolling Charm.

File: Joey D and the Starliters.jpg (187 KB, 640x640)

187 KB JPG

As you exit the Guardian Building into the bustling streets of Manhattan, you let go of a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding as the spring around you gives way to summer. You’ve bought yourself time, time to figure everything you’ve been dealing with out. You have a place to live, money for the short term, and a reliable income through the summer. It’s the least tense you’ve felt in the weeks since you fled home.

You were so worried, but since getting to the city, answering its call…as overwhelming as it is to the senses compared to how pastoral things were in Dutchess County, your passenger is so much less aggressive. Less dangerous. At least, less random with her violence. Since getting into more crowded places she’s only seriously hurt that mugger before you could even draw your gun. Not like how she destroyed your room. Not like how she held your parents against the wall when they told you everything would be okay…sad and scared but trying to be there for you as a storm whipped and raged in the kitchen.

When you were alone in the woods and had a nightmare only to wake up to her kicking down the last tree tree. The more alone you let yourself be, the more dangerous she was. Is it because of how violent her death was when you could finally remember it past making yourself forget the trauma? Whatever the reason, in the throng of the city where you can scarcely hear yourself think sometimes is when she’s at the most peace.

And now that she’s peaceful, maybe you can be. You feel like living on a razor’s edge and on the run has made you so jumpy. Everyone notices your volatile and exhausted moods but now you think they’ll be less of a problem.

Tonight, tonight you want to dance. And as darkness claims the city, you head north. Not as far as central park, but to West 45th street for a legendary dance hall you dreamed about when it started showing up in all the magazines. Where the youth of Manhattan and celebrities from coast to coast sometimes played, drank, or danced the night away.

You want to experience being swallowed up by the moment, the collected peace and vigor of the crowd. That feeling at a pep rally or the big game. That feeling like your first time at a school dance once everyone stopped being so awkward.

The line to get in is already forming, but you’re confident in your stride. Having adjusted your skirt, made your blouse less demure, stowed your hat and gloves, and planted a confident and wicked smile on your face. With a roll of your neck you wish you’d kept your long hair…but this shorter bob will have to do. Long hair like you had, and keeping it dyed black, would have been a gross liability.

>>6470724
Signage around the bar turned dancehall promises a mystery guest later tonight, and you’re keen to be surprised.

It isn’t long before you’re in front of the bouncer. An albino giant. He’s letting people in or kicking them from the line for what seemed as arbitrary reasons until you’ve watched him for a bit. Dress code, style, teen boys close to your age unless they have money to flash. Couple of girls definitely younger than you get booted. He even barred a couple of older boys, until you realize as they leave the line adjusting their jackets that they had holsters.

“Woah there, little Miss,” his smile is like a shark as maybe six and a half feet looks down at your five three, “You sure this is your scene?”

“Yeah, I have an ID,” you slip the fake out of your purse, hoping he doesn’t see the gun, but he raises a hand to stop you and then half turns it as if he isn’t sure he should be beckoning for something else..

“I don’t need to see your paper,” the cement wall of a young man chuckles assuredly as the Harlem Jive underscoring his words, “I need to know if this is your scene, you dig?”

Pink eyes bore into your green for a moment. Debating for a second about trying to bribe him but that wasn’t the only way to get past him. A tired kicked puppy dog might as well be a crisp twenty for some. You debate trying to get your passenger to whisper…but this is your celebration and the more she sleeps just out of your line of sight the better.

>Charm 12. You’ve made a temporary ally for the duration of your opening hunt. Candy.

“Oh, come on. I’ve come such a long way,” you explain and twist at the waist while wringing your hands low, “My friends are already inside and I didn’t bring a sweater, it's already getting chilly tonight,”

“Oh sure, friends inside and not like it’s already summer,” he laughs deeply, but hasn’t sent you away just yet, “You got something better than that, green eyes/”

“Please, it’s my first week in the city and it would be so special,” opening your purse when you’re short and he’s tall would be dangerous, while fishing out your billfold he might see your gun.

“Hmmm,” he’s mulling it over but also you get the impression that he’s going to be unconvinced.

There’s a whisper in your ear.

That he’s so bored, it’s static creeping at the edge of the TV, that he wants to inject a little chaos into the night, but there’s rougher customers he can let in for that without risking his job. You don’t look like the type to cause trouble…and he wants to be seen clearing up trouble.

>>6470725
The whisper from your passenger doesn’t matter much though, as one of the many onlookers is a young woman with naturally dark hair who stepped back out of the Peppermint Lounge to seemingly have a breather behind the line the bouncer holds. You figure she’s one or two years older than you, and dressed as expensively as one might risk being at a place like the peppermint lounge.

“And where have you been, Gabriel and I have been waiting for you!” she interjects and gently pushes the living Mount Everest aside.

“Well I’ll be, I guess you do have friends waiting,” he relents, he lets you slide on by before leaving the help your act managed to convince to your aid a parting shot, “Miss Candy, you gotta let me know if you’re waiting on people,”

“Oh, Alonzo, it completely slipped my mind. I’ll be sure to remember next time,” she pats his arm and he nods like this is a normal occurrence, taking a toothpick out of his pocket to chew before turning to the rest of the line.

She pulls you by the wrist and laughs once far enough past the threshold, and amidst the dancing and the live bandstand, it’s infectious so you join her.

“Thank you!” you beam, “though why the assist,”

“You seemed alright to me, and it keeps things interesting, messing up who’s the right or wrong people let in. Besides, your first time in the city, right?” she turns to face you and releases your wrist to clasp her own hands together.

Her accent reminds you of your father’s students from the affluent part of Long Island. The bouncer’s deference and her clothes make you think you’ve made a rather well to do friend.

“Yeah, I just moved in and am starting a new job tomorrow. Seemed worth trying to celebrate,”

“Well you’ve impeccable taste choosing the Peppermint. I’m Candace,” she explains, “Candy is just a little nickname,”

“Ann,” you reply and then nod your head back toward the door as the noise of the place soothes you, “You said you and Gabriel were waiting for me?”

“My boyfriend,” she explains, “Also a nickname, though far more pretentious than mine. Not much for dancing but he enjoys seeing me have fun and listening to the music; and I enjoy him turning down all the boys and girls whose eyes he catches,”

She points out to a table toward a far wall opposite the bar, maybe half the hall’s distance from the stage where the house band, Joey Dee and the Starliters, played. He’s wearing an expensive suit, though a little ill fit on his shoulders and back that seem bulkier than his arms and face would suggest, and has a grossly handsome face beneath the sharpest blonde hair you think you’ve ever seen.

“Well then I won’t make a pass despite my impeccable taste,” you joke with her moving toward the bar as she incites immediate service in the lax space and hands you a beer bottle.

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>>6470726

So scandalous, you’re drinking at a club in Manhattan. Oh you could squeal, but you’re a sophisticated bitch who has garnered a new friend in kind.

“See, I knew I had a good feeling about you,” she clinks her bottle to your own before calling over the din and crowd, “I think I’ll actually introduce you then. Gabriel, I've made a friend!”

The two of you approach the table, pushing through the dance floor, where he nurses a tumbler of something amber with a cigarette balanced between his fingers on the glass’s rim. The look he gives Candace is...not nervous but…distant. Like he’s not being entirely trusting of a stranger being brought over.

“Charmed to meet you, friend. Apologies for Candy, she’s a habit of attaching herself to strays. I should know,” he raises the glass and nods to you having decided to at least be friendly, “I couldn’t get rid of her for love nor money,”

His voice is naturally melodic, and in overtures carrying a mix of upstate old money and posher British than your new boss.

“Flattery will get you nowhere Gabriel,” Candace practically coos sitting next to him and setting her drink on the table, you follow suit, “She was just having trouble with the bouncer and it felt right to help her out,”

“Far be it from me to judge your whims,” he moves to take a sip while speaking and pauses, “I’m sorry, I haven’t let you get a word in between us Miss…”

“I’m Ann,” you say like you haven’t been saying it into Hotel or Bus Station mirrors for the last few weeks, and then repeat a little louder over the sudden din of the band that drowned you out, “I’m just Ann!”


“As Candy has said, I’m Gabriel, I’m sure the two of you will have a rollicking girls night of it,” he smiles more genuinely, “Don’t let me keep you at the table,”

“Yes, I must live vicariously through your triumphant celebrations!” Candy exclaims, having tipped back her bottle during the most recent back and forth she was not an immediate part of.

“Ladies and Gentleman,” the titular Joey Dee of Joey Dee and the Starliters exclaims, “We’re taking five, but before we go we’re introducing tonight’s surprise act. I give you the one, the only, the Chubby Checker!”

The club is full of screams and joy. And for certain you twist again into the night. Your joy and dissociation into the music is shared by your passenger. And you hope it will help you hold control for a time longer.

You can’t recall much else of the night from there. You may have gone a little harder than you should have, but you remember your dreams. Crying on the curb holding her body for dear life, unable to let go...and then stars. Endless black and stars. Granite rising against the blackened firmament and the blue earth beneath.

It is broken by a smell.

>>6470727
Sizzling fat wakes you. Your roommate is in the kitchen in front of you on the ceiling. No…she is on the floor. You are upside down on her couch. Candace is next to you, right side up, leaning against Gabriel.

“Somebody had fun,” she comments and moves something around the pan and jokes, “Maybe a little too much of it. At least you didn’t throw up on the couch,”

Your passenger is beside Mercedes, trying to hide from you behind her afro. She keeps moving the spices on the counter away from her…but your roommate doesn’t notice and still picks them right up as she needs them.

“G’morning…what time is it?” you murmur and struggle to right yourself.

“Still two hours before we have to be at the office for day one,” she says and scrambles the eggs in the pan, “Your friend told me you were celebrating when I found y’all here last night. I was too, though I think I paced myself a bit better than you did,”

Sitting up successfully, you stare at Mercedes and muster what you can. First you notice a handful of feathers on the coffee table and then decide it’s unimportant.

“I saw Chubby Checker last night,” you say flatly as everything is too bright, too loud, but maybe it's the calmest you’ve been in months, “I did the twist to Chubby Checker,”

“Congratulations. Did you lose a fight with a pigeon afterwards?” she gestures to the table, “Candy was picking them out of your hair when I walked in,”

“I honestly don’t know,” this may be one of the most honest conversations you’ve had with Mercedes so far in the short time you’ve known her.

She plates herself up toast, bacon, and noticeably spiced eggs and plops next to you on the couch. Your nose crinkles…garlic and pepper. Mercedes tucks in, plate in hand, and you look at it and her. She catches you and nods.

“I’m not your mother. Not gonna scold you for being out late like I was, but that also means I’m not making you breakfast. Kitchen is free and you pitched in for those groceries so have at it,” she gestures with her fork.

Which…is fair. It is fair, but you are annoyed. Maybe not, because you don’t think you could handle those eggs right now…or normally. Is this a hangover?

“There is, however, a fresh pot of coffee for you and your friends,” the bacon crunches, “Get yourself together, feed your guests, and we can head over together, greenie,”

She may live, for now.

>>6470728
You aren’t sure if that was you or your passenger. You require the coffee and then you’ll figure out breakfast. You fix yourself something, rouse your new friends so they can see to themselves; Gabriel asking to use your phone to summon a ride after ascertaining just where in the city you all are.

Whence that is sorted…what to wear today to your first day of work. Since getting to the city, getting lodging, and getting liquid you have all new clothes besides what you ran away from home in.

The coffee is, quite frankly, godly and necessary.

>Yesterday’s neat pleated look in a different color
>Something that says more office worker; a straighter skirt, a heavier shirt and a light jacket.
>Something a bit more mod; a patterned dress, belt, and the tall boots you splurged on for yourself

You have acquired an unexpected ally in your opening Monster Hunt. How she will be useful for this Hunt is entirely up to you, or if you even use her as an ally going forward for this hunt or save this connection that you must maintain for another.

Candace or Candy. She is also, now firmly your friend.

Huh, I'm doing some long updates but I'm not mad about it.

As you can see, your choice of where to go and what to do last night would have had wildly different potential outcomes.

>>6470729
>Yesterday’s neat pleated look in a different color

And, any thoughts on your new friends?

>>6470729
>Something a bit more mod; a patterned dress, belt, and the tall boots you splurged on for yourself
>>6470767
Chad and Stacy, you can't go wrong with Chad and Stacy. Mercedes seems to be ok.

>>6470729
>Something a bit more mod; a patterned dress, belt, and the tall boots you splurged on for yourself

Writing.

In inexplicable pain this morning and hope everyone is doing better even if marginally.

File: Green Mod Fabric Pattern.png (1.07 MB, 800x533)

1.07 MB PNG

After getting a quick breakfast together for yourself and your slowly awakening friends, Candace calming Gabriel when he momentarily panics at awakening somewhere unfamiliar, you set about getting yourself showered and dressed. You decide on a simple mod shift patterned dress that in some places matches your eyes and goes just to the knee, gradient circle patterns. It wasn’t new, but it's yours and it's a little flashy and you like it. Pairing it with a white waist belt and tall boots to match you think as many teenagers do that you’re asserting yourself and your identity in a singularly original way and only the march of time can disabuse or reinforce this notion.

No gloom. Not somber. Bright color. Alive. You’re alive, and that’s the only notion you think you want to enforce.

Candy and Gabriel are shortly on their way with the knock on the door and arrival of an apparently summoned chauffeur.

“Good morning James, thank you for the prompt arrival,” Gabriel thanks the man, who is otherwise quiet with the boy offering only a nod.

“We will have to do this again, or grab coffee,” Candy promises as she finishes collecting herself and thanking you for breakfast, leaving her own phone number in your care, “May your first day be wonderful. Claim your stake in this city,”

As they leave, Mercedes whistles whilst looking out the window.

“That white boy called a damned Rolls Royce,” she comments more to herself appreciatively then shifts cadence, “I have got to admit I’m a little jealous of how you must have partied last night. Just who are they?”

She’s put together, clad in a white collared blouse and a dark dress, scarf, vest, skirt and mary janes. There is an air of professionalism about her, and she’s shaped but not tamped down her hair.

“I honestly couldn’t tell you, other than…nice,” you muse, “Gabriel is a nickname anyway. Candace just kind of swept me up and got me in the Peppermint Lounge last night,”

“Nickname? Gabriel is a whole ass goddamn name. And the Peppermint? Makes sense you got to see Checker. Hmmm, she got you past the bouncer then. You know that place is a mob front, the Genovese own the place,”

She sips from her cup as she scrutinizes looking down at the street from her vantage point at the window. Ever the detective she’s working things out. You’ve a tinge of worry that one day she’ll turn that eye on you…to find you out. Your passenger looms in the kitchen, hand rising toward the knife block before you shoot her a look and the hand recedes and she discorporates to your vision like so much smoke. Mercedes turns to face you.

>>6470900
“Those bouncers are basically auditioning to become enforcers. Was there anything specific about the guy she got you past?” she questions.

“Like, a few. Tall. He definitely wasn’t Italian. Black…but albino,” you parse out.

“Alonzo,” she curses into her mug, “Nope, not my mystery. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready. I even have a heads up on one of the investigations,” you offer for a moment grabbing your bag and making for the door while your roommate puts her mug in the sink.

“Well don’t keep me in suspense,” she meets you by the door before looking back at the coffee table, “Oh, I’m gonna clean your pigeon fight trophies up befo- oh. Guess one of them beat me to it,”

“See, they’re nice. Well, Ms. Latarnick and Mr Steele are investigating a series of weird murders,” the two of you begin out for the day.

You clue Mercedes into what you know without divulging what your passenger showed you of events. She seems unphased and serious about the matter, and praises you for being to look at the hard candy even if it made you uncomfortable.

It isn’t long before the two of you enter The Guardian Building, the majority of it is dedicated to its titular newspaper, with the recent repurposing of the penultimate storage floor and remodeled top floor for the purposes of the Society for Psychical Research’s Manhattan office and publishing effort. The foyer of a Newspaper office is a busy and chaotic place, more so that its abuzz with rumor that an owner would be visiting as you already well knew.

A short elevator ride later the two of you cross the threshold into the office where the Director waits to usher you into the conference room where a well suited man with a neat moustache and fading blonde hair awaits at the head, reading the morning edition of what you assume is his own Newspaper. The mysterious J.R.

Mrs. Cross is already there as well, in rather understated black clothes and a broad hat. Unusual, but J.R. and Director Bonnet pay no mind. Also at the table is someone unfamiliar to you, a Korean man sitting uncomfortably in a grey tweed suit with bowtie who offers a distracted but friendly nod to you as newcomers to the table. You hope its not too forward to assume this is Mr. Lee.

>>6470901
You recognize Mr. Steele on arrival; he is much more imposing in person than when being looked at from on high. Though not nearly as broadly built, he is taller than the bouncer from last night and clad in a simple overcoat and plain suit and tie, and your passenger warns salt and the memory of violence trails in his wake. Accompanying him, you assume from your memory behind her eyes, is Ms. Latarnik; a woman not much taller than you with her hair in an updo helped by a paisley bandana wearing a light jacket over a collared blouse and denim overalls holding in a prodigious and dense figure. She is beaming in smiles and short hellos whilst Mr. Steele has a singular smile that shifts in familiarity when he sees the Korean man.

“Young-ho, haven’t seen you in a dog’s age,” the giant extends a hand.

“Not since Seoul, Jonah. I didn’t realize I’d be seeing a familiar face,” Mr. Lee seems far more comfortable, “I thought you were a lifer with your Navy,”

“Got a little past pension and decided I wanted a change of scenery with fewer waves,” Jonah Steele chuckles, “It’s funny, I actually took this job because it reminded me of your stories,”

Whilst the old friends agree to talk about old times later, a barrel chested man with a cropped beard, crew cut, yellow shirt, creme pants, suspenders, and a white labcoat folded over one arm with a box in the other strides into the room. Strides. He carries a presence and optimism that makes your passenger hiss at him from beneath the table.

“Goodmoring,” he booms with his inside voice, carrying a wave of cheer, “I brought doughnuts,”

This must be, you think from the labcoat, Dr. Goodman. Director Bonnet sidles in after him and closes the double doors to the room, J.R.

“Right, this is everyone assembled. So let us begin this inaugural meeting of the first complete staff day of the New York Psychical Journal, Quarterly,” Director Bonnet claps his hands and stands beside J.R. “I’ll let our esteemed backer say a few words,”

With the newspaper down there is something familiar about the man you cannot entirely place. He regards the lot of you with a serious if detached demeanor, as though he is addressing a board he answers to instead of his own employees. Immediate, serious, and frank.

>>6470902
“This project is assumed to operate at a total fiscal loss,” and that gets your attention and almost everyone else’s almost immediately, “This journal is neither expected nor intended to generate a profit. It is done to satisfy my curiosity and the curiosity of the Psychical Research Society of a world largely unseen. We will document our findings and publish them as factually as we can manage. Private Grants have been arranged that would keep this space and a team thrice this size funded through the next decade. This is not a desperate search for the sensational headline, and I expect at multiple turns we will have investigations that pan out more mundane than what it is we seek. I want to make this clear, and that I am not expecting the impossible from any of you out of the gate. We each have our own reasons for being here and in pursuit of the things we pursue, and I would ask you share as much of them as is comfortable for you to do so whilst you formally introduce yourselves in this board room. To start, I am J.R. and I value the relative anonymity I can maintain from my wealth, my concern and motivations in this matter is for the security of my family and my legacy,”

Succinct. Concerning. Serious. Threatening? Supplicant? Your passenger starts to crawl out from under the table and approaches him, perhaps intent on sliding his wallet out to the floor for later…but she stops. You stop for a moment, your breath catches as Mrs. Cross meets your eyes directly from across the table before she rapidly glances to Mercedes and Mr. Lee.

She, the passenger, steps back a bit and regards you through her messy curtain of hair, and sinks into the outer wall. Director Bonnet is about to begin his introduction.

When your turn comes…what will you say? What will you risk to say besides the name you’re wearing? What motivation or concern will you share?

>Lie that you’re just happy to be here and it was the most interesting job offer
>You’d rather not say much about yourself and why you’re here.
>You’ve experienced a nonspecific phenomenon you can’t explain and hoped this would help you find answers
>You’ve experienced a ghost and haunting and hoped this could help you understand the experience
>You’re actively haunted by a vindictive spirit and hoped this job could help you figure out what to do next
>The vindictive petty spirit of your dead childhood friend haunts you, drove you to come to NYC, and possibly pushed you toward this job and you don’t actually know what you’re doing.
>You ran away from home to protect your family from the destructive petty vindictive spirit of your dead childhood friend that haunts you and calmed down as you got closer to the city and you want to exploit the resources offered to get answers or peace in no particular order.

>>6470904
>You’ve experienced a ghost and haunting and hoped this could help you understand the experience

>>6470904
>You’re actively haunted by a vindictive spirit and hoped this job could help you figure out what to do next

I just want to say, you guys did choose the character that would make this hardest to write without giving away the game. Granted, two of the others who've made it in the story are in the same boat but not on the same level.

Continue on, you beautiful spooky bastards. Continue this vote.

>>6470904
>You’re actively haunted by a vindictive spirit and hoped this job could help you figure out what to do next
Just the right amount of info. A girl like her wouldn't spill the beans like that.
>>6470984
You can do it, OP. I'm already getting fond of Ann.

Rolled 6, 4 + 2 = 12 (2d6 + 2)

Alright rolling weird.

Writing in progress paused, playing FF14 with my oldest bros and eating chinese food.

This should be a lengthy update when it is ready this evening. Thoughts so far on the assembled cast before their full introductions?

>>6471061
They surely pick my interest. I wonder if Ann can get close to Immortal Sexwan. She might be a "good" influence for her, she could learn a lot from her since they both seem afflicted by curses they don't understand.

>>6471065
Immortal Sexwan? You mean Mrs. Cross?

>>6471072
Tara from the monstrous book.
She's there right? Otherwise I'm stupid.

>>6471073
Oh, wait, she isn't. Shit.

>>6471074
Tara is Mrs. Cross actually. You're good.

“I am your Director, Franklin Bonnet , Esq. I studied at Oxford and for most of my adult life I have been a member in good standing with The Society. My interest in the paranormal, supernatural, and psychic stems from a violent encounter and rescue I experienced as a fresh Bachelor with what I most ardently believe were Vampires,” Director Bonnet explains before taking his seat next to J.R. while a strange quiet takes the room before your benefactor speaks up.

“Now, Director Bonnet’s lived and anecdotal experience will not be mocked in these halls. Nor will any of your’s, if you have doubts about your own stability in the stories you relate I have a psychologist and psychiatrist on retainer among the medical services that will be provided to any of you during your tenure with us which we will be going over later,” he explains while your passenger whispers to you that he is indeed treating it like a board meeting as you earlier thought.

There is an air about the room of tension that slowly diminishes. Mercedes is eyeing everyone up for certain. Ms. Latarnick seems positively pleased as punch and rather self assured. Mrs. Cross stands next. You didn’t quite know what she did, she wasn’t a receptionist and she seemed so young…but there is a placidness about her that unsettles you.

“My name is Tara Cross. I am your Administrating Editor and Field Coordinator underneath Director Bonnet. Circumstantially I will serve emergency roles in the field,” there is a deadly calm to her voice here as her eyes take a predatory glean whilst looking over the assembly taking their measure, “These emergencies are not limited to covering absences, but also emergencies of life and death. I was the rescue component of Director Bonnet’s encounter and I am here as a favor to old friends and to seek something taken from me when I was claimed by the night,”

Wait, hold on. Director Bonnet is at least in his fifties. She looks to be in her twenties. Is she implying she believes she’s-

>Weird Move Empath: 12! Max possible success.

You don’t shy away from her eyes and direct your passenger to try and get one of her reads on Mrs. Cross. She responds more immediately to your direction than normal.

Director Bonnet is nodding along with a smirk taking in the room. Your benefactor remains otherwise stone faced as Mrs. Cross retakes her seat as your passenger strides forward out of the wall and walks as a phantom through the table directly toward the proclaimed vampire, breaking your line of sight to her and trying to look directly into her eyes.

And stays there, confused.

“Well if that’s the case I’d love to review a blood sample, Doctor Elliot Goodman!” the man’s presence makes you flinch, not the sound.

>>6471124
When he starts speaking…being…he floods the room. You flinch, but your passenger doesn’t as she stands mid table in front of Mrs. Cross whose attention is now firmly on Dr Goodman.

“I’ve dabbled in many of the sciences but my main areas of practice are biology and mechanical engineering. My interests in branching into parapsychology happened after I electrocuted myself building an ethical power harvesting enclosure for Electric Eels I intended to patent and the wife decided I needed a safer area of study and income so I thought to ply my talents here for field work and research,” he opens the box of doughnuts he brought and offers them about.

You take one of the cakey morsels. Other hands too reach for the box, some passing through your frozen passenger. Mrs. Cross does not.

“Well, I’m Leah,” says Ms. Latarnick who has taken her own doughnut and an additional one after the self proclaimed vampire waves off the offer, “Leah Latarnick. I’m a photographer and have had the joy of being an early hire working with Mr. Steele these last couple of weeks,”

She pauses with the vanishing of her first doughnut and thumbs a few crumbs across her glossed red lips before shooting a glance down toward J.R. Before smiling deeply and continuing. You finally notice her makeup is in decided contrast to her manner of dress as mechanic chic.

“I was out in California for a few years doing photography studies in physique, men’s interests, my interests, and whatever caught my fancy before I lost my steam and passion…but after moving back home in West Virginia I saw something that woke me back up, a creature in the night. Seeing it shook me to my core…and I couldn’t get a picture of it,”

She sniffles and pulls a handkerchief to dab her eyes and the crumbs of her second doughnut.

“So now I’m looking to catch a hunky monster on the business end of my camera,” she finishes and curtsies.

Strange woman, to say the least. As she plops back into her chair, her aforementioned partner rises.

“Former Petty Officer First Class Jonah Steele, US Navy,” he says simply, hat in his hand, “Recently decided to get out after over a decade of service. I got interested in this stuff from knowing Mr. Lee when we were friends back during the Korean War and thought it would be interesting,”

“Lee Young-Ho,” the man in tweed explains, “To reiterate the pronunciation is Yi. I am a photographer and a longtime hobbyist in rumor, urban myth, folklore, and sightings of unknown phenomena. I served as a Sailor in the Republic of Korea’s Navy during the war in my home country and during that time became friends with Mr. Steele. I’m very excited to be working here and with all of you,”

>>6471127
“My name is Mercedes Knight,” she straightens her skirt as she stands and takes the room in with confidence and settles one hand on her hip, “I’m an amateur detective who has helped put multiple threats to my community behind bars and am just one of your research and field interns. I know this city well, and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who knows everything north of 86th better than me. Don’t count me out because I’m young, because I’ve seen things in this city that defy explanation,”

She nods firmly and sits down. Glancing at you with a smile as if to say that now it’s your time to shine. So you rise. Nodding to the collected table including your passenger who is now standing back and to the side of Mrs. Cross, staring at her in abject confusion. Okay…you’re going to try a little honesty today. Not total honesty...but enough.

“I’m Ann Claremont and I’m actively haunted by a VINDICTIVE,” you stress the word to your passenger, “spirit and I sought this job out to help figure out what to do next about it…as one of your research and field interns. I just know I’m gonna be great at research, I love reading,”

Looking over to Mercedes she’s giving you a bit of a confused look, before shrugging. The rest of the table took your statement well and you still have their attention. Last in the room and you still have their attention. You sit down.

Your passenger walks to you. No shuddering or flitting or disappearing and reappearing she walks right up to you and whispers to you that she cannot read Mrs. Cross at all. No secrets under the surface, no thoughts astray, no nothing. She actually seems distressed, and you’re feeling it.

“With that, I’ve an appointment downstairs. I’ll be returning for a luncheon with all of you. For now you all have a short break before Director Bonnet goes over active and potential cases ongoing. Now then, If you’ll excuse me,” J.R. rises and walks purposefully from the board room.

Conversations are starting to break out and others are temporarily leaving the room…you…

>Need to have an actual conversation with your passenger, to the bathroom
>Want to ask Mrs. Cross about her claims.
>Mercedes is debating asking you something, might as well engage her first
>Want to ask Ms. Latarnik about her corpse photography you saw
>Wait to see if anyone asks you about your ghost

>Mercedes is debating asking you something, might as well engage her first
>Wait to see if anyone asks you about your ghost

I am very interested in how this story and world develops. I'm surprised one or two of the characters haven't been recognized yet.

>>6471128
>Want to ask Mrs. Cross about her claims.
I say I was interested in the vampire so I'll go for it. Still, Mercedes seems better than I thought at first. I wonder what she saw during her investigations.

>>6471128
>>Mercedes is debating asking you something, might as well engage her first

Voting still open, my day is out of whack because urgent care sent me to the ER.

> my day is out of whack because urgent care sent me to the ER

Oof. Feel better.

Voting closed. I am Home. Got crutches. Injected with some hours of anti inflammatory. Picked up nuggies for my sweetie. Writing.

>>6471285
Sounds painful. Glad to hear that you're better. I was worried that the curse got more aggressive or something.

Dr. Goodman swings into conversation with Mrs. Cross as Mr. Steele and Mr. Lee get caught up while Ms. Latarnick seems to gossip about something with Director Bonnet. Your passenger, after looking worriedly over at Mrs. Cross again, tells you that Mercedes is pointedly not looking at you right now but wants to ask you about your claim.

There is a decided annoyance by your passenger at you. Vindictive ghost? Vindictive! She WILL show you vindictive.

Somewhere else.

Away from the lady who she can’t reach. Who she can’t read.

That leaves you to consider your roommate sitting next to you and her question she isn’t turning to you about.

“Go ahead,” you sigh and sink back into your chair a bit.

“Go ahead what?” she says confidently while maintaining her upright posture looking about the room and is contemplating grabbing one of the last doughnuts, really anything not to think about what she’s thinking about.

Your passenger relays in whispers as her head lolls between the two of you and you feel the pressure of her hand on the back of your chair and see her other hand is on the back of Mercedes. More hands appear on some of the chairs, now and previously empty, and start in slow and subtle fashion to gently turn them. Though not your own, and not Mercedes’s. There is just the benign pressure to tip it back that isn’t strong enough to do so right now.

“Ask,” as you speak this time you let your passenger push your chair to the side to face Mercedes, “I know you have a question,”

No one is paying attention to the two of you right now, and Mercedes has noticed the other chairs near you spinning and then stopping to face the two of you along this side of the table.

She’s gently pushing Mercedes’s chair too now, though her feet are firmly on the floor.

“Do you really have a ghost problem?” she says while looking straight ahead, actively ignoring the things you know she is seeing and feeling.

“I said so, I wasn’t lying,”

“So. You brought a ghost into my apartment?”

“I mean, I’d have brought a ghost anywhere. She won’t leave me alone,” you explain.

“It's doing this thing, right now?” she sets her jaw, chewing the thought, “You making it do this?”

“Afraid it is doing this thing, right now,” you sigh, “And I’m just along for the ride, it doesn’t listen to me often,”

“She, good to know that spooks a bitch,” her chair shudders with force and and she holds composure and her breath grows sharp, “She the one who kept moving my spices this morning?”

“Didn’t realize you saw that,” you question, confused, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Course I saw,” she huffs and her cadence shifts, “Think I’m gonna acknowledge that shit? Only encourages it,”

“...so you’ve seen stuff like this before?” you ask hopefully.

>>6471305
“Maybe I have. Maybe my grannies or auntie told me stories growing up. Maybe I’ve seen worse,” she digs her feet in, “She gonna be trouble at home?”

The shudder of her chair stops.

“I don’t know,” you offer, perhaps afraid that you’ve lost the shelter you’ve only just found with Mercedes since you left home, “More people makes it calmer,”

“She the trouble had you running to the big city?”

“I don’t know what you’re impl-” she turns to face you with a start.

You don’t need a whisper to read her expression. It's written as clear as day.

Really?

“Thirteen year old little white girl pretending she grown, lyin’bout her age, tryin’ to get a job, and asks about being roomies with cash up front from her duffle?”

…

“I’m fourteen,” you look away, cross your arms, and mutter to the side.

“Well, isn’t that the important distinction,” she nods sarcastically and takes a calming breath before turning to reach out onto the table, sliding the doughnut box over and taking the last one, her voice taking a more professional cadence once again.

Ms. Latarnick pauses in her wild anecdotal expressions to Director Bonnet at that movement and looks crestfallen before launching back into whatever bawdy frivolity she was in the midst of recounting.

She breaks that last doughnut in half and turns her chair back to face you, offering half to you. Not pressing the issue of her insinuation. Letting her question about your running die in the unspoken space, for now.

It's a tense moment where she wonders if she was too harsh and trying to think of something more than just the quiet of her peace offering.

“So what are some of the things you’ve seen?” you question and take a bite of your half doughnut and continue through it a mess, “doing your investigations?”

She smiles.

“Seen a Vampire get dusted,” she explains with a certain cockiness to gauge if you think that’s cool.

“Dusted?” you question.

>>6471306
“Huge stake through the heart, that’s mahogany not porterhouse, burst into burning dust,” she chuckles, “And last year, a real ass goddamn Nazi tried to blow up a rec center with some creepy ass twilight zone kids making things spontaneously combust,”

The alleged Vampire in the room is looking at Mercedes with interest. Had she heard?

“That’s crazy what about -”

“Alright Ladies and Gentlemen. I believe we should begin going over two story leads and an ongoing investigation,” Director Bonnet claps and takes the seat where J.R. had been sitting before he left the conference room.

Taking three stacks of folders from a previously unseen briefcase

“To start with, this is an investigation Mr. Steele and Ms. Latarnick have been covering,”

You know something about this one already…during the briefing you.

>Pay attention to this information again and gauge how the others react to things
>Actively engage and participate with questions and follow ups.
>Not pay attention and spiral a bit about all the ways living with Mercedes could go bad
>Not pay attention and think about how maybe things living with Mercedes will go well
>Not pay attention and worry about mom and dad…

>>6471307
>Pay attention to this information again and gauge how the others react to things
Getting an idea of how our coworkers react to this kind of stuff might be important.

>>6471307
>>Actively engage and participate with questions and follow ups.

>>6471307
>Pay attention to this information again and gauge how the others react to things
>Actively engage and participate with questions and follow ups.

This has gotta stay open overnight. While I'm recovering from this I can't sit at my desk for long periods of time comfortably. Gotta dig out something old and setup elsewhere. Tomorrow.

>>6471307
>Actively engage and participate with questions and follow ups.
Time to get serious to not fuck this job up by acting like a kid.

>>6471307
>Pay attention to this information again and gauge how the others react to things

Rolled 5, 2 = 7 (2d6)

Looks like we’re trying to lock in and lock in hard to do both of these things.

Rolling COOL for Act Under Pressure.

>>6471614
The QM now offers you a worse outcome, a hard choice, or a price to pay…hmmm. I can’t think of a hard choice…so I offer a binary.

>Worse Outcome - Spreading yourself too thin you have made yourself seem immature.
>Price to Pay - Your Passenger is willing to help you manage your split attentions…for a price.

>>6471619
>Worse Outcome - Spreading yourself too thin you have made yourself seem immature.
…we’re a teenage girl. How is seeming immature a problem, exactly?

>>6471619
>>Worse Outcome - Spreading yourself too thin you have made yourself seem immature.

>>6471619
>Worse Outcome - Spreading yourself too thin you have made yourself seem immature.
They leave you no choice.Throw a tantrum until they recognize your full fledged mental development and ample life experience.

Okay. Waiting for the craptop I wrote EMQ to recharge or for my foot to feel well enough to sit at my desk. Struggling to write things up on my phone.

Direct communication note, I already know one of you already figured out what’s going on and who you picked. Has anyone else? Place your answer in spoiler text or spoiler picture?

File: IMG_2113.jpg (864 KB, 4032x3024)

864 KB JPG

It’s vaguely alive!!!

>>6471716
It is not yet alive. Let this be a lesson, turn old tech you aren’t regularly using over periodically. Or at the very least disable the wifi connection when you know it’s gonna be off a while as not to get stuck in endless updates. Its 100% 4 times now.

>>6471706
My heart wants to say it’s Cloak and Dagger, and we’re specifically Tandy. My mind is too busy begging to ask why you decided to smash Ann Nocenti and Chris Claremont’s names together for a pseudonym when neither of them had a hand in their creation. My mouth is laughing at the accent you gave Misty.

>>6471733
My mind is stupid and forgot Jean existed. Could be her, too.

>>6471732
Windows is simply crap. Not your fault, QM

>>6471734
>>6471733
...I did not come up with the name Iron Man Armored Adventures Season 2 Episode 17

>>6471750
>it’s from the Teen Tony show
This somehow makes things more confusing…

>>6471766
A character you have named appears, using the name Annie Claremont as an alias only to have it confirmed at episode's end whomst've'd they really are. It was either going to be that or the Karen Grant name from Ultimate X

Wait until you figure out who our roommate is.

Update is written. I just gotta tend to some errands this morning first then its getting posted up when I get home.

You sit up a little straighter for the Director’s presentation. Even though you’ve gotten to a tentative understanding with your roommate, you still absolutely bristle that she thought you were thirteen.

Thirteen?! No. You have understanding. Mercedes has cemented herself as someone willing to look out of you…even if she is going to ask questions. She’s a detective, of course she’ll ask questions. You were worried about it this morning, and she isn’t put off by your ghost.

Well, you need to really do your best here this morning.

You need to focus. On the work. On your teammates. You need to be engaged. Ask questions. See what they’re thinking of you.

“Over the course of the last month and a half a series of murders has been climbing the city. We don’t have access to all of their names but we know when, where, and have a baseline understanding of whom they were,” he begins, “The only consistent pattern observed is the point to point northbound climb and the grotesque removal of victims hearts,”

You nod along as the folders are passed out. Opening to read and gauging the reactions of newcomers Mr. Lee and Dr. Goodman.

Dr. Goodman is unphased, even by the photograph, and takes the documents in stride. Mr. Lee is certainly shocked though seems to dive straight into the details written pushing the photo aside. You aren’t so concerned with Mrs. Latarnick and Mr. Steele given this is the work they compiled.

“A prostitute walking home after taking the Staten Island Ferry. A known gambler in Chinatown, his winnings for the evening untouched. A beat cop in the meat packing district, we’ve newly learned his firearm was crushed. The cab driver was found in central park, his cab turning up yesterday hidden by shrubbery off of west and adding to a noticed point of interest previously brought up by Ms. Claremont. Lastly, the man photographed before you,”

“And what did our mod little intern notice?” Ms. Latarnick leans forward.

“It must have been that hoof print!" you offer quickly and with some excitement turning toward director Bonnet, “they are feeding hearts to pigs!”

Mr. Steele & Goodman regard you with some amusement. Mrs. Latarnick turns toward Director Bonnet.

“I don’t recall any hoof prints in the blood,” Ms. Latarnick comments for the photo she took.

“It isn’t,” offers Mr. Lee, who has returned to scrutiny of the photo, “In the lid of the trash can,”

“Some Pig,” Mercedes comments, regarding you and remembering your conversation about your review from earlier and revealing that like you she has also read Charlotte’s Web.

“Did you notice anything besides a pig print?” questions Dr. Goodman, looking at the photo with care and scrutiny.

>>6472057
“That is the thing which she brought to my attention that now connects back to a prior victim. A reporter from downstairs aware of our activities passed it along,” Director Bonnet explains whilst cleaning his glasses, “A cloven hoof print significantly denting the passenger side door of our late musher’s medallioned car,”

He pauses and regards a confusion in the room from everyone except for Mrs. Cross.

“Musher is London slang for cabbie,” he explains himself quickly.

“Strong enough to dent a cab and with a cloven hoof,” Mrs. Cross offers, otherwise unreadable, “It is likely no pig, it matches some descriptions of the Jersey Devil,”

“I’m unfamiliar with that,” questions Mr. Lee as Mrs. Cross turns to him and he is about to say something further before you-

“Its a really cool legend from across the river,” you offer with a start and slap your hands on the table as you stand, “A monstrous demon sighted across the pine barrens and as far north as Passaic County!”

“So that is local folklore then, that means it could still be an alien or cryptozoological,” Mr. Lee finishes.

“Indeed, though it was never known to eat hearts,” reasons Dr. Goodman.

You are definitely contributing, but it feels like you’re being glossed over.

“There’s a short list of guys who could dent a car I can think of, could be special shoes or gloves to send a message with a hoof? Don’t know what the driver or the latest guy did…but I can think of any number of reasons a pro, a cop, and a gambler would be gotten by one of the mobs,” Mercedes offers, flipping through the papers, “Could be a new enforcer establishing a brand,”

“And would you consider this short list of people to be normal?” questions Mrs. Cross.

“No ma’am,” she replies, “and Ann met one of them yesterday,”

“I did?” you break from your near pout.

“The bouncer from the Peppermint,” Mercedes explains, “He’s freak strong, and tough. Know people who’ve broken hands against him like a wall,”

You sit back down. And think. Whatever killed that man was…it sounded like stone on stone. But you saw things…you can’t quite remember if it was from the murdered or murderer’s perspective but it had rough gray skin, not shock white. And that Albino had five fingers on each hand.

Director Bonnet seems interested in this line across the table. Ms. Latarnick is glancing between you and Mercedes in curiosity, taking your comparative measure and judging the two of you.

>>6472059
“Regardless, after our luncheon with J.R. I would like Ms. Latarnick and Mr. Steele to continue their line of investigation. Ms. Knight will be joining a daytime retread of the prior incident sites; and perhaps tonight you can stand by again into the small hours north of the park should another incident happen,” Director Bonnet explains, “Ms. Knight, though it is the physical area of your familiarity I do not expect you to join this stake out into the morning,”

“Understood. Maybe a few folks will have found their courage,” Mr. Steele comments while holding his chin in review of the photo he himself managed to stand in, “And share a bit more,”

“I’ll make sure the high frequency is warmed up and ready for tonight,” Ms. Latarnick sighs, “And see if I can find anymore of these hoof imprints at the old sites as well,”

“Additionally we have two other leads on cases we’re considering; there have been a rash of storefront robberies in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens where multiple victims and bystanders have significant gaps in their memory. As though they blinked, and both time had passed by and a noticeable amount of their inventory was missing. Secondly, strange phenomenon has been reported to our outfit directly by the Hanover Modeling Agency, and they suspect their offices are haunted,” the director explains, Hanover…you interviewed with them as a potential internship before you got the interview here, “I’d like Mr. Lee & Dr. Goodman to get themselves settled into their spaces this afternoon and to go over the initial case files I’ve assembled for both, and assist later with some preparations in our physical research and materials library,”

“And what would you like me to do, Director?” you question.

“I would like you to assist Mrs. Cross in the initial unpacking, preparation, and assembly of our physical research and materials library,”

You glance across as Mrs. Cross…this would be your first opportunity to speak with her privately since your interview, but you’re also interested in what’s going on out there in the field.

“After work, you want to go to the Peppermint again? I’ve got a few questions for Alonzo Lincoln and I’d like some backup,” Mercedes offers.

Apparently that your opinions on not going to the field are plain on your face.

>You’ll help Mrs. Cross out and get the skinny on her
>Note that you still have phone numbers from interviewing at Hanover for their internship, and still know some of the staff.
>Contest your assignment, you think you’d be a help revisiting the murder sites.

& Mercedes inquiry of talking up Alonzo Lincoln tonight?

>Yes
>No

>>6472060
>You’ll help Mrs. Cross out and get the skinny on her
If she gets her good side, she can understand the ghost and know what kind of place she got into.

Go with Mercedes to talk to the big guy.

>>6472060
>You’ll help Mrs. Cross out and get the skinny on her
>Yes

Rolled 5, 2 + 2 = 9 (2d6 + 2)

Writing

And more weird.

Finally caught up. At least the vote went how I would have voted here.

You nod at Director Bonnet’s assignment for you. While you want to go into the field or get ahead on the other mystery of the Hanover case, because you are curious why that modeling agency suddenly thinks it’s haunted, you knew going into this job that you were going to be an intern and going to be doing office and grunt work. Prepping for this “Physical Materials & Research Library” space will also probably be full of helpful information for the future.

As for Mercedes’s inquiry, you offer her a sharp nod. You would like to go back to the Peppermint…even if only to have a chat with that bouncer, Alonzo. You need to rule him out from the vision your passenger gave you.

“I’m so excited to help with the Library later this afternoon,” Dr. Goodman is practically bouncing in his seat, “I know it's supposed to be a surprise and J.R. wanted to explain it, but it is going to be so amazing,”

“No offense but I’m a little wary about something that excites an egg head that much,” Mr. Steele offers.

“No, no offense. I’m just very easily excitable and this, I’m just very keen on this. I read about the early development a few years ago and I should really shut my trap now,” Dr. Goodman laughs a bit nervously, “At least before I get myself in trouble,”

“I can see why your wife wanted you to stop playing with eels,” Ms. Latarnick chuckles.

“It was just an unsafe project. With my self funded tinkerings I have a tendency to let things get away from me and I cut what should have been priority 1…proper sealant and insulation,” he sighs, “I do so much better working where I’m accountable to others,”

“Ah, so you aren’t a mad scientist, just absent minded,” Mr. Lee observes, “I think I will like working with you,”

There knock at the door, slid open to reveal what appears to be building services.

“We have some catering to put out for your luncheon, if you could clear your conference room for a few minutes,”

“Certainly, thank you,” your Director rises and bids everyone back unto the main office floor.

“So, the wall thing with Alonzo?” you question Mercedes in the hall, “Is he just that tough or would you say he’s made of rock or something like that?”

The elevators open to two push carts and attendants wheeling past into the conference room with the woman who bid you vacate whilst all of you mill about in the open area of the office floor.

“Something like that,” Mercedes explains after a moment of thought, “Why are you asking?”

“A very specific hunch given to me by my friend,” you explain, “Though it was gray, and he’s white as snow,”

“Won’t hurt to ask him either way, he tries to stay up to date on players and up and comers like himself. If it is him, he won’t want to lash out in public at the Peppermint, he’ll try to play clever,” Mercedes considers, “So if it’s not in a straight fight with him, I can work with him trying to play clever,”

>>6472524
The Elevator opens again and J.R. returns, followed by two men. One is an older man with, at a glance, the same hair dye you’re using on his combed hair, thick mustache, and prominent but not bushy eyebrows carrying a brief case. The other you recognize from this morning, the chauffeur Gabriel summoned for himself and Candace, he carries two large suitcases with some effort.

“That way James,” J.R. gestures down one of the side halls to the man, “Leave them by the door labeled research. I expect I’ll need you on standby to leave in about two hours. You’re free to join us for luncheon or make your own arrangements with you standing per diem,”

“Yes sir,” offers James before going to leave materials you will doubtless be tending too after lunch, you wonder of J.R. 's possible connection to Gabriel when you finally see it in his face.

“You have the Starsmore Manuscript,” Mrs. Cross asks of J.R. as she pulls him away from the rest of your assembly, “I am keen to read it,”

Luckily for yourself, your passenger is willing to eavesdrop on your behalf…somehow. You aren’t sure of the particulars.

“It and about half of the other accounts and rare books on appearances of Tepes you requested and one artifact from that incident,” J.R. sighs and lights himself a cigarette, “They came at some expense from multiple collectors, though for the time being I’m keeping Jack Starsmore’s journal, you understand,”

You look between him and Mrs. Cross from nearby. While she is seemingly immune to your passenger’s whispers and ability to find insight…he isn’t. She tells you that he is awash with worry of strange portents of the apocalypse, as it relates to his son…which is strange but seems in line with his cryptic words about why he’s funding this kind of enterprise. If a bit concerning.

It may be worth asking Gabriel about that later, and if this J.R. is his father or Uncle. You don’t just want to assume his crazy rich father believes he’s involved in some kind of end times prophecy.

Rich people are weird and latch onto some strange things…then again you are the girl with the ghost, your passenger reminds you. Touche.

“Perfectly fine. Between what has already been delivered and these we’ll have a solid start to arranging the library today,” Mrs. Cross explains, “Both for general research and both of our personal projects,”

“The intersection of which continues to concern me,” J.R. takes a drag, it seems Director Bonnet was keeping his distance from the man for this exchange, as your passenger notes that scenes of Bela Lugosi’s Dracula are bubbling up in the man’s fears.

The intersection of Vampires and what? I mean that makes sense he’s thinking about Dracula, but you aren’t sure what the name Tepes has to do with it…

File: Emerson_Bale.png (141 KB, 208x318)

141 KB PNG

>>6472525
“The luncheon is ready,” explains the woman from before as the attendants wheel carts out of the room, “Just call my desk and I’ll send someone up to clear things when you’re ready Mr. J.R.,”

Everyone files back into the conference room where an absolutely luscious amount of premium cold cuts, fancy cheeses, fruits, vegetables, spreads, and a few bottles of wine on ice are on offer.

James is the last to file in, having completed his errand, and removes his driving gloves and hat by the coathook at the conference room door.

“As we enjoy this lunch, I wish to announce something I have acquired for some of the research I expect we’ll be doing for this journal,” J.R. begins, “The final prototype model of the currently under construction Ferrante Atlas, project code name Clymene,”

“That is…interesting,” offers Mr. Lee with some reverence, as you look over to Dr. Goodman who is practically vibrating.

“Discrete Germanium transistors,” the man of two fisted science beams like one of your cousins unwrapping a Howdy Doody play set, “One-level-store active memory. Magnetic Tape storage. Oh this is going to be so fun,”

“Now, could y’all break that down a little bit or are y’all literally speaking Greek?” questions Ms. Latarnick, “Literally, Atlas is a Greek thing, right?”

“Clymene is a Super Computer, which I believe will be useful in our cause,” explains J.R.

“Are we doing code cracking or calculating?” questions Mr. Steele, “I’m not too sure what good a Super Computer can do for us?”

“I’ve been writing a few yards of program to do things like photographic enhancement, pattern recognition, and a sort, tag, and search function to make microfilm research faster,” Dr. Goodman is like a kid in a candy store.

You’ve read a little bit about computers. Huge things with vacuum tubes that helped do big gun angles during World War II. You’ve seen them doing ridiculous things in Science Fiction movies, but were under the impression that in reality all they’re really good for right now is math. Big math, but math all the same. Some of your dad’s colleagues in other departments at the university were excited by things like that but you weren’t too interested.

“Before working with or handling the Clymene, along with a number of the rarer books and unusual equipment being brought into the Materials Research Library, there are some releases I require everyone to sign alongside the paperwork you’ve already filled out,” the other man who came in with J.R. opens up the briefcase and begins passing out forms to everyone’s seats as they’re assembling, “This is my lawyer, Mr. Emerson Bale, who will explain it better than I,”

>>6472530
“There is a liability release for a few artifacts and books we intend to eventually house in the Materials research library,” Mr. Bale explains, “a non-disclosure agreement about the Clymene’s architecture, assembly, and the proprietary programmable systems we intend to implement. And lastly another non-disclosure regarding some Medical Data for comparative research that will eventually be made available pending progress of the journal’s progress,”

“Not the first NDA I’ve signed,” Ms. Latarnick looks toward J.R. seriously holding up her copies, “And I get that old things may be made of poison or radium…but just what’s so dangerous about books?”

“I can think of a few reasons,” Mr. Lee considers conspiratorially, “Have you ever read Lovecraft?”

“Can’t say I have,” replies Ms. Latarnick.

“Pulp horror stories, sometimes his work is a creature feature, might be up your alley,” Mr. Steele offers, “Often has instances of esoteric knowledge driving people mad,”

She stares at him. You haven’t read Lovecraft and you don’t think Mercedes has either after a glance in her direction. You understand, in theory, the concept of something being so scary as to drive someone mad. If madness can be a repressed memory…

You are not dealing well with remembering what you’ve been remembering. When you remembered she showed back up…and before she did things other people saw you thought you were going crazy. Not a far flung concept for you to grasp.

“I’ll give it a read,” Leah considers while signing her paperwork.

You’re doing the same, well you’re signing Ann Claremont with a practiced hand.

The luncheon, though cold, is very refreshing.

And while he is enjoying his meal, James the Chauffeur definitely recognizes you and Mercedes from across the table, mid bite of a strawberry. And Mercedes, like you, recognizes him. He glances over toward J.R. who is conversing about something with Bonnet, Cross, and Bale then back to the two of you. You and Mercedes both glance over to J.R. and then back to him. You can’t help yourself and offer a little wave.

His expression suggests that he is worried about you revealing...literally anything about his retrieval of Candace and Gabriel this morning. You certainly don’t want to rock the boat with your boss’s boss just yet and drag your fingers across your open mouth, closing it in the pantomime of a zipper.

The luncheon eventually comes to a close.

“Good luck with Mrs. Cross,” Mercedes offers before she heads out with Ms. Latarnick and Mr. Steele.

“Thanks, good luck out in the field,” you nod to your roommate, “I’m a little worried about what gonna be in that library now, honestly,”

“Nah, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Dangerous Library, dangerous books, lead cups or whatever?” Mercedes jokes.

File: Atlas.jpg (10 KB, 259x194)

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>>6472531
“Mr. Steele, Ms. Latarnick,” Director Bonnet approaches before making to J.R. and Mr. Bale head into his office, “I request if you find the hoof printed trashcan lid from your photograph or a similar transportable article containing such a mark that you bring it back with you,”

“We can try to swing that,” Mr. Steele offers as you walk away from them toward the room labeled as the ‘Materials Research Library.’

Mrs. Cross is already there picking up one of the suitcases.

“Ms. Claremont, take the other one and follow me,” she offers and opens the door onto a catwalk in a room that extends to the floor below.

From up here you can see the divided sections of a book library, a museum style arrangement of artifact slide drawers, an actual laboratory, and a partitioned room with a few large reel towers already installed and pre-marked floor plan for other blocks and a desk. Amid the Library and Artifact room are a number of boxes and crates, some already open.

Parts of this room, as you drag the heavy suitcase with care down the stairs, have two story tall windows that are currently covered in thick blackout curtains…and the air in this room is crips with the hum of some kind of environmental control system like you’ve heard at Bard college visiting your father at work.

She begins offering you a series of instructions as you’ll begin with the Library proper. You acknowledge them and get to work unboxing the more normative research books on folklore, history, and medical phenomenon. After a few minutes of sorting, placing, and double checking things alongside her you consider what you want to ask her first.

>So, are you really a vampire?
>Why can’t my ghost get thoughts and impressions out of you?
>Who is Jack Starsmore?
>Who is Tepes?
>Can you see my ghost?
>Ask nothing for now, get some more work done first.

>>6472533
>Why can’t my ghost get thoughts and impressions out of you?
>So, are you really a vampire?

Some more hints as to who we actually are I see.

>>6472533
>So, are you really a vampire?
J.R = J Johnah Jameson? You borrow from comic books?

>>6472672
J.R. Is an alias. He is not Jameson. He is Blonde and his money is old. And he may be worth II much.

>>6472672
Also…borrow? Anon this is most assuredly and absolutely a marvel fanfic quest where there are a few OCs but you are playing an existing character and there are existing characters already in the story so far.

>>6472533
>Why can’t my ghost get thoughts and impressions out of you?
This might be useful to detect vampires.

>>6472695
If Ghost Rider appears, can you make him look like Nicholas Cage? His Con Air look if you want him younger.
The Afterbloom QM did that thing about using celebrities for his characters and it was the shit

>>6472672
Anon, this quest is literally named after an old comic book. It uses the logo in the OP image. There’s a joke at the CCA’s expense and everything. Are you slow?

>>6472694
I’m guessing he’s tied to Angel somehow. I’m also raising an eyebrow at all the Champion-adjacent stuff so far, but don’t know enough about the team to comment further.

>>6472696
>Ghost Rider
lol, which one? I’m pretty sure 1961 predates Blaze, Ketch, and Reyes, (given that it predates all but four or five existing heroes,) but lord knows how the timeline works thanks to Marvel’s weird insistence on making it “slide.”

>>6472748
If 60's Spider was Peter, Nick Cage can be Ghost Rider. Someone has to fix Cage's Rider. I know QM can pull it off.