(IC) Acrewood College Prep - Homeroom 1

[Q.Q Elf]

7:58 am, Friday, 10 October, 2014

The bell for First Hour rang 13 minutes ago. Lucinda's seat is still empty, and so is James' seat. Mrs. Meecher whispered the names during roll call, her face buried in the seating chart. She didn't bother to say Lucinda's name, and she marked James down as "Absent" during roll. It's been a pattern, and everyone knows the teacher is new. Fresh meat, and the blood is in the water. Even the "good kids" are getting into it now.

Mrs. Meecher's eyes are shot with red, and puffy. She doesn't trust her voice to speak right now. She's writing something on the board about Imagist poetry. Rejection of Romanticism. The end of sentiment, the end of feelings. A movement towards sharpness, and clarity in language.

Marcus has been having a running conversation with Pavo. They haven't exactly been quiet. When Clarence asks them to be a little more quiet, Marcus acts like he doesn't hear Clarence at first. When Clarence insists on interjecting a second time, Marcus says, (for Rukellian)

"Wasn't talking to you, so f*ck off. I'm going to teach you a lesson at lunch, asshole."

Mrs. Meecher has chosen to ignore this exchange while she has been writing on the board. Marcus keeps on talking. There's a big party going on tonight, the Friday before a long weekend. According to morning announcements (read over the PA system), Acrewood College Prep will be closed on Monday the 13th, in honor of Columbus Day, for the Man who helped to bring Civilization to the savage world.

Then the door bangs open. Lucinda walks in, stuffing a wad of money into her purse. Clutched in her other hand is a plastic sandwich bag full of smaller baggies with leafy products in them, along with pills of various colors. As always, her tartan skirt is a shade too high, her white polo shirt is not tucked in, and she's wearing pink cowgirl boots. She has a smirk on her face as she strides over to her desk, and winks at Summer as she sits down. Lucinda whispers to Summer (for Metal Fatigue):

"Get me the homework! All of it!"

and coldly gestures to a neat stack of fresh photocopies next to Mrs. Meecher at the front of the room. Lucinda rolls her eyes when Mrs. Meecher opens her mouth to speak, shutting the teacher down in mid-thought.

When James pokes his head in the doorway, Mrs. Meecher says quietly (her voice breaking in mid-sentence), "James Goolian, you are late. If you show any more disrespect towards me, I... I will have to send you to the Principal's office!"

When James walks by Marcus on his way to his desk, Marcus raises his fist for a bump. "Bro!" says Marcus loudly, so everyone can hear.

Mrs. Meecher is staring at the fist, her eyes shot with red.

...

Oblivious to what's going around the room, Duke turns around with a big dumb grin of his face, and asks Seth (for MonkeyWrench),

"Bro. Who are you thinking about taking to the big party?"

[MonkeyWrench]

Seth finishes doodling in his notebook, taking light notes so he looks like he is paying attention, answering Duke without looking at him,

"Not taking anyone, not sure if I'm going... got things to do at night."

[Keehnelf]

James raises one hand to complete the bump then pauses, as if a thought has just occurred to him, and gives Marcus a sly wink and drops his hand back to his sides, adopting a hangdog expression as he turns back to the teacher.

"Miss Meecher, I am so sorry for being late this morning. I was up way too late trying to get ahead in the reading for this class since I know I'm going to be busy over the weekend. I slept right through my alarm and had to get my mom to give me a ride." He rolls his eyes. "Talk about embarrassing!" he cries, half to the assembled class, as he throws his hands in the air melodramatically. "It reminds me of that passage from the Amy Lowell poem you had us study:

"I am no more a child, and what I see
Is not a fairy tale, but life, my life.
The gifts are there, the many pleasant things:
Health, wealth, long-settled friendships, with a name
Which honors all who bear it, and the power
Of making words obedient. This is much;
But overshadowing all is still the curse,
That never shall I be fulfilled by love!
Along the parching highroad of the world
No other soul shall bear mine company.
Always shall I be teased with semblances,
With cruel impostures, which I trust awhile
Then dash to pieces, as a careless boy
Flings a kaleidoscope, which shattering
Strews all the ground about with coloured sherds. "

As he recites, James moves slowly closer and closer to the teacher, until his face is almost even with her, and as he gets to "never shall i be fulfilled by love" he reaches out very gently and touches her cheek with the backs of the fingers of his left hand, lowering his voice to a whisper just loud enough for the students to hear if they're paying attention. As he utters the last two lines, he pulls his hand away abruptly and lowers his eyes, tossing his left arm out as though mimicking the action in the poem, then turns and stalks darkly off to his desk.

"I feel like that careless boy today, Miss Meecher," he says as he slumps into his seat. "No disrespect intended."

The goal here is to turn Miss Meecher on, and to do so in an obvious way that will be embarrassing for her in front of the class while leaving her unable to continue scolding him about being late. Here's a roll if it helps that (let me know if I should wait for your word to do that sort of thing, but I wanted to start things off with a bang):

James turns on the teacher [2d6+2] = 11+2 = 13

[Keehnelf]

Still figuring out these mechanics:

If I understand it right, a Turn On roll like that gives me a String on Miss Meecher, but no other effect--however, I can spend that string to cause her to hesitate, freeze up, etc. Which would be the mechanical impact I'm looking for here. Basically throw her off her game entirely (not too hard to do).

[Metal Fatigue]

"But—but—" Summer stammers to Lucinda, and then subsides. Right then, James is providing a first-class distraction, so it's not hard for Summer to grab the stack of papers and hand them off to Lucinda. I'll roll Hold Steady if you think it necessary, MC, but with James' action I don't think it should be.

Having accomplished her mission, Summer turns toward James and declares, right on the heel of his last line, "Try interpreting that in the context of Lowell's passion for Keats, though:

"Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
  Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
    Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
    She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
  Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!"

How do you roll dice like Keehnelf did?
Shutting James down: 2d6-1=8
Tagging him with the Condition incorrigible flirt, and he gets to pin one on me.

[Rukellian]

The note taking process is always a struggle for everyone now, this Clarence is all too aware of. He sighs under his breath and pushes up his glasses, giving a quick worried look over Vanessa, then towards Mrs. Meecher the biggest victim here. He does not try to stop Jame's reckless move nor does he openly scold Summer for butting into the conversation. Clarence has a high respect for literary talent and enjoy's listening to these sparks.

OOC: this is all I have time for right now. If I continue typing I will be late for work! Will pick up on this post later in the morning. Sorry...

[Keehnelf]

James rolls his eyes, clever enough to pick up on the taunt and none too pleased. "Guess someone actually spent their night reading love poems," he mutters. Buzz Kill is his counter condition.

[Q.Q Elf]

(Okay, so the String is spent to push Mrs. Meecher further off whatever she has left of her self-confidence here? Got it.)

Mrs. Meecher has a confused, conflicted look on her face. She knows from her teacher's training that she needs to take control over this classroom, but she can't. She just can't. And when that magical boy touched her face kindly, she couldn't help but melt a little inside. Yet she's already melting down, and crumbling. She desperately wants the approval of her students, to know that she's been heard, and yet this is all so wrong. What is happening to her? How did she get this way? It wasn't always this way...

She hesitates, her mouth open and gaping, totally at a loss for words. She barely notices Summer walk up and grab the stack of assignments that she was going to hand out at the end of class. She stares at Summer for a minute, glances over at Lucinda, and buries her face in her hands.

Mrs. Meecher, after a long pause, hoarsely whispers, "Summer... could you... open your American Poetry Anthology, to page 75... please read The River Merchant's Wife... to the class..."
(No need to Hold Steady... this time.)

When Julie hears that Mrs. Meecher has selected Summer to read something to the class, she turns around and smiles brightly at Summer. She wants to hear anything, and everything that comes out of Summer's mouth. (So, Metal Fatigue, what happened the first time Julie invited Summer to the abandoned lake house? What did Julie offer to do for Summer?)

...

Duke Corohn will not drop his conversation with Seth, although he's turned in his seat so he can stare at Mrs. Meecher's chest to his left, while talking out of the corner of his mouth to the right in order to keep trying to engage Seth in conversation.

Duke says to Seth, (for MonkeyWrench)

"Bro, I know that Lucinda chick totally is into me, but I got to get with Mrs. Meecher. She shot the Duke down the last time the Duke, you know, tried to make a move on her. Look... why don't you break whatever bullshit you're doing tonight, come down to the party, and try to invite the teacher to the party for the Duke?! You know she lives right behind the school with her cripple husband? What else she gonna do tonight?"

...

After James sits down, Victoria Johnson gives him a really weird look, as if to say, Dude, what the f*ck? This is not the first time she's given him that look. Keehnelf... What happened the last time to get her pissed off at James' behavior?

...

Clarence notices Vanessa taking something small, metalic, and sharp from a concealed place under her desktop. (For Rukellian)...

It's a discrete pair of razor sharp steel scissors. Vanessa stared, wide-eyed, at the way James touched Mrs. Meecher. She stares at the shell-shocked teacher until Mrs. Meecher buries her face in her hands, and then Vanessa starts to stare at her right wrist, which is covered in a network of scratches and scars. In the grip of her left hand are the scissors, held like a knife, the sharpened steel point facing down... hovering ever closer to her right wrist. Vanessa whispers something unintelligible about Mr. Finney.

[Metal Fatigue]

Summer reads the poem. Another love poem, of course. Mrs. Meecher seems to be fixated on them lately. Julie, who said she'd show Summer "more fun than that bitch Lucinda ever will" and seemed honestly disappointed when Summer turned her down according to Lucinda's orders, is sucking it up too. The boys are playing their own status games, and the atmosphere in here is just so fraught that Summer has to get out, has to get away! Poem finished, she mutters something about the bathroom and tries to flee…
2d6+1=6 on a Run Away attempt.

[Rukellian]

Clarence gently places his hand on Vanessa's shoulder and shakes his head slowly, trying to calm her down. With his other arm, he raises his hand and politely asks for Mrs. Meecher's attention, as best as he knows how. "Mrs. Meecher, will you please excuse Vanessa and allow me to escort her to the nurse's office? She's feeling very ill right now told me that she is feeling very weak." Clarence says all of this with great confidence in his voice, the confidence of a person genuinely wanting to help someone. Given the teacher's current situation, I think it should be easy to do at least this much, even though Clarence is bullshitting some of it. Persuading Vanessa to go along with this in her current state may be a bit more trickier. I am going to use a string on her to help keep her steady as I bring her to the nurse's office. If you need a roll from me, just say so and I can provide one in a relatively short amount of time.

Assuming this is successful, here is what will happen afterwards. If Clarence's string pull did not work, I will work the results that follow instead of this.

After safely getting Vanessa out of the room, Clarence notices that she is still holding onto the sharp object. He smiles and shakes his head again, holding his hand out. "You know I care about you too much to let you do something like this. You just need to calm down is all. Here, let me hold onto that for you. I will return it later when you need it, alright?" he says in a soft whisper.

After a moment of awkward silence, probably taking place either outside the room or in the hallway leading to the nurse's office, Clarence speaks up, asking Vanessa about something that has been on his mind lately. "You know I won't force you to do anything you don't want to do, but the offer I made long ago still stands, will always stand. If you need someone to talk to, about anything, I will be there, for you." He turns his head and looks Vanessa directly into the eyes as he says this.

Clarence is definitely not lying when he is saying this. Because he is a ghost, he has a little more freedom with what he can do, where he can go and when. He is an orphan renting an apartment out on his own, so the freedoms come naturally.

[Metal Fatigue]

Clarence may or may not need a Manipulate NPC to get Mrs. Meecher to release him and Vanessa, but if you think it's possibly tricky for him to get Vanessa to go along, then IMO a Manipulate NPC roll is definitely in order there. Note that you can spend a String on an NPC for a +3 to Manipulate them (+1 to any other roll against them), and can wait until after you see your roll to do so.

[Keehnelf]

Victoria's getting pissed off because he and Lucinda keep showing for class late "together".

[Q.Q Elf]

Rukellian, why don't you want to roll dice? You should be shoe-horning actions through the dice, especially the ones that mark XP. Sure, it's vary gamist and scheme-y, but that's why we did the whole highlighting bit. To point out what rewards your character so that you will try to bang that drum over and over again.

The point is to drive your roleplaying choices through these actions that we all think are character-ful, and we do that by making it rewarding.

So, anyway, we marked Hot for Clarence. You should want to Manipulate NPC. That's part of the meta for this sort of thing.

...

Let's work your response up until the point in which you have your Spoiler tag stuff (because that would all be post-Roll). Give me a roll for Manipulate an NPC.

So.. for Clarence, here's what the roll would be like...

• Basic dice roll is always 2d6.
• Manipulate an NPC is based on Hot. Clarence's stat is -1, so it's a -1 mod to the roll.
• (Optional): Spend 1 String on Vanessa for a +3 modifier to your roll.

In total...
2d6 -1 (+3 if you choose to spend a String)

Okay... for Metal Fatigue...
A result of 6 means I get a Hard Move, right? Okay... so I got this idea...

After Clarence finishes speaking, Summer abruptly bolts from the classroom. Vanessa pauses for a moment, and also stares at the door as it bangs open.

Everyone hears some muffled voices outside before the door shuts again.

(For Metal Fatigue)...

Summer dashes down the empty hallway, running headlong into the large, spongy form of Mr. Finney. His arms instinctively wrap around Summer, enfolding her in a fleshy embrace that is more than a little uncomfortable. (He does not have his own "Homeroom" class, and 1st period is always his free time.) He somehow happens to be wandering around near the girl's bathroom, the door just now swinging closed, with nobody else in the hallway.

With a careless toss of his head, he flips some of his stringy long brown hair out of his face. He doesn't let go of Summer, still holding on to her like a spider around a trapped fly.

"Oh... yess. Miss Bartlett. You are going to the bathroom, yes? Oh, yes. Please do."

Mr. Finney licks his ample lips suggestively, staring down at Summer at a point somewhere below her face.

[Rukellian]

[2d6-1] = 4-1 = 3 plus 3
Well s^#t, I guess my first roll would be a complete fail. Here you go...
So my conversation wrapped in spoiler never happened? At least Clarence got Vanessa out of the room. Now to see what happens next

Edit: This may sound like me being a poor sport about it all, but I knew I was at a disadvantage the moment I remembered manipulate npc fell under HOT. Kinda didn't want to roll my weakest stat if I didn't have to. I thought that strings worked like, I don't know... a get out of jail free card in some sticky situation? I guess I'm learning pretty quickly here, the hard way I know, I know, I should have known better too! Maybe this is karma for jumping the gun so early with my npc and pc *shrugs*

Wait, you know what? Maybe this will work out for the better, twisting my character even further and making things more interesting and dramatic. We shall see what the MC has in store for me

[Metal Fatigue]

Summer thinks quickly…how can she get out of this without flailing and screaming and socking a teacher in the nose?

"Mr. Finney, you need to stop this right now. What would happen if I told Lucinda Price that you'd been hassling her best friend, hmm? Let me go, and go back to your classroom, and we'll be fine."

Manipulating the pervert into stepping the hell back: 2d6-1=6 oh crap.

Rukellian, MC: the rules explicitly state that you don't need to spend Strings for a bonus until after you see the roll. There's no point wasting a String when you rolled a 3.

Also, everyone, note that Summer has taken a Hot, a Volatile and a Cold action so far this scene, as well as earning an XP from a skin move. This is deliberate. MonkeyWrench hasn't told me what to highlight yet, so I'm trying to cover all bases to make sure I get my 3 XP for the scene. All I need is a way to Gaze Into The Abyss and I'm set :) (It's buried in the rulebook, but there is a rule that says you can't get more than one XP per scene per highlighted stat or XP-granting skin move.)

[Rukellian]

Rukellian, MC: the rules explicitly state that you don't need to spend Strings for a bonus until after you see the roll. There's no point wasting a String when you rolled a 3.

I'd love to take your advice on this, but slight problem. I built the macro to have the string involved. If I were to take it out at the last minute, not liking my result, it would mean rerolling under a new macro without the string. Unless Q.Q Elf wants to show a bit of mercy? fat chance. He has all of these hard moves to dish out now and must be loving it.

[Metal Fatigue]

I'd love to take your advice on this, but slight problem. I built the macro to have the string involved. If I were to take it out at the last minute, not liking my result, it would mean rerolling under a new macro without the string. Unless Q.Q Elf wants to show a bit of mercy? :lol: fat chance. He has all of these hard moves to dish out now and must be loving it. :roll:

Use a different dice-roller then, he said heartlessly. The MC likes Invisible Castle. Alternatively, just type the +3 and the new result after the macro output in the message. If you're spending it after the fact we don't need to be able to look it up.

[Q.Q Elf]

MCing voice: Hard Moves are neither here nor there, I guess. Everything I do is about ratcheting up the tension, anyway. I just get to be even more blatant about screwing you over when you trigger a Hard Move.

After Summer races out of the door, and Clarence asks to take Vanessa to the Nurse's Office, Mrs. Meecher waves at Vanessa, as if dismissing her from the classroom.

However, she skewers Clarence with a haunting look, saying hoarsely, "Please. Stay". There's a pleading in her voice, her eyes seeing Clarence clearly through her pain.

Vanessa rushes out the door by herself.

...

(Okay, next up, for Metal Fatigue...)

Mr. Finney's hands continue to be uncomfortably overfamiliar, and unyielding. His fleshy body presses close, like a straightjacket of sickly soft skin. He smells of cheap hand lotion, dime store aftershave, and a faint scent of marijuana.

When Summer mentions Lucinda, he only smiles and laughs. "Oh, sugar... oh, honey... Miss Price and I have a mutually... beneficial relationship. What's hers is mine, so to speak. I will have to mention you to her some time."

He chuckles some more before he hears the sound of Mrs. Meecher's door opening yet again. He immediately walks away towards the sound as if nothing has happened.

As Clarence is sitting back down, and after Vanessa rushed from the room, everyone hears Vanessa's voice out in the hallway (faintly), "Mister Finney?"

[Metal Fatigue]

Summer staggers backward as Finney releases her from his sickening embrace. She shakes her head, no, no, but can't say anything. Suddenly she turns around and rushes into the bathroom, taking the first open stall and embracing the porcelain throne to puke up everything she's eaten in the past week, or so it feels.

"Could she do that?" Summer mutters faintly after rinsing out her mouth at the sink. Yes, Lucinda could do that. Nothing stopping her.

"Would she do that?" Probably. God, Finney must be her connection. Ugh.

Summer stares into her own reflection, into her own haunted eyes, falling forward into the fear and pain and nausea she sees there…

Gazing into the Abyss re: Mr. Finney. Who can help her get away and stay away from him? 2d6+2=8 and I choose lucid but draining.

[Rukellian]

Clarence is at the edge of his seat now, clearly distraught over the situation that has just developed. Mrs. Meecher is looking to him for support, a rare event for him indeed. But Vanessa, he knows all too well what kind of state she is in right now, if something were to set her off... He darts his head quickly to the desktop to his right. Was the sharp object left behind? He strains his ears to what lies behind the door outside, while trying to maintain the illusion of staying and listening to what is going on in class.

Clarence states his poem selection with stressed words, looking towards the door towards the end of the last stanza.

"I learned Jack and Gill from my childhood,

Romeo and Juliet in my teens,

Since the first hand touched my right shoulder for friendship,

I'm digging in deep to trace,

Like Romeo and Juliet,

Like Jack and Gill,

Who was the friend in need and who was indeed?

In the pen-

"A friend in need is a friend indeed"

Muhammad Safa Thajudeen"