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As has been the custom dave secures the table for the 'Usual Suspects'. 

Matt's friend Shelia sits with you guys about hafl the time.  she's started spending time with her other friends and classmates again, but she still tries to sit with Matt and you guys about twice a week or so.  today is not one of those days.

Greg has been having lunch with the other writer and the drama teacher the last week or so working on the script for the school play.

Rob has put some distance between himself and the rest of the group, taking lunch with some other guys from various classes.  He usually sits with you guys once a week or so.

Gretchen's schedule changed and she has the other lunch period, as does Kirby.  She still does layout work for the paper though and Kirby is still in the Science Club.

Matt has been feeling a little tired lately.  He's started hitting the bed earlier, but he's still kind of tired in the mornings.

TJ has started sleep walking, at least that's what he thinks.  He's oken up three times in the last week on the floor next to his bed.  No one in the house has heard him fall out of bed, so the conclusion is he's been sleep walking then laying down on the floor instead of getting back in bed.

T.J sits down at the table and nods at Rob. "Y'know we've been messing around with to much weird stuff lately. It's messing up my sleeping habits. I'm starting to sleep-walk!"

DAVE: "They say that happens a lot with teenagers.  Stress.  I'd suggest getting laid, but that might not be the right solution for you."

"You haven't gotten far, have you?"  The way things have been going, Sylvia expects TJ to have woken up across town, maybe with his clothes in tatters and a receding desire to smash things.

As is normal, Megan is with the other girls (save Sylvia) from the cheerleading team when she arrives at the lunch room.  Megan looks for Cal, but sees that only a few of the football players have arrived so far at their normal table near the one the cheerleaders take.  Hoping it wouldn’t be long before he arrived, Megan gave a wave to Sylvia as her and the other girl’s went by the table she always sat at and then went back to talking with the other girls about some of the bits of gossip that were going around the school of late.

Sylvia smiles and waves back.  It's not that she dislikes the cheerleaders, but for her, being on the pep squad is a form of physical discipline, not a way of life.  And if she has tried to sit with the pep squad once or twice, she probably spent most of it looking in the direction of the Usual Suspects, wondering if she was missing out on something exciting.  Death and dismemberment win out over boys and classes.

Samantha will generally eat with either her friends from the marching band or her new friends in El's band (assuming the latter eat in the cafeteria / have the same lunch period).  She has been keeping an eye out for Whitestaff Girl (Sarah) and Airborne Boy (Kel) and has figured out that they have the same lunch, where they sit in the cafeteria, etc.

Do either of them have any classes at all with Sam?

OOC: I need Sarah, Kel, and Sammy to make a Fate Roll.  Within 3 of Sammy indicates you have a class together.

OOC:  fate (1d20=4) (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=647210)

fate roll (1d20=12) (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=647231)

Sarah plunks down for lunch as usual.  Todays special is racecars.  rolled up ham with cheese wheels.  She rolls one over to Sylvia.  "Sometimes you just gotta have fast food."

Colin chuckles at Dave's crack, then something triggers in his mind.

"I bet you don't have any bruises, though, do you? How many times did it happen?" he asks T.J.

He gets his notebook out of his bag, and taps on it nervously. He needs them all to arrive before he can tell them. So he begins chewing at his sandwiches like they deserved some punishment, and when he's done he goes get some fries too.

Whatever Sylvia has today, it's not as pretty as the race-cars, that's for sure--some kind of vegetarian goulash with globs of wheat gluten instead of beef, for those keeping track.  "Thanks."  Sylvia feels compelled to roll it around a little bit across the table, but reminds herself she's a little too old to make vroom-vroom noises.  She gives Sarah the news.  "TJ's sleep-walking."  Then she brightens.  "And it's October.  Hey, do you dress up for Halloween?"

Donnie meets Colin in the fry line. "Yo! I have some really interesting stuff to tell you all.."  He gets an extra helping of fries and slathers on the ketchup and grabs a few packs of vinegar. His usual 3 cans of Coke mask the bowl of fresh fruit he's forcing himself to eat. He follows Colin back to the table and shovels in some fries as he pulls out his dog-eared tattered notebook. Most recognize it as his 'Research' Notebook. "I have some bad news and some more bad news. Which do you all want first?"

T.J smiles at Sylvia and says. "Well, I've only ended up asleep on the floor next to my bed so far." He opens a packet of crisps and thinks before answering Colin's question. "I don't have any bruises, but it has happened three times in the past week." He makes a face and continues to eat.

When Donnie declares he has news T.J pulls out a piece of paper from his pocket. “Wait, a minute Donnie I have some news on Superman. It’s very similar to another drug called Jazz, or Slapper. Pretty much it causes a bio-chemical change in people that gives the user super-human strength, reflexes, endurance, an ability to ignore pain and induce an euphoria. It usually lasts from 1 to 3 hours, depending on the user. Jazz caused heavy metals to build up in the liver and kidneys, eventually causing death, but this is completely synthetic. However it burns body fuel at an incredible rate and can lead to heart failure. Also it makes the user extremely aggressive.” He folds the paper up and puts it in his pocket and looks at the others to see what they think.

Colin looks at T.J. for a while, with an uncomfortable expression on his face, as if he was fighting with himself.

"T.J., I have something to tell you. It's important, and I'm afraid you won't like it. But when you think you can spare five minutes I think you should listen to me."


"Wonderful. I have painful news too. Let's hear."


"Wonderful." he says again "So not only it turns you into a killing machine. It turns you into a crazy killing machine. Simply wonderful."

He closes his eyes and massages his temples.

"Donnie, your turn."

"Well, first bit of bad news is that I got kicked out of raid leader position in my guild Scions of Legacy in World of Warcraft. I am spending too much time away from the game, and the ungrateful bastards elected someone new on Wednesday. Oh well, no real biggie I guess, but it kind of pissed me off, sincer I taught that bunch of noobs how to run the instances. I'll get it back when I have more time, I guess.

Anyway, my research has determined a few things."  Donnie opens his notebook and pulls a mechanical pencil from behind his ear, tapping the paper. "About Rob. I think I turned him off of sitting with us as often as he used to. I was trying to get from him a specific instance that would indicate some sort of magical spirit-investment, but my grilling really pissed him off, and he is a bit bitter over the loss of his charm, I think. Over the last year or so a number of websites have sprung up with an assortment of "Witchcraft" material that is current, usable and correct, according to the manuals and stuff I have found.  The spells needed to bind a spirit, whether a snake man or something called an 'urban' spirit to a person are easily available at most wiccan or occult stores, and to do it to enhance a person's charm and self-confidence are the easiest things to accomplish.  That kind of witchcraft is beginning spellcasting for practicioners.  Normally the spirit would only remain bound for a short time, but with help a witch could extend it for a fairly long time. Likely there is a coven of witches in the school here, because this has been going on for weeks. I just don't understand why. Was it a test? An experiment? I dunno.

I have more, but I'll let someone else talk. My fries are getting cold."

"Is there a way to recognize a witch?" Sylvia asks.  "You know, like you can recognize a vampire by his reflection in the mirror or a werewolf by his hairy palms?"  She has no idea what she's saying.

T.J looks at Colin with a confused look when he asks about talking. He shrugs. "Sure, how bad can it be?" Then he listens to Donnie's talk and scratches his chin in thought. "Most likely an experiment to test the limits of their powers. So do you need to have regular contact to lengthen the spell? Or can you do it from your own home?"

His eyes light up and he looks at Colin. "But now they know that there is someone who can block and reverse their powers. Colin, you need to look out."

Donnie swallows a mouthful of potato. "No Syl. They can look like everyone else. I doubt they have a third nipple like the legends and folktales state." He frouns at TJ's comment. "You know, TJ has a point Colin. If they know who disrupted their spell, they might be looking into revenge if they are mean witches. Watch yourself."

Colin frowns. He feels responsible for what Rob is passing through. He resolves to try to talk with him and see if there's anything he can do.
T.J.'s remark catches him by surprise. With what he's about to say, a coven of witches seems the least of his problems, but's it's a problem nonetheless. He needs to get the hang of the ghost sight, and soon. reflections can only help him so far.

"Ok, my turn. Sit tight."

Colin opens his notebook, and hands out newpaper articles about what he's talking about. Often there are underlined phreases and post-its on them.

"Superman. The dealer that worked for the Tasty Dog lived long enough to tell the police a name: Emille Vandross. Since then, other dealers have been arrested, and confirmed that he's the supplier. The first dealer they arrested was originally thought to have died during an escape attempt, but new evidence suggests he may have been killed by a paranormal vigilante known as the Black Hat. So he wasn't killed to keep his mouth shut, as I thought. This Black Hat has already killed a bunch of people, and he seems to target drug dealers and labs in particular.

Kirby's death Ray. Chris has confirmed that the night before we found it, it's been used to break into a Chicago PD evidence storage, as Dave pointed to me. The only thing stolen was a set of metallic tentacles once used by a University of Chicago teacher who went on a crime spree. It gets worse though. There has been a robbery, and a very similar device was used to cut a hole into an armored car. 127'000 dollars have been stolen. The police took prints from the device and arrested two guys that graduated from here last year. They deny everything, but they have been found with a kilo of coke in their car, and guess what? They admitted to be working for a certain Emille Vandross.

Now the worst. Rory. Matt, the guy from Miskatonic said your theory was sound, but there were so many obscuring spells that they couldn't find a track nor the talisman. They tracked who bought the book though. And all the leads point to a man in Chicago. A man called Emille Vandross.

At this point they tried to find him. But Emille Vandross doesn't exist. the Documents he used to rent his house were fake, and no one can remember what he looked like. They think he probably never existed."

Colin closes his eyes and seems to struggle to contain his anger.

"Emille Vandross whoever he is, is the man that killed Rory. But how could he know about Kirby's death ray? Kirby told no one except us. So he's either someone who found it in the lab, or who saw Kirby when he tested it, and made the hole in the wall. Either way, he had a reason to be here in the school."

He frowns again this time lowering his voice to a whisper.

"I think he may be one of our teachers."

Donnie puts down his fry, eyes wide.

"No.

F#%$ing.

Way."

Sylvia grapples with that for a few seconds, and then her brow furrows.  "Hey, Colin?  Your handshake doesn't tell you if people are bad or good, right?  No one we know can, like, read minds or anything?"

"No, Sylvia, it doesn't work that way. Sometimes I can get a glimpse of a soul, but I still need to work on it, and it's nothing like reading minds. There's a chance I could notice if someone had spells on himself, though. It looks like I have a strange effect on magic, sometimes I can unravel it..."

Could it be that simple?

"Donnie, what do you know about obscuring spells?"

"Physical, mental, or magical?"

Donnie's Knowledge: Arcane Lore for Obscuring Spells. (1d20+6=13) (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=648290)

"Not much. I'd have to do more research online."

OOC: I explain what I do know from the roll.

"Whatever kept that professor from finding the talisman."

"Colin, can you touch things and--"  Sylvia fumbles for the word.  "--disenchant them, too?"

"Well, either the professor they sent was not very knowledgable, or our resident necromancer was more powerful than the Miskatonic dude. Either one doesn't bode well for us."

"That's what I'd like to find out."

OOC: Basically it's like polluting evidence by mixing all manner of junk into and onto an enchantment.  It's sort of rare, since most magicians tend to "sign" their stuff with a particular arcane mark.  Obscuring spells are usually only used by people to whom magic is a tool and not an art.

Sarah finishes off a race car and adds, "This teacher knew about Kirby's ray?  We didn't.  This teacher is a provider of a new and dangerous drug.  Sounds kind of Science teachery to me doesn't it?   Not that a History teacher can't be diabolical... it's just that someone with some background in science would be a more likely candidate.  Plus he has access to a free lab whenever he wants to work on his drugs.  If anyone asks what he's doing he'd just tell them he was working on his lesson plans or something.  Though I suppose it might be just as easy for a janitor to sneak around at night or even the Prinicipal."

"Oh, drugs!"  Sylvia blurts, then casts a sorry eye around the table.  "I've got something to report, too, about the Fern-and-Broadie case, but it can wait."

"Hey everyone, what's up?I'm going to grab some food, and i'll be over in a minute" Seth waves on his way to the lunch line.

After selecting the food that looks least likely to kill him, Seth takes a seat. "So what's the topic de jour?"

"The new drug called Superman, witchcraft, magic, um, oh yeah, we think the guy behind it all is masquerading as a teacher here. Pass the ketchup."

Seth stares dumbfounded for the briefest of moments, and then passes the ketchup.

"Ummmm, I don't know anything about any one of those topics. Does this have something to do with all the weird shit that has been going on?"

Colins eyes Seth in suprise for a moment, then he retrieves the articles and hands him his notebook.

"Uh... Pretty much so."

It's organized like a journal, it's full of newspaper articles, photos of his own, prints from the net and drawings. Colin has penned and underlined in red the things he thinks are most important, in black the result of his friends' researches, with copy of them whenever it's the case, and in blue his own reconstruction and theories. Seth can see that most of them have been scratched. Colin has made a point of writing no personal information about his friends and their powers in it. In the last page there's a blue graph which sums up the evidence gathered so far and points to a question: Emille Vandross - a teacher?

"This should get you up to date, but feel free to ask questions. It's a bit much all at once."

"Sylvia, do tell us. Has it got anything to do with the five girls that fought for the same boy last week?"

She points at Colin.  "You can read minds.  I talked to the janitorial staff.  They said there was some kind of oily substance on the lockers.  They cleaned it up, but I was hoping TJ could maybe work some magic and scrape up a sample."

Ok not that i haven't noticed all the weird shit, and some of you running around pulling light sticks out of nowhere, and dragons and whatever....But magic? Colin can do magic, and read Minds? I seriously need a refresher course on what's happend in the last few days because i have no idea what's going on. It sounds as if any minute the table is going to to develop sentience and decline to be eaten off of.

Sylvia eyes the table with dread, but when it doesn't speak, she says, "Uh, what do you know so far?  We met once or twice at Dave's to talk about what's been going on with us and what's been going on at school.  It's hard to know where to start."

OOC: Fate roll http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=650807, sorry Kat no class with Kel I guess...


Kel finally strolls in, very late to lunch as has become the norm over the past few weeks since he has been spending alot of time in the weight room working out or trying to convince anyone else there to spar with him for a little bit.  He collapses into a chair, pulls out his lunch, wipes a little sweat from his eyes and then says, "Hey ya, what's going down?"

"Lots of stuff."

Colin gives him a brief rundown of what the usual suspects discovered in the previous weeks, and of the theories this discoveries spawned.

"Now I have something difficult to do. I have to ask Matt to talk with Shelia and tell her to invite me, so I can browse Rory's stuff and look for the talisman, in the hope I can somehow see through the obscuring spells. I really feel awful asking Rory's family to pass through this again, but I don't know what else to do. I don't want to wait for the next victim either. What do you say?"

Kel almost smirks when he hears how much Vandross is involved in, though is crestfallen when he realizes the only theory they have is that he could easily be a teacher here.  He then looks at Colin when he says that the plan to look for Rory's stuff is to ask the family, he then says, "As much as I'd hate to have to see them go through it again, asking them for it sure as hell beats trying to steal it or something."

A burst of giggles explodes from a nearby table full of girls as hunky Mr Monnitoff walks by and greets them.  If anybody bothers to look, several of the girls are blushing madly.

Sylvia looks over at the table and the giggling and at Mr. M, who seems to have triggered it all.  "Eww," she says emphatically.  "That's worse than the love slime on the lockers."

"I know that there was a dragon, and some people displayed some rather unusual abilities, and the last thing i can remember being involved in was when the lazer "death ray" was stolen. Love slime. Start there.

But he had Sylvia at "dragon."  "Dragon?" she says.  "You mean the snake thing at the party?"

"Yeah, sorry."

Sylvia dismisses whatever possibility had her panicked and goes on.  "Love slime.  The janitors found something nasty on the lockers of those girls who got into a fight over that guy a week or so ago.  I'm thinking pheromones."

That table of girls has it bad, whatever it is.  One's making kissy faces and another is fanning herself.  Another burst of giggles erupts from all of them.

"Eww?  Can we please stop using the phrase 'love slime' at the lunch table?  Or any other quaint nicknames you'd care to put on it?"  Sarah makes an icky face and then glances at the gaggle of girls making all the noise.  "Did somebody use nitrous oxide in their frappachinos or something?"  

Colin slowly retrieves a ring binder from his bag and casually keeps it straight in front of him. He taped his mirror to the inside of the cover, to make it slightly less conspicuous, and maneuvers the binder to give a quick look at the table of the giggling girls.

It's probably nothing, but it doesn't hurt to check, does it? Or you have different ideas?
he asks the blackbird.

"So I guess I'll be going over to these lockers and checking out this slime." T.J says as he finishes his lunch. He greets Kel and Seth then sees what Colin is doing. "What are you doing, Colin?" He looks a bit bemused and his hand moves into his pocket as if holding something he doesn't want to lose.

Colin sees the girls reflected in the mirror, and what looks like a hurricane spinning around the table.  The image of the storm only lasts for a moment, then it's gone.

Colin puts away the binder with a start.
"I was... I mean I was just... It's complicated. Don't mind me, it's another of the weird things I do."

"I wonder what the hell that was."

Over at the table with the other cheerleaders, Megan looks over at the table of girls making something of a scene at the passage of Mr. Monnitoff.  At a comment from one of the other cheerleaders about how foolish the girls are acting, Megan can’t help but giggle slightly and shake her head.  Those girls certainly seemed to be waaaaaay over reacting, one would think a rather good looking older guy had never spoken to them before by the way they were acting.  Turning away from the scene, she went back to talking with Lisa about the new clothing store on Madison Avenue in Chicago that they should make shopping trip to in a group one day after school.  As she talked about it, Megan tried to make a mental note to see about getting Sylvia to come along and try to include her in a bit more with some of the other things the girls on the squad did outside of school.

Sarah leans closer to Colin and asks quietly, "Something fishy to report?" 

Colin looks at Sarah in surprise and realizes he was thinking out loud.

OOC: I really meant last phrase to be a thought, but oh well. ;D

"It's... I think sometimes I see things that are not really there, but are supposed to have a meaning, to stand for something else." he says to her in a low voice.

His mind goes to when he saw Matt covered in flames.

"After Mr. M. passed by, for a moment there was a storm, a hurricane all around those girls. I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean."

"A storm?  Like, a storm of emotions or something?  Or psychic turbulance?  Maybe our mystery emotion maker is back.  Could it be connected to that snakeman we fought?  Maybe we just drove it off from the party and it's still out there... in someone else now?  Or is there someone or something else out there messing with people?  It's enough to make you want to be homeschooled some days."

Sarah gives a shiver and rolls her last car around on the table until the cheese wheels break.  "I forgot to pack a pit crew."

Colin puts a hand on her shoulders.

"No, after what you and the blackbird did, that spirit is gone for good. I hope that whoever summoned it didn't call anything else, but I think I should be able to notice them now before I set them free. The emotion maker... if Sylvia is right, he uses more mundane means, but who knows. It lasted only a moment and then went away. Maybe it was just a representation of their emotions. I hope so."

Donnie perks up at the mention of Seth seeing a dragon, but realizes he was just talking about the Yuan-Ti spirit.

"Love slime." *snicker*

"Could it be that the love slime and pheramone thing could be seperate from the Our Teacher is Emile Vandross Kaiser Soze thing? It does not seem much like they are connected."

Donnie quirks his eyebrow at Sarah's nervous chatter. Usually she was more level than this, but there were some really strange things going on around, especially a crap-ton of kids cropping up with super-powers.

"Have you ever see emotions before, or is this something new?"

"I think I did, once. But you have bear with me, this is no exact science. Quite the reverse, I've been advised to trust my instincts rather than my logic." Colin shrugs.

"Sounds good to me.  Something doesn't have to be logical to make sense."  Sarah rolls her hobbled meal into her lunch sack and brushes away the crumbs.

Kel has been staring off into space, eating and listening, when the subject turns over from the more serious crimes in the school to the question of whether or not to trust logic or instinct Kel immediately says, "Screw logic, you should always go with what your gut tells you.  When you start trying to make sense out of something usual then you get all confused and start second-guessing yourself."

"Instinct follows a very specific logic. It's your sub conscious allowing the data only it has access to feed into your conscious conclusions. Your sub conscious knows more than you do. I would trust your instinct." Seth offered helpfully, and in somewhat uncharacteristic form. It sounds like he's quoting something.

"ID and EGO. Animal brain and Thinking Brain. Hey any of you guys read Joseph Campbell's stuff about iconic myths and heroes?"

Sylvia nods but doesn't say anything.  She'd like to hear where Donnie's going with this.

"The Mentor, Belly of the Whale, etc..."

"Yeah. One of the most enduring archetypes of hero growth is personal loss, journey through a dark place, and redemption or self realization at the end. I don't know about you, but the wierdness of this year so far sure seems like a dark journey to me. Why are we not mortified by the numerous high-school kids that have died, injured, or thrown in jail recently? No ofense to Matt and Sheila, but other than them, we seem pretty numb. I don't know. something is percolating in my brain and I need to organize to be more articulate." Donnie abrptly changes gears, as he often does.

"Hey Colin, did you know Joseph Campbell got his start in mythological studies after his dad took him to a Native American exhibit when he was a kid? Campbell wrote a whole book called the Historucal Atlas of World Mythology that had its basis in four stages. The first was The Way of the Animal Powers, focusing in on shamanistic rites and animal totems. Since your powers seem based on the spiritual world, it might be something to check out."

He was also American's most famous Autodiadact, and something of a personal inspiration to me. Some times i wish i could just go live in the woods, in a cabin made entirely out of books. And my instraments, and i could just absorb all the knowledge my brain could hold. Then i would return triumphant to civilization and write a concherto that would stand the test of time.  

Colin raises his eyebrows, suprised at his friends' enthusiastic depiction of instinct over reason. It makes him wonder if he perhaps just worries too much. He thinks of the day the principal said Rory died, and his eyes go to the knuckles he scraped on the mirror. He was hardly numb then. He still isn't. He couldn't save Rory, but he can still help him find justice, and he won't know peace until that.

"I don't think I ever heard of him, but I'll check it out. Maybe my mom has something of his, I can't remember now."

Hearing Seth's words, Colin can only smile. When he dreams of living in the woods, and he sometimes does, absorbing knowledge isn't his top priority. Enjoying the beauty of the land and the simpler life or the wildernees, more so.

OOC: Safe to close this and move onto tomorrow?

OOC: safe for me.