groovygamers.com

Sylvia had enlisted Donnie's help in seeing if she actually did have powers or was just loosing her mind.  Sylvia went to Donnie's house, feeling there would be less chance of someone seeing them.

She's borrowed the digital video camera Carolyn uses to document buildings she finds interesting, and she sets it up on a tripod in one corner of Donnie's room.  That's about as far as she's thought this out, and now she looks at Donnie like she's hoping he'll be her Yoda and tell her what to do.  "So what do you think?  Got anything you want me to try to bring to life?"

Donnie suggests they use the basement, since it is utterly barren of the casual mess of stuff in Donnie's room. Once they are set up, he snags a couple chairs from the garage and sets up some lights as well. The two chairs face each other, interview style, and the camera watches all.

"I think we should try small things first, to 'loosen up' whatever power you have. The multi-Colin thing was quite impressive, but that was a desperate situation. Lets try some simple things. Imagine that I am holdinig, um, a steaming cup of tea. Your family likely drinks a lot of that, instead of Coke or alcohol." Donnie holds his hand out as if holding a saucer with a cup of tea on it, and looks at Sylvia expectantly.

"What kind of tea?" Sylvia asks, before she realizes how stupid she's being.  "Never mind.  Herbal.  Uh, chamomile."  She stops, begins to see it in her mind's eye.  "Chamomile, sort of minty and tart, sweet on the sides of your tongue and hot in the back of your throat.  Calming, chamomile.  In a white cup with steam drifting off the surface and curling up around your face.  A white saucer with a butterfly on its rim. . . ."

Th world shimmers, and an idea becomes reality.

Donnie looks at his palm. Does it feel like a full cup of tea? Does it smell like chamomille? Is it warm? Or does it simply look the illusion of tea in my palm?

It looks, smells, feels like a cup of hot tea.

Donnie cautiously takes a sip.

[Does Sylvia have to sweat to maintain the illusion?  When she stops concentrating, does it disappear?]

OOC: If she stops concentrating it flickers out of existance.

[Sorry.  Didn't mean to break the rhythm.]

Sylvia doesn't lose her concentration just yet.  The basement makes a good isolation chamber.  Donnie's whole house has the bland, cold vibe of a particularly luxurious hospital waiting room, and she understands, somewhere in the back of her mind, why he leads such a rich fantasy life.

"Wow. It even tastes like tea. That is so totally awesome! I'm gonna try something." Donnie stands up and motions Sylvia to step back. He then drops the saucer on the cement floor to see if it shatters.

The cup and saucer fall, tumbling once, then striking the pavement and shattering.  The reality of it and the suddenness of it causes Sylvia to falter, and the illusion stops.

Sylvia bolts to her feet as the illusory cup hits the ground.  Her chair goes screeching back across the basement floor, and she wipes her hand across her lips as if to assuage the sudden dryness of her throat.  It's crazy stuff, this.  She knows she can do moving, talking apparitions.  She knows they can be smelled and touched and tasted.  She looks at Donnie, squeezes her eyes shut, and tries to find the limits of what she can do.

Start with him, start with his chair.  Instead of a chair, it's a stump.  In a forest.  With a starry sky overhead and a carpet of pine needles matting the floor.  And trees.  There have to be trees, right?  She tries to push herself, just to see how far she can take it.

[My last post was lame.  Do over!]

The effect is amazing, spreading out like a ripple in a pond.  The world changes shape and texture.  The forest air is cool and the night sky is clear.  Crickets chirp, and the wind stirs the trees.

Donnie stares in awe. looking up into the night sky. He reaches out and touches the bark of a tree, plucks off a few evergreen needles and breathes their scent in. He reaches down and picks up a fallen pine cone, lightly lobbing it at Sylvia's legs, to see if she reacts to it.

Sylvia minces to one side, trying to maintain her concentration.  A little gray bunny, insufferably cute, hops up to Donnie and says, in that shrunken Pip voice, "Well, this is fun," like the bunny's not too impressed with itself.  "So I have powers.  Why does this not seem like a good thing?"

Donnie laughs, sitting on the stump. "Either use them, or don't. Just because you have powers does not mean you have to use them. I think it would be a shame not to, considering how amazing this is."  he says, waving his hands to encompass the surrounding forest. "We do seem to have an inordinate number of wierd things occuring at school. If you use these abilities to help others, wht is the shame or problem with that?

If I had such astounding abilities, I don't know what I'd do about it."

Donnie walks over to Sylvia, who seems forlorn and nervous, looking at her creations. He places his hands on her shoulders, tenatively, and says "Whatever you decide, I can be here for you."  He hugs her, then backs away, flushing slightly, hoping he had not crossed the line.

The illusion dissolves, and it's just them in the basement.  Sylvia smiles at Donnie and doesn't say anything for a minute or two.  It's hard to come up with words when she's dealing with the post-geometry head rush of conjuring these illusions and the feeling, just as weird, that she'd like to smell Donnie's shirt again.

"Um."  She clears her throat.  "You're right.  I guess this doesn't have to mean anything except that there's something strange going on at school.  I mean, hello, giant snake man?"  She bites her lip.  "You haven't had anything weird happen to you at all?  Not one thing?"

"Besides making a bunch of new friends who all seem to have superpowers, seeing Sarah's dream of gaining superhuman abilities come true, Rob getting possessed by a Yuan-Ti snake man, seeing a student turn into a crimson incredible hulk and dish it out to a jock, tracking down a stolen, student-built Death Ray, and witnessing teenage mutant ninjas kick a bully's ass?" Donnie smiles, going over and rewinding the video camera.

"Nope. Normal school year for me."

Sylvia gets up off her chair and goes over to him and the video camera.  She's standing a little closer than usual.  What is that, Bounce?  Downy?

"You're right.  Weird is relative at this point."  She frowns.  "I'm still trying to figure out what got Fern and Broadie, though.  It doesn't sound like it could have been Rob's--"  What was it?  "--yuan-ti.  Or Rob.  Hey, do you think we should ask Colin to shake Rob's hand again?  Maybe Colin should shake all our hands."

"HA! I already shook his hand and didn't go sparkly or anything. As far as Rob's thing, I have a couple of ideas I want to bounce off Sarah, since she is the other Arcane Studies geek like me."

Donnie plays the video, leaning back so Sylvia could see as well. He was acutely aware of her near his shoulder. I wonder what it is she wears? She smells lovely.

Donnie rewinds the camera and they watch the video.  They are slightly suprised to see that the camera did not pick up on the illusions.  Donnie interacts as though it were there, but the camera did not record any of it.

"Wow," Sylvia says, leaning in.  "You look like a mime."

"Hmm.. My guess is that you affect peoples' minds, not create reality. You can affect a lot of people thiough, since everyone at the party saw the multiple Colins. Interesting.."

Sylvia thinks that over and then tries to focus again.  "Stay there a minute?"  She tries to bring Pip into being again--little green dragon sitting on Donnie's shoulder, eating a jellybean.  (She's a fourteen-year-old girl.  Of course her version of Pip eats jellybeans.)

She tries to maintain the illusion and back out of the room until she can no longer see Donnie, or Pip.

Pip sits happily eating his jelly bean, until Sylvia looses sight of them, then he looks up, like he misses her and then vanishes.

"Is he still there?" Sylvia hollers from the next room.

"No." Donnie's voice is kind of strangled, something Sylvia picks up on easily. "He, uh disappeared as soon as you went around the corner. He looked up as if he missed you, then was gone."

Donne swallows the lump in his throat. Oh god, to actually see Pip, feel his weight on my shoulder. God that hurts.

She pokes her head around the doorframe again.  "Are you okay?"  He sounded choked up for a second, but maybe it was more of that voice-changing nonsense again.

Donnie scrubs at his face for a moment. "Yeah, fine. We had better get upstairs since Dave and VanGo ought to be here soon. I think I need some caffeine as well." He smiles lopsidedly and disassembles the video camera and tripod in a few moments. He bows theatrically and motions Sylvia to precede him on the stairs. She stares at him a moment, then they both smile. "No thanks. You go first" she says, remembering the butt-staring incident. Donnie's smile widens and he goes up, wiggling his butt a little bit for a laugh.

Sylvia restrains herself from swatting it.