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 The lights are off, the desks and chairs have been replaced by beanbags and there's a table in the corner with a chocolate fountain, marshmallows and strawberries.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

[eyeforaneye]

"... I don't know." He gives the most honest answer that he can after a short pause, clearing wishing he could be a little clearer. "Whether there were witches in my family that influenced my abilities, whether they were the result of other supernatural interference... I couldn't say. Perhaps if I stick around in places like this I'll get my answers.

Did they encourage you to hone your skills?"

[megidoomed]

"Schools are a good place to learn, its true. They're noticeable though."

Ah, a newbie. Poor kid - even if Aradia sympathizes with not knowing the community for most of her life, she at least knows her own origins.

It does encourage her to push through her encroaching apathy for some sincere advice, as any random tidbit might help and helping is one of the few things left to her these days. "Mother wasn't really one to encourage anything. My grandmother loved to watch me learn, in contrast, but she wasn't too fond of where it was taking me."

There's a wince, even if it's not visible. "I suppose she had a point in hindsight."

[eyeforaneye]

Putting that together isn't difficult and he again feels that sharp pang of curiosity, trying to reel it back in.

"So you had a mentor in it." The comment on schools is left unresponded to simply because he still isn't sure how he feels about this place as a whole, or perhaps more accurately how he feels about its influence and possible agenda.

"Are you still able to use any of those powers now?"

[megidoomed]

Cryptic dead girl is cryptic, and she's silent for a long moment as she tries to puzzle out proper phrasing. Most of her magical education was painfully informal, and a lot of the time she just ended up winging it - which really doesn't make for a useful explanation.

"Most of my mentoring came late, and it didn't carry over in a literal sense. Magic's more of a living thing." In multiple senses of the phrase, really, which earns a dry chuckle. "But my type sort of... gave me a leg up for ghostly stuff. But I still had to re-learn a lot from scratch, if that makes any sense."

The kid's awfully curious about magic. She doesn't mind answering questions, but it's interesting.

almost typed 'ass', nice save for the obvious American

[eyeforaneye]

"Sounds like a pain in the arse." Bluntly worded as ever. His hands slip into his pockets as he eyes that fountain, seeming less and less self-conscious over the fact that he's essentially talking to a variant fondue.

"I guess I should ask what you can do, but even more than that... How old are you? Your choice of wording seems relatively modern."

see australia uses british u's everywhere but we say ass. /shrugs

[megidoomed]

He's definitely new to this, if he's asking those sort of questions, and she's almost thankful to have a fetter for this. It gives her something to ground with, makes it easier to think without casually clipping through the environment.

"It's not as painful as it sounds." Taking things a bit literally, there, but it's softened by the amusement in her voice - she'd be smiling, were she not still stuck in the fountain. Smiling chocolate fondue would probably be terrifying. "As for my age, do you mean when I was alive or in total? Because either way, I could probably make a joke about asking a lady her age. I don't mind though."

ours is a strange world

[eyeforaneye]

"You have a feminine voice, but I had no way of knowing for certain that you were a woman." In all fairness. "Either way, I don't believe in coddling people or treating them differently based on something minor like that." The pinnacle of chivalry.

"I suppose I mean both. This interests me."

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[megidoomed]

... Well, that was a decent point. Props to the strange boy for having a sense of humour, as it wins a well-meaning giggle from Aradia, rippling across her fetter and making the chocolate bubble.

"I suppose you've got a point with that! Not that it matters, I don't have a body to show my age with anyway - I've been sixteen for the past... two years, now?" The phrasing is odd, but it feels more honest then any alternative could be. Technically her clock's stopped ticking, after all.

"Time can be pretty hard to keep track of these days. I'm not a very old ghost, but I know what I'm doing."

[eyeforaneye]

"Even if you haven't had a purely physical form you've still been a part of this world and gained more experience. You're able to have an influence here... You should introduce yourself as eighteen. Those years are yours.

And if it really is eighteen, then I suppose we have something in common."

[megidoomed]

"But I'm not eighteen. Not really."

There's no emotion there, only a sense of baffled curiosity. Though she does appreciate that he replied with his own age - that was to be her next question, to balance things out. "I died, and the dead tend to stagnate. It wouldn't feel right. But it'd be nice to have something in common."

[eyeforaneye]

"You said that you stayed in this world for a reason, so you have attachment or something you want to accomplish, right? If you think in a hundred years that you'll be the same as you are now, then you're invalidating any progress in your goals.

So why dismiss two years?"

[megidoomed]

"I..."

Her voice falters and fails, There'd be easier ways to describe why she words it that way - how she's not meant to be here, how her goal isn't one she can work towards so easily - but that involves thinking about her death and that gets dangerous.

The lights flicker overhead, barely noticeable.

"I'm not dismissing it. It counts, just not in the same way - you can't borrow age, and the dead can't change."

[eyeforaneye]

Even so he glances upward, finding it too coincidental to be unconnected.

"... I don't know a lot about you or your condition, or about how a ghost feels lingering around here. But I don't believe what you're saying." An opinion he's unapologetic over while still trying to remain aware that she's bound to have stronger feelings about it than he is.

"You can still form new opinions and get close to people. You think you can't change without having a body?"

[megidoomed]

"It doesn't matter if you don't believe me."

She catches on the phrase, wanting to repeat it until it starts being true - the dead can't change - but circular logic doesn't get her anywhere. She's aware of the fallacy in a detached sort of way, but she's in too deep now and it's slowly drifting towards a topic she doesn't want to touch. Nobody said ghosts had to make sense.

"No matter how many years pass, I'll be me. That doesn't change. The dead don't work like the living do."

[eyeforaneye]

He can't even ascribe a single defined reason to why he wants to convince her of his viewpoint so badly, unwilling to think on it just as she's unwilling to analyze certain aspects of her own situation.

"... You'll have time to think about it on your own. If I'm right then it won't matter if you believe it or not; you'll just continue to adapt and exist in the way that you do. Maybe that's enough."

[megidoomed]

She wants to deny it again. He's not getting it and it feeds her rising frustration because to her it makes sense. Getting mad at him for not understanding would be pointless, but it's just so stupid she just wants to --

-- not. blow up a lightbulb. Which just happened, thanks to the ever present ethereal backlash that comes with being a ghost. Shit.

"Time is definitely the one thing I do have." Not mentioning her poltergeist-y outburst as she wrangles her voice back to a neutral monotone, nope. "It leaves a lot of room to think about things."

[eyeforaneye]

Immediately he jerks back, arms up to protect his face from any possible backlash, and eyes briefly flashing to red without even his notice before he forces himself to slowly calm down again.

"And do plenty else," is the heated response that slips out before his heart beat's even had a chance to even back out, taking a deep breath. It's just as frustrating to him when all he sees is her proving his point -- emotional and still capable of impacting the world, of leaving a mark.

And explaining that isn't easy when he just so happens to have a very volatile temper himself. "Is that what you want to do with all that time? Just think?"

[megidoomed]

She can't see what the damage was, still fettered as she is - but she still felt the bulb explode, hears the flash in his voice. Apologizing is normally where she'd go to first, but feelings are dumb.

"Thinking's the first step. I can't do much else." That's... a blatant lie, and even with her desperate clinging to stagnation she can't put her heart into it. "Other then destroy things. I know what I want to do but I can't."

The frustration seeps into her voice again, but she's got a tighter grip on it now, reigns herself in before anything breaks - the lights still flicker, but that she can't help. Maybe she should. Not be in the fountain if this keeps up, but she's not sure if he can see her and hesitance stills her hand.

... plus emotions got her stuck again. Damnit.

[eyeforaneye]

"Sounds like the difficult part is over if you know what your aim is. You make a lot of excuses for someone who theoretically has so much less to lose... Can't you enlist the help of the living if you think that your own reach is so limited?

If you have a goal that's strong enough then you can find a way as long as you stop intentionally weighing yourself down. The motivation is the only hard part."

[megidoomed]

It'd be so much easier to explain. It'd clear up everything, show why she ties herself into illogical knots, make it into something that isn't just two teenagers snapping at each-other. But she just

can't

and it causes no end of frustration. Curse you, bad decisions. Curse youuu.

"Most of the living can't see or hear me. And I can't snap my fingers and solve all my problems."

you are the master of edits

[eyeforaneye]

"No, you can't. Neither can I. You have to work hard at them; that's what life -- and death, I guess -- are about."

He's far too goal-oriented and stubborn to be able to accept this kind of attitude lying down; he just can't do it.

i keep forgetting things.........

[megidoomed]

You're being awfully motivating over there, Sasuke. One would wonder if this is just about Aradia's problems now, but that would require her to be perceptive. As it is, there's a long moment where she stays silent, thinking.

"I know. I'm trying and I--" At least the frustration's gone, even if the monotone replacing it isn't much better. "Don't know how to make it make sense, okay? Sorry."

It's fine!

[eyeforaneye]

Even he can realize when it's perhaps time to let a topic fade in order to give it time to settle instead, sighing softly at himself.

"Do you normally come to places like this? Parties, either? Seems inconvenient if you have to hide your presence, but I suppose that's easy for you."

[megidoomed]

The change in topic is appreciated, and a bit of warmth creeps back into her voice. Ghost freakout promptly averted, the electricity bill is saved.

"I try to, sometimes. Most are boring but it's the easiest way to stay informed of what's going on. Supernatural parties involve a lot of talking which you probably noticed - and I don't usually want to hide. It just happens."

[eyeforaneye]

"Sounds like a welcome gift to me, but I don't have a gift for socializing." You don't say.

"I'd rather not have to talk and deal with people if I don't have to."