[IC] The "Goings On" at Upper Lake Institute

[bandcrsnatch]

^{INTERACTIONS
〘 Buford Cannon, Ylva Ulven 〙}

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Yet again, Ziggy finds himself pondering whether Ylva had a little something to drink before the party even began. What she said sounded so bizarre and out-of-this-world that he was having trouble just trying to make sense of it. Of course, it should be said that he wasn’t at the best state of mind, at the moment. The inside of his head felt like it was filled with cotton, and all he could think about was how much he wanted one of those sandwiches Ford had brought with him. But as he gazes upon the seemingly insurmountable gulf separating him from where all the food is, Ziggy feels his prior motivation drain from him, and flops bonelessly back on the couch.

“Dude, are you kidding?” Ziggy clicks his tongue in response to Ford’s offhanded jab, though the prickly tone of his voice is tinged with humour. Straightening in his seat, he points to the baking tray before him. “I’d never waste that stuff on brownies.”

Ford’s anecdote captures his attention like a shiny trinket would a magpie. Ziggy listens on, enraptured despite the rambling nature of the story, and is almost a little disappointed when it draws to a close. All this talk about spooky voices and buried treasure reminded him of one of those stories kids would tell one another around a campfire.

“What was the treasure?” The question escapes him before he’s able to stop himself. It might not have been the point, but the primitive, reptilian part of his brain was dying to know what Ford’s uncle found. Then, as if suddenly reminded of the situation at hand, he shakes his head and hoped that it would sober him up somewhat.

“Wait, wait, wait. Sorry. You said something about… us being here for a reason?” As he speaks, Ziggy’s brow furrows in thought, and he brings a hand up to his lips, beginning to gnaw absentmindedly at the nail of his thumb. “That sounds like some cult shit, you know? Like Jim Jones and stuff? But this is just a school, right? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Whichever way he tried to spin it, he couldn’t think of another reason Ylva would be hearing those voices—well, apart from vengeful, malicious spirits, or possibly even aliens, if they wanted to have all grounds covered. Shivering theatrically, he lets his gaze dart from one corner of the hallway to another, before it eventually finds its way back to Ford and Ylva again. “Man, I don’t know. This is giving me serious heebie-jeebies right now.”

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[Polaris North]

L I L L Y F O R R E S T E R

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Other Party Floor
Interacting with: Hangyeol, Julius, Alex

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Lilly shrugged. Hopefully, their instruction on how to take care of their sick would be accurate and would actually help. She was still too worried about everything - because whatever that was was not normal. But there was nothing much they can do now since they were gone. She spared the girl another look and then nodded at Julius.

"Yeah, I'll help." Lilly said. Alex was in her jurisdiction now and she had a duty to help him. Well, that and she tried to help earlier. She shouldn't have left him alone. Seoyeon had departed downstairs while they headed up. She never wanted to get into bed as much as she did right now. Now that everything was calmer, she just felt even more tired. Sluggish even. Lilly did promise for everyone to stay safe but since that was thrown out of the window, Lilly felt like she could just crash into her bed and not care for anything else until tomorrow.

As they walked, her thoughts wandered to the others. Last she saw them, they were all enjoying some pot brownies - Julius was part of that group - they might have disbanded for now. Hopefully they didn't get into any trouble. Or maybe, hopefully, they all passed out somehow and they could finally rest. Yeah, that might have been for the best. Lilly would much rather deal with schoolwork than this whole ordeal but what's done was done.

Alex was there, soaking Julius' - she assumed it was his - coat red. Lilly frowned and then knelt down beside him as Julius switched the soaked coat with the pillow he nabbed earlier. Her mind flashed back to only a few minutes earlier. The girl was just like this before. She bit her lip as Alex muttered that the medics didn't even bother going to him. "They were in a hurry to get out after all." She scoffed. She then let out a sigh and then nodded. "I think we can move him. This hallway won't be good for him to stay in after all." She replied. They were able to safely move the girl earlier - Alex should be no different.

[Strange Rodent]

The Start Of Week Two
9:46 AM
Your Dorm Floor
All of you

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Last night was fucking crazy, all of you agree. Those who didn't know what happened upstairs were told. Some of you may have disagreements about certain things, but it was fucking crazy.

Alex was brought downstairs, and has just woken up, dried blood through his hair and all over his clothes.

Ylva had no more episodes during the night.

Apart from conversation, nothing happened for the rest of the too-long night. Now the sun has long-since risen, and you dorm inhabitants are rousing, ready to find out what is going on.

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Alright boys and girls, here is where you get to take initiative and pursue whatever you feel the need to pursue. You each have 5 points. these may be spent to attempt an action that you may have to roll for. Stuff like finding info in a library, beating up some mofo, investigating something, or somesuch. You don't need to spend them to make a coffee or something. Unless it's a really bloody good coffee that reveals the secrets of the universe. I recommend chasing leads from scene 1. Look in places you may not otherwise.

The way you spend these points will either shed light or cast a very deep and spacious shadow over the way your character perceives reality.

Spend them wisely.

[Okonuki]

JULIUS GARDENER
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Julius hadn’t used an alarm in years. At this point, his body was conditioned to wake at the crack of dawn like a farmer to a rooster’s crow. Normally, he was up and out of bed within a minute, with breakfast eaten within five and teeth brushed in ten, leaving the day ready and waiting.

However, last night had been far from normal. Besides actually attending the party, a rare event in it’s own right, the nights he had spent here so far had mainly consisted of him stretching the drama room’s closing time and eventually retiring early to his room to study and sleep- as opposed to dealing with two head wounds and herding paramedics around the dorms until late into the early hours of the morning.

And so Julius found himself staring with gluey eyes at his phone screen as the white digits slowly ticked closer to ten. His head was pounding like a kickdrum in a metal band and despite looking deep within himself, his motivation to strip off the cozy covers and face the Saturday morning was nowhere to be found. As he watched, the screen buzzed with an email alert and he squinted at the sudden blinding light. His afternoon script writing lecture was cancelled- the professor had been snowed in.

The pillow caught on his bedside lamp’s cord as he threw it against the opposite wall, dropping the thin steel light clattering against the floor. The pillow merely bounced off of the window. He buried his head in the covers and moaned momentarily before summoning the resolve to leave his cocoon. Bloody Alaska, how was anyone supposed to get anything done when it was this freezing? Even in the heated room he was shivering. Through the window was a magnificent christmas card scene of white snow and heavily laden pine trees. The sun was a watery disk, low in the sky and casting a shimmering light off of the white landscape.

Julius shut the curtains. Gathering some clothes from his cupboard, he pulled a freshly ironed shirt over his head and headed for the door. With a thought, he opened it only slightly and peeked out. Mercifully, Lou and Alex’s doors were closed. At this time in the morning, he was in no mood for conversation- although he would like to find out from Alex what exactly had happened last night at some point. The paramedics seemed to have been right in their diagnosis, in that Alex and the other girl had recovered enough to be left alone by the end of the night.

There was a communal kitchen at the far end of each floor and at the moment, a piping hot cup of black coffee sounded absolutely divine. It seemed unnaturally early in the morning for activity from college students, as the other dorm doors were also closed. The kitchen was as deserted as the hallway. Julius made his coffee in silence, only broken by the whistle of the kettle as it boiled. He took one of the seats scattered around a small table and sipped at his coffee. Someone had left a newspaper behind, and he flipped through the pages in lack of anything else to do. Perhaps later he could head to the library and get a bit of study done for his script writing. For now he was content to sit and stare idly at feel-good stories of firemen helping old ladies’ cats out of trees with occasional sips from his steaming mug.

[KatKook]

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"A shitty dream."

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Location: Dorm Floor

Interaction: Lou

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Muffled footsteps could be heard as Seoyeon cowered behind her door, she examined her hands noticing that they were covered in blood and she didn't know what she could do at this point. She had no weapon or anything to defend herself and this door wasn't going to keep anyone safe. Suddenly, something slammed on the other side of the door causing Seoyeon to be knocked back onto her bedroom floor. Continuous slamming happened on her door as she crawled back and away from her door, she kept shaking her head thinking this can't be happening to her. The door slammed open, revealing a masked man in black covered in blood, the man wore a ski mask under his hood. He drew his machete, classic Jason Voorhees and swung at Seoyeon. As soon as the machete hit her, Seoyeon woke up from this terrible nightmare.

Her breathing was unstable as she was face to face with her bedside table since she slept on her side, her heart raced as she sat up only to be immediately caught off guard by her alarm which went off the moment she sat up. The loud sound of the alarm caused her to flinch and scream a bit, which totally would have been heard by her roommates if they cared. Seoyeon shook her head and let out a sigh before grabbing her phone off the bedside table and checking what went down. Nothing much, a lot of notifications and messages from the usual people she knew, something caught her eye and it was Lou following her twitter, she followed back almost immediately and went to message him through that platform. she sent a quick "Hey can I come over?" followed by a "I'm hungry and I'm in no condition to make myself food." Seoyeon hoped he would accept her request.

[Polaris North]

L I L L Y F O R R E S T E R

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Dorm Floor
Interacting with:Julius

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Once Alex was taken to his bed, Lilly had retired to her room. She wasn't sure she could properly think after what had happened and she didn't want to drink anything away. She would have just given up halfway anyway. There was no way a couple of drinks could make her less stressed or make her forget the events. So there she was, collapsed on top of her bed after making the others promise to not get into any more trouble after explaining to them what had happened. Crazy shit. She didn't want to repeat any of that.

The rude awakening that came from her phone's alarm made her groan and she wanted to wrap herself back up in her blanket. But after two seconds of the incessant beeping, she got tired of it and decided to stand up to get to the phone. She sighed as she turned the alarm off. It was pretty early in the morning. It was a Sunday but Lilly didn't like waking up late. It was a waste of a day. Then again, there were no classes and last night had been too chaotic. Maybe...

No. No, she shouldn't.

With that, Lilly finally freshened herself up and got dressed for the day. Now, she only just had to get some coffee and she could start the day in proper. So she made her way to the communal kitchen. When she had entered, she noticed that Julius was sitting there. The thought of making conversation had entered her mind but she decided against it. After last night, Lilly wasn't exaclty sure if that was the brightest idea. So she simply gave him a nod of acknowledgement before heading off to make her coffee.

Maybe she should ask how Alex is doing first. Then maybe she should go up to check up on the girl from last night. Hopefully she woke up as well. Maybe Lilly could even ask her what had happened if that wasn't too much. With that in mind, she grabbed her cup of coffee before taking a sip, perching herself near the counter, thinking to herself.

[Dutchess Sarah]

Ylva opened her eyes and for a moment had no idea where she was. Before the panic set in, the events of the previous night came back to her. She must have slept really deeply. She yawned Huh, I must have fallen asleep after all and ran her fingers through her hair. Eeeww. Ok. Priorities. Ylva resolutely got out of bed and jumped in the shower. A few minutes later she emerged from her room feeling fresh and oddly well-rested, but totally caught up in her own thoughts.

Reviewing the things she'd seen and heard last night in her mind, Ylva made her way to breakfast. Food first. Juice, some cereal, yoghurt. While eating, she continued to mull over things in her mind, oblivious to the people around her. She wasn't sure what was going on, but it seemed to her that, since her episodes had only occurred here, that all of this had to be tied to this place somehow. So Ylva decided she would spend what free time she had today looking up the history of this place. The things she saw, the voices she heard, they could be tied to this building or this area somehow. Shame she hadn't done more research on this place before she came here, but how could she have known. She shrugged the thought aside and finished her breakfast.