The Underground Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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undergrounds2015-05-23 12:00 am
undergroundmods) wrote in undergrounds2015-05-23 12:00 am
Game Opening: May Ball
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 The lights are off, the desks and chairs have been replaced by beanbags and there's a table in the corner with a chocolate fountain, marshmallows and strawberries.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.
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"It'll bother you if you end up ruining your back. That's harder to fix then a table." Okay so there's not as much concern there as her word choice would imply, but it's something. This is the downside of the friendly neighborhood ghost watch - she can and will meddle if she has to.
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But who cares about how right Ghost Girl is, all that matters right now she's being miss naggy lecturepants. The table metaphor is silly. Everyone knows that if a table breaks that badly, you just throw it away. It's common sense. "Eh, I'll be dead before then."
There is no despondence or disrespecting the dead or any emotion at all here. It's just a blank objective statement, a loveless observation and nothing more.
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Or that's how this would go, if the topic hadn't driven sharply into Talking About Mortality street. That sort of comment hits past the contently happy mood she'd been fostering, dropping her back to a blank slate because. No.
"All that attitude does is make it happen faster." It's staying pointedly in the realms of observation still, due to lingering threads of apathy hanging onto her outlook, but she's definitely giving him a run for his money as far as linefaces go. That outlook gets people killed.
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Said right after that thought, that worry about how that outlook kills people, and it's so disturbingly on-point it's like being stabbed in the heart.
The expression remains entirely blank, but that eerie monotone bleeds back in, "Let's use the table. It's going to break at some point, no matter how much care you give it. It's far more cost-effective in the long run to just replace it when it breaks the first time."
Thinking of it in just furniture measures, it makes sense. The cost of repair over time would eventually dwarf the cost of buying a new table. Sure, you could keep it because of emotional value or just preferring the style, but it's equally likely you'll leave it on the curb to be thrown into an incinerator. You could get a new table - for less than you bought this one for - and it won't be the same, but it'll last longer. Maybe it'll have more surface area. You could get a better one. It makes sense.
Which is exactly why it makes no sense at all.
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"People aren't tables. People aren't made of wood, they bounce back quicker and they're harder to fix and why are we still talking about tables." Will. Your logic loops suck. Get new ones.
A lamp near the bar starts to flicker in time with outburst, tiny ripples of light that she's trying hard to clamp down on and failing. She can feel the barman size it up without looking at her, wondering if he needs to fix it, and she ignores him. Not relevant right now.
"Just because you can run something into the ground, doesn't mean you should."
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People aren't tables.
But that doesn't change the ones he left behind because of this assignment. A thousand different faces with a thousand different stories all brought together by the same truth: you should consider yourselves lucky to have this chance. Give thanks that your needless existence can be put to use. And you believed - all of you did - because it gives you purpose. Because it's a reason to be something more than the monsters the rest of society hides you as. Because it was so much better than that other option. It's more efficient to just replace someone old and broken with something else.
Who's to say furniture can't pretend to be a person?
"I shouldn't, but I can." And I will. But she doesn't get it. Only they do, only we do, and that's fine. That's not Hers to understand. The fact that she is completely incapable of doing so is another of a myriad of smaller blessings to be grateful for. But at the same time, there's some weird twist to his that can't be effectively put to words.
"And you don't have the right to tell me otherwise."
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Because all that's coming across to Aradia as is a whole lot of 'I don't care'. And fine. If he wants to suffer through being a stubborn jackass, he can deal with his own consequences.
What happens next is a blur to the ghost - the barman shouts in surprise when the flickering lightbulb shatters under duress, the result of a sudden spike in raw anger at his pre-programmed reply hastily being vented towards something that wouldn't cause permanent damage. Any semblance of regret over the power fail doesn't register, mostly because she doesn't linger long enough to see the result, vanishing between heartbeats back to her haunt where she doesn't have to deal with stupid goddamn lousy backwards weirdos with gold eyes who make no sense.
She'll regret it later, count out the damages and try to fix what she can, but later isn't now. All this started with tables. What did tables ever do to him in a past life.