Game Opening: May Ball

[undergroundmods]

LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED.

"" (Watch on YouTube)

It had to be done.

Welcome all to the Redbright Institute's May Ball! This evening is a celebration of the Institute's achievements over the past year. Students aged 16 and above can attend on their own, while younger students must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Meanwhile, friends and guests of the Institute are invited as a gesture of friendship and harmony between the various factions.

Rules and etiquette
• This is a black tie event. Formal attire is required.
• No weapons. This is a school, there are children present. Any weapons or objects that could be used as weapons will be confiscated.
• No drugs or alcohol. Obviously. Don't try to sneak any in.
• No violence.

There is security within the school and present at the event. (In fact, if your character is a member of the Redbright Institute, you could have them acting as security if you want.) They will respond to and put a stop to any trouble.

Places to go
The main action takes place in the large Assembly Hall. This is where the Chancellor Sylvia Redbright will give her address. It's also where you can party later on. The disco is family-friendly – not exactly a rave, but the kids will love it.

Drinks and snacks are available in the dining hall. The drinks are non-alcoholic. Vampires, no need to worry about your cravings: blood cocktails are provided! They're given in good faith on the assumption that you won't be snacking on anyone else tonight.

Just off the dining hall, one of the classrooms has been converted into a chill-out area. The lights are off, the desks and chairs have been replaced by beanbags and there's a table in the corner with a chocolate fountain, marshmallows and strawberries. A video of young witches taking part in various night-time rituals (they mostly seem to involve chanting and bonfires) plays silently on the screen.

One of the lecture theatres has been opened up to showcase students' work from the past year. On the screen you can watch a slideshow of notable events and achievements. Strangely enough there aren't many people in this room.

Outside, there is a giant chessboard on the lawn. The pieces are made of plastic and can easily be moved around. Why, you ask? Why not, is the answer.

Finally, a large marquee has been set up in the quad. This is the adults-only area, with wine and cocktails served at the bar, nibbles available at a few high tables dotted around and a sophisticated atmosphere. No children under 18 allowed. (Note that the legal drinking age is 18.)

Timeline of events
20:00 – Doors open.
20:57 – Sunset.
21:15 – Sylvia Redbright makes her address in the Assembly Hall.
22:00 – Disco in the Assembly Hall. The DJ has atrocious taste.
01:00 – Disco stops. The event officially ends.

Comments

[acrookedchild]

Assembly Hall

Abigail looks the part of a Widdowson woman. She's tall, blonde, and pale, dressed in a long black gown whose sleeves are translucent. The only jewellery she wears is a pair of silver earrings that hang down with small diamonds at the bottom. Her make-up highlights the paleness, and her lips are done in a dark, sedated red. She carries a clutch with her, black with silver accents, and moves seamlessly on heels that just slightly click when she walks.

Abigail is there when Slyvia makes her announcement, and she claps politely at all the appropriate parts, though she might be a bit more subdued at the announcement of the expansion of Redbright's influence. She wants to believe it's a good thing, especially with everything else Sylvia has said, but she's heard conflicting stories from her late family and others they were close to.

For now, she has to reserve judgement.


Lecture Theatre

The slideshow captivates Abigail. The array of accomplishments is impressive enough, but what holds her in place are the faces. People among one another, witches learning in unison. Not a girl shut away in a house. When she was very young, she'd begged to be let attend Redbright. Her father had absolutely forbidden it, and she'd refused to speak to him for just over a week.

Now, she's not certain. She's not sure of a lot these days.

But the kids look happy. The instructors look proud. It feels like they're welcome and wanted.

It's foolish, yes, but it makes Abigail linger just a little longer than most would.


Chess

Chess is something Abigail knows. Her mother played, and it was considered a proper game for a young lady to play, intellectual rather than athletic. It taught the mind patterns and other such things he father said would help her learn summoning better. All Abigail had cared about was that it was a way to pass the time, and she was usually allowed to play it on the back lawn, sitting in the sunshine.

That was better than being cooped up inside, learning her lessons.

So, as she's admiring the style of the large pieces, she smiles a little as she seems someone approaching. "Do you play?" she asks, obviously hopeful, as she stands near the line of black pawns.


Marquee

The event isn't about drinking. Abigail wouldn't be here if it were. Still, society rules indicate that when several other people are drinking, the one who's not is the odd one out. Besides, the pinot noir is delicious, and Abigail is happily enjoying a glass of it as she moves amongst the people. Every step is calculated in a way only someone of society would know. It's all a grand dance, once Abigail has been taught since she was born. Some girls are trained hard to be ballerinas; some are trained just as hard to be socialites.

Abigail is the latter and embraces it. She can laugh with one person, turn, comfort another, turn, share gossip with another, turn. On and on, twisting about. Never lying but never being totally honest. An actress on a stage, a mask for every player. She knows the world, at least in theory, though she isn't as practised as she'd like. Still, she can hold her own.

Her latest 'dance' partner is someone she hasn't met yet, so she takes the first step in however long or short a series they choose to make it. She offers her hand with a soft smile.

"Abigail Widdowson."

Chess

[detectiveofthewest]

Heiji grinned easily back at her at around ten times the wattage of Abigail's initial smile. "Chess? Sure. You wanna try a round? I gotta warn you, though -- I ain't go easy on anyone."

Partially because Heiji was competitive, partially because he didn't really know how; he'd tried throwing games before. But for whatever reason, he could never remember that he was trying to lose, especially during endgame.

[acrookedchild]

A brow arched, and Abigail looked, actually, genuinely offended for a moment. Her lips pressed together, and she cocked her head a bit as her arms crossed over her chest.

"If I wanted my pride spared, I wouldn't be asking strangers to play."

[detectiveofthewest]

Heiji didn't even notice Abigail's offense. Like at all. Or at least if he did, he gave no outward sign.

"Alright, then let's get this party started! White or black?"

[acrookedchild]

"Black."

Between her dress and her name, it seemed best to play the black queen. She was the challenger, so it seemed only fair, in a way, to allow the first-move advantage -- though she was disinclined to believe in such a thing anyway -- to the person she'd challeneged.

[detectiveofthewest]

Heiji proceeded to lay out his moves one by one. When it was his turn, his moves were rapid and without hesitation -- occasionally, he moved a piece so quickly after his opponent's turn that it seemed like he wasn't really paying enough attention to the game.

Which as it turned out was not actually the case. As the game unfolded, Heiji's true colors (as a chess player, at least) quickly showed themselves: he was decisive and he played to win. He especially favored his knights, but he wasn't above setting traps or giving up pieces to further his cause. Especially the former, which he did quite gleefully.

As promised, he didn't hold back, either, so unless his opponent was some kind of chess prodigy, it was going to be a fairly one-sided game.

[acrookedchild]

Abigail is a solid player, careful in her execution but bold when she sees an opening. It's a 'polite' form of chess, and she knows it. Ladylike. Nothing too passive or aggressive. Ultimately, the way she sees it, it's a student's way of playing. To watch and learn.

But she isn't a chess prodigy.

What she does know is when she's beaten. She can, at least, understand the general tone of what moves he will make next, and she sees the loss coming. So, perhaps three rounds from the end, she approaches her king and gently tips it onto its side.

Surrender.

[detectiveofthewest]

Heiji didn't gloat, and he didn't apologize for winning. What he did do was stick out his hand and grin.

"Hey, nice game! You wanna play again sometime, I'd be up for it." Which because he was a fae he actually meant. Heiji didn't run into a lot of people who could beat him at chess, but he could still have fun with a less experienced opponent. And Abigail was pretty good.

[acrookedchild]

"Good game," Abigail responds with almost complete sincerity. After all, there's always a bit of a sting of losing, but she was beyond out-classed. In a way, that makes it a little sharper. She was beaten from the beginning. There hadn't been a chance. Still, she'd asked him to play.

"We'll have to play again, definitely."

[alethiological]

A dance to some, a game to others, but it gets rather tiring sometimes. It's that same feeling written across the eyes of the next person she greets. The feeling gets erased a second later - a witch, but she plays differently than the rest of those monsters. Who cares for her name, the waves she leaves are sincere in their own way. No malice or toxic ambition, but no blind acceptance either. The gold eyes close with a mute sigh.

Fine, he'll play a round with this one.

A gloved hand takes her own, and it's an entirely unconscious motion to kiss the back of it. The picturesque textbook maneuver of the old days, but it's purely genuine and honest like no one outside of that era seems to manage.

"Wright." That's all she gets. "Are you enjoying your night, Widdowson?"

[acrookedchild]

The moment the back of her hand meets his lips, Abigail drops into a slight curtsey. It's not totally natural, not the same ease with which he moved, but it seems, to her, the best reply for the gesture. If she's bothered by the singularity of his name, she doesn't let it show in her expression.

"I am. I've never been able to see Redbright Institute for myself before, so I'm quite enjoying this. Yourself, sir?"

[alethiological]

Good reaction, and a nice attempt to mirror the greeting. She gets a barely visible smile for her efforts, utterly plastic before it melts back to the listless slate.

"I'm not one for parties, but the visit is proving educational."

How very... PC.

[acrookedchild]

Abigail can't help the way her brows raise in curiosity at the... politic nature of the response. 'Educational' is always an interesting descriptor, and she gives a small nod in reply.

"Would it be too presumptuous of me to ask what you've learned?"

She's new to guiding her own steps during this dance. She doesn't have her uncle to whisper in her ear or her father to catch her eye for adjustments. Now, it's all her, and she has to find her own rhythm, and that changes, however faintly, between each person. She can't expect not to stumble a few times.

[alethiological]

What a blatant move. Yet, it's the move of an amateur in chess. It's on the opponent whether to punish the mistake or warn them before it becomes habit.

"A little bit." The only warning he gives, a pause to sip his drink and stare off at nothing in consideration. That answer itself was a misstep, wasn't it?

Well. The game continues. "We do not have a woman with a presence like Sylvia's back home. Has she always been like that?"

[acrookedchild]

Abigail raises her drink and takes a small sip, acknowledging the warning. It's a matter of learning for herself. Sometimes open boldness is a good thing, putting someone off their rhythm. But that's not what she wants now.

"I've never met her before," Abigail admits. "I was schooled in my own home." But from what she knows about Sylvia Redbright, which was just how her parents had spoken and refused to speak of her, she expected she likely was. "That's why I wanted to come tonight."

[alethiological]

A proper move if she aims it at the right person, the kind more prone to bursts of illogical emotions and sharing them with random acquaintances at a territory expansion party. Meh, details.

There's a short noise of acknowledgment at the home schooling - a note filed for future references, she blends well for a sheltered player - and the question slips out with just a shade more amusement. Or at least a bitter corruption of it. "Was she everything you expected?"

[acrookedchild]

"I still don't know what to think about her," Abigail admits. It shows her for what she is -- inexperienced and uncertain. However, it's true. She might as well admit to that much.

"I'm curious to know more, though."

Lecture Theatre

[mensrea]

And in the time that Abigail has lingered within the lecture theatre, a certain teenage human has managed to knock over a display case. The glass shatters to the ground noisily, the artwork inside destroyed by the fall. Stiles stares at the ground with a deer-in-headlights expression before noticing the only other person in the room: Abby.

“Run!” he tells her frantically, moving to grab her arm and yank her away into the corridor. Clearly, he’s under the impression that this is like a Hollywood film and security is seconds away from swarming the premise to arrest him. Since she was present at the time of the accident, she could be mistaken as a fellow perpetrator. Or something. Stiles isn’t really thinking straight.

[acrookedchild]

The sound makes Abigail yelp. A short, terrified sound that has her looking around for a source of danger. Which she doesn't have time to recover from before she's grabbed and hurrying along. She grasps the other's hand tightly, breathing hard as she keeps pace. All she knows to do in a situation like this is to run. Because, usually, something very, very bad had just happened.

Like a gunshot.

[mensrea]

Fortunately, no one is shooting at them (yet). Stiles may have jumped the gun, no pun intended, and now Abigail is along for the ride. As soon as they have cleared the theatre room, he drags her toward an open balcony and thrusts her behind the wall, putting himself in front of her for good measure. Though there's no immediate pursuit, he's tense with fear and anxiety.

"Do you...?" Stiles trails off, glancing over his shoulder at her. "Do you think they have security cameras here? Like, magic ones or something? I don't want to go to magic prison!"

Thank you, Nancy, for filling his head with nonsense about the supernatural world.

[acrookedchild]

Abby looks around once they stop, and she tries to bring her pulse down. She can barely breathe; her hands tremble as she processes what she's heard. Security cameras. Magic. Prison. She has to breathe, has to think. What spells can protect her in the here and now?

"What happened?" she mutters, almost panting. If he grabbed her and ran, he must know. "What's going on?"

She needs to know what she's preparing herself to deal with. She has to be able to fight, and there's no way to fight what she doesn't know.

[mensrea]

“Uh, something shattered in that room.”

Honestly, he’s more than a little relieved that she didn’t actually witness the accident. Maybe he can salvage this whole thing without looking more like a fool than he already does. Coughing awkwardly, he steps away from her to give her a concerned look-over.

“Are…are you okay? You didn’t get cut up by the glass, did you?”

[acrookedchild]

"Something shattered." There were definitely dangers. But nothing like that would be on display tonight. Redbright wouldn't advertise that if their students were doing something like that. It wouldn't be put where the general public could see.

So, she felt she could breathe a little.

"You had me scared to death."

[mensrea]

Laughing nervously, he peers around outside wall of the balcony to ascertain they haven’t been followed. Okay, maybe he overreacted. Maybe. Can you blame a guy? Particularly—a weak, fragile human so, so, so out of his depth at a witchy shindig like this. Still, he’s starting to feel vaguely guilty for dragging this poor bystander along, so he makes a wide and vague gesture that could be construed as “my bad.”

“But hey! Here we both are. Very not dead. Unless you are, actually, and I just discovered your secret. If this is a ‘now I have to kill you’ kind of thing, can you at least give me a five minute head start?”

He’s kidding…sort of.

[acrookedchild]

"I'm not going to hurt you."

Her breathing is getting back to normal. She can think again. There's no danger. It was nothing more than a misunderstanding. Something broke, and he overreacted. So, she breathes again, taking a deep one in and giving a low sigh.

"But-- please. Don't do that again. You'll-- God. I thought the worst."