Phantomlink959

The Bureau of Supernatural Affairs

I'm still waiting for @Blueflame and @LightningMaiden, since I'm trying to keep my replies restricted to combined posts.

Atypicals Anonymous

Lan, Cam, and Adam

"Lan?"

Another familiar voice. Familiar was good, “Cam, that you?” I asked nervously, “I’m over here.” I knew the ginger about as well as I knew Thalia, but anybody even vaguely familiar would probably be good to latch onto until I adjusted.

“I… I can’t hear you, it’s too loud…” came a shaky answer. It was silent in the cave. “S-so many thoughts at once… can’t… seem to be able to shut my ability down... ”

“Just keep talking so I can find you.” My first instinct was to follow Camilla’s voice; so I made my way over, treading slowly and carefully over the damp floor of the mysterious cave to try and find her. “I’ve kinda got the opposite problem. I don’t sleep, I don’t dream, this is basically the exact opposite of what my power does.”

That earned me a shaky laugh. “Lucky you,” Cam huffed, but kept talking until her voice was right next to me.

I reached out carefully and placed my hand on Cam’s shoulder. “This is weird for both of us.” I admitted, trying to steady my nerves. If I was nervous it would only make things worse for her, and then two people are panicking. That was when I heard another voice nearby,

“Oh god damn everything! There’s no food here! Goddamnit why!?” Whoever said it sounded pissed. “Heh...hey...nobody heard that right?” His voice softened somewhat, but it still sounded pretty pissed.

Camilla’s cold hand came to rest on top of mine, as if she was trying to ground herself. I felt her breath get steadier as she listened to the new voice talk, standing still next to me.

I chuckled at the newcomer as he thought out loud, “I think everyone heard you, buddy. Where are you? Try to find us.”

“Crap.” The sound of shuffling followed as the voice’s source tried to move closer, though from the sound of mumbled pain and grunts, they weren’t having the best time in the dark.

“I can see your form, I think,” Cam’s voice echoed in the dark. “You’re kind of under us but not quite; I think you might be like… just lower than us? Is there a ledge close to you?” She was clearly trying to keep herself together.

“I keep a bunch of exploration gear in my backpack, and I REALLY wish it had come in here with us.” I sighed, stepping around Cam to face the same direction; I left my hand firmly planted on her shoulder.

The voice mumbled something, followed by some rocks tumbling over a ledge from the sound of it. “Yeah that would have been nice, I picked one of the best spots to be, a decent sized indent in the ground. Lovely.” The sarcasm was evident in the voice’s tone.

“You wouldn’t happen to have the ability to form stairs? That would be handy,” Camilla commented almost jokingly. My presence was clearly helping her to recover from the mess that must’ve been her mind at that moment, or at least it helped her enough to focus on cracking a joke.

“Cam, will you be alright without me for a minute? I can help him climb up. Not exactly been spelunking, but I’ve done plenty of climbing.” The only reply I got was a positive hum from her. She nudged me to go.

“Wait, I think I have a feel for the ledge, one sec.” The sound of dust echoed throughout the cavern for a moment and then the sound of shuffling, and the dark form started scrabbling it’s way over the top. “Little help? I’m outta shape…” A hand, at least that’s what I could assume it was, reached out to me to help tug them up and over the final stretch.

I kneeled down, extending my hand and grasping onto… whoever’s it was that needed help up. I had a pretty strong grip for someone my size, advantage of the martial arts training.

They were light, that much was evident when I pulled them up. They stumbled for a moment, before catching themself and standing still. “Whew…” They must have sighed.

I rose to my feet, keeping their hand in mine and pulling them over towards Cam where I placed my other hand back on her shoulder, guiding the new guy to place his hand on mine. “Welcome to the huddle! I’m Lan, this is Cam. What’s your name?”

Nodding, at least that’s what I assumed it was, it almost looked like a minor twitch, they shook my hand. “Adam. You too. Thanks for the hand, I probably would have waltzed into that ledge before I saw it.”

“Well, you seem to have a pretty laid back mind, Adam. Or I’m assuming it’s you,” Cam said, only to continue with a slight edge of worry to her tone: “Sorry, I hope that wasn’t inappropriate. I can’t exactly help it, you know.”

“Our priority should be grouping up with the others. There’s not a lot of light in here, so we should link arms. Stay together, and find more people.” I advised, trying to remember the books I had read on cave exploration.”

“At least if we fall and land on something sharp we all do.” His voice sounded both joking, yet contained traces of realism within.
“Easy boy. I don’t think Erina would put anything that dangerous in here with us.” I lowered my hand from Cam’s shoulder and looped it behind her arm, hopefully a more secure way of staying together.

“Yeah, I sure hope she wouldn’t. We don’t exactly know her that well,” Cam commented, but she seemed to trust me well enough. “Most the clutter in my mind is coming from our left, so I suppose the others are somewhere there. That’s where most of the minds are standing, too. I can sort of see where people’s minds are, so I can locate them even in the dark.”

“Guess we’re gonna find out how real all this actually is…” Adam muttered ominously. “Well then, let’s find the others, the faster we do that, the faster we get back to food. Those tasty Danishes…”

Since Cam was the least blind member of our group, I let her take the lead, wrapping my other arm around Adam’s to make sure we were properly connected. “So Adam, what can you do? I don’t sleep so I’ve got endless free time for reading and stuff.” finding out what everyone was capable of seemed like a good plan, plus it would help keep everyone level headed.

Adam didn’t speak for a moment, before he said wearily, “Antimatter, or something, maybe somethin with atoms? I dunno, I didn’t study too hard into it. Basically I can break things up to a certain level. Or maybe I change the things within them… I really should read into it at some point.”
“And I thought my thing was creepy,” Cam said, but her voice didn’t sound mean.

“My Nana owns a bookstore. She could probably order something on particle physics to help you figure it out?” I offered, “probably not antimatter though. I don’t know a ton about it, but I’m pretty sure that stuff is bad news.”

“Might be something about protons or somethin’ then, I once destroyed half a trash can by staring at it for too long. My parents thought I was some sort of crazy after that. At least for a while. That was a weird day. Still, sounds like a nice book store.” He might have smiled, but I couldn’t tell. Cam had also fallen silent at that, just leading us on, occasionally stopping as if to check we were going the right way. I couldn’t tell if she had fallen back into her thoughts, or if she just had nothing to say.

“So it’s like...telepathy? Sorta?” Adam piped up. Cam was silent for a beat, but then…
“Uh, not really. Or kinda? Well. I can see into people’s minds. Mostly emotions, but also thoughts, here and there. I can see the people around me even when I close my eyes; they’re kinda like shadows, only white and bright. And fucking loud.” Adam must have snickered at the last bit.

“That last bit is gonna be super helpful in here, since there’s not much in the way of light.” I offered.
Cam chuckled like she didn’t believe me, but kept holding on to me.
“That’s up for debate. I mean I guess you’re right, altho’ you already know the drawback to it. It’s hella crowded in here,” she hummed, and I could only imagine she was talking about her head. I briefly tightened my arm around hers, a simple reassuring gesture.

Adam must have scratched at his hair, when the sound of nails running over scalp drew my attention for a moment. “Damn it, the cave tricked me. I came here for the food damnit! Not interactions! Arrrgh! Damnit...well I guess my cold demeanor is gone. Man… I was doing so well too…” There was the sound of Camilla’s breathy laughter.
“You can go back to not interacting soon, just wait a moment,” she replied in an amused tone.
“Although going to a support group isn’t really the best idea if all you want is free food.” I chimed in teasingly.

“The others are here. Except for the snarky dude, he’s a bit further away,” Cam announced. Indeed, there were noises around us. Adam’s fingers could be heard snapping. “Nice spy.” I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was going on in this guy’s head. I’d have to ask Cam about it later.

I chuckled at my own silent joke before speaking up, “Well, looks like we’re here.” I let go of Adam and Cam’s arms, but stayed close by to them without wandering off.

“Anyone else hear the sounds of something I’m pretty sure isn’t supposed to be within this cave? Besides us?”

“Yeah, reminded me of the time I got chased by a guard dog after sneaking onto a construction site. That was a weird day.” I replied absently. “Not as weird as today, obviously. But still pretty weird; it was right before I met Boxcar Joe, actually.”

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned this Boxcar Joe person,” Camilla’s voice observed. She didn’t ask further questions, though. It was clear she was curious, however.

“His real name is Joseph Callahan, but everybody called him Boxcar Joe the magic hobo. I think it was a reference to some story he read online? He’s kinda the first person I considered a friend, and he’s the one who told me about Atypicals Anonymous. He was an old timer with the group; left recently to go back to his family in… not sure where exactly, but they’re further west.” I explained, not going into a ton of detail for the moment.

“No surprise with a nickname like Boxcar Joe the magic hobo…only people with weird powers get names like that.” Adam mumbled.

“He was never super clear about the kind of power he had; honestly I’m not quite sure he understood it himself. It was something to do with questions, or knowing who had information he needed. He taught me a lot, not just about being an atypical but about how the world works. One of the first things Boxcar Joe ever told me was that if you need to find something, ask the rats. The people society overlooks, the ones that are invisible to most people; the homeless and downtrodden.”

Adam nodded at that. “Makes perfect sense. The rats rarely let you down. I should use that as a quote in my book…” He trailed off into a mutter.

“Sounds like he was either mad wise or mad mad,” Cam mused. “Gosh, what I wouldn’t do to be able to have a drink right now.”

“He was definitely mad something, considering he taught a 17 year old how the ways of the hobo. Every tuesday I take a backpack full of sandwiches to one of the camps around the city, sit and chat with the homeless. You can learn some pretty interesting stuff from them.”

“You both have good ideas. Drinks, and interacting with the homeless. They do have a good few dark jokes at their disposal.”

“Oh, I mean things like… not exactly secret passages, but ways to slip around the city unnoticed, places that the world has forgotten.” I corrected Adam. This guy was weird even by my standards.

“And me killing for a drink isn’t exactly what I’d describe a good idea,” Cam added with a dry chuckle. I remembered the earlier conversation where she had revealed her sobriety to Thalia and I. Next thing I heard was the woman’s breath catching, and her hand grabbed the sleeve of my shirt.
“I-I can sense some weird thing getting closer…” she briefed, “It’s not human… and I can’t sense non-humans normally… what the fuck is it?”

“Probably whatever made that sound. Let’s split up for the moment, talk to everyone else and try to figure out some kind of plan. Just remember Cam, none of this is real. It’s just a dream, a mass hallucination.” aaaand there I go, reminding myself just how alien this whole thing was to me.

“Possible human mutants in simulated caves and no food, things just kicked into overdrive. Let’s get started.” Adam said cheerfully.

“On second thought Cam, I’d rather stick with you for the moment if that’s alright. This whole thing still feels wrong to me and I’m not sure how well I’d do on my own.” I explained nervously.

“Not fighting you there,” was the ginger’s sassy yet shaky response.

Snickering, Adam’s footsteps moved away to hunt out somebody else to interact with for the time being, though they were cautious footsteps.

The Bureau of Supernatural Affairs

Could always drop her, have her get recalled and put on another assignment.

Atypicals Anonymous

Lan

I hadn’t actually managed to pet the cat yet when Erina called the meeting to order, and I returned to my seat with a disappointed sigh; maybe after the meeting ended. Once again cross-legged in my chair, backpack in my lap, I sat in relative silence through the introductory section. When she shut off the lights and began an odd monologue, I simply sat, focused and listened. Tried to, at least. I always got a bit twitchy when I tried to sit still.

"Please close your eyes, and imagine yourself deep underground, in a cave that is eerily silent, except for the occasional sound of water dripping from stalactites hundreds of feet above you."

She instructed. Easy enough, an overactive imagination was vital to your sanity when you’ve got a power like mine. I felt an odd drifting sensation as I allowed myself to begin visualization of the described scene.

"The surroundings are almost entirely black, but the occasional blue glow from bioluminescent glow worms paints the ceiling in clusters like stars. The light they emanate seems to grow and fade in rhythm, and the whole room feel likes it's breathing,"

There was that drifting again; it was familiar, and yet distant. Like something I had felt before but a very very long time ago. And then, falling; my chair was gone. What the hell? I felt a pop -as if I was breaching the surface of some kind of bubble- and an unfamiliar feeling overtook me.

A fish out of water

It struck me as I stood up and went to check my shirt hadn’t torn in the fall; this was a dream, but… not a dream. I haven’t slept in about 15 years, not counting a couple hours for an appendectomy in middle school since that’s closer to an induced coma. The point is, I haven’t had a dream for almost two thirds of my life. How I was doing it now was beyond me.

"You are in a mental simulation. You must find your way out using any means at your disposal. There are ways that your abilities can both help and hurt your progress. Look for clues and help each other. Good luck."

Well, that explained it. Crazy psychic hypnosis. For normal people this was probably weird but not that alien. For me it was honestly more on the frightening end of things. How was I supposed to escape from a fake dream when I’ve barely even had normal ones?

”Hello?” I shouted, wishing for a moment I had been gifted with echolocation rather than weaponized insomnia; be able to see and not so far out of my element. Just… needed to find someone real, try to center myself and keep calm. I’d been in way scarier situations than this, right?

It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, and I was able to see a spot in the cave which was dimly lit by the pale blue light of glow worms. I saw a few other figures gathering there, most likely the other AA members.

"Is everyone okay?" came a familiar voice.

“Thalia? Is that you?” I asked; suddenly realizing just how cold the cave was. Stupid magic dream, why couldn’t I bring my jacket? Or at LEAST my backpack? No Lan, calm. This isn’t real, you’re not cold, it’s just your imagination acting up. Against your will.

I slapped myself on the cheeks a few times in an attempt to focus and shut down the internal monologue, wrapping my arms across my chest to try and stay warm as I attempted to make my way closer to the others. That’s when I heard it, a rumbling growl. It reminded me, vaguely, of the first time I’d gotten caught sneaking into a construction yard. The security guard had a big dog of some kind with him and it scared the hell out of me back then too. ”I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I’d rather get out of here BEFORE we find out what that noise is.” I said shakily, feeling my nerves creeping up on me.

Yeah, this was gonna be all kinds of fun.

TEOR-MMMM Discussion Sheet

Okay, so. Bit of advice:

Create a thread in one of the actual roleplay sub-forums so you can use the OC/IC/OOC tabs. You've got existing players coming from the previous website so there's not need for an interest check.

Extend thread title to the full name and remove the Take#2 from the end (since, as Todd Howard so kindly demonstrated, people here lack context for what the roleplay is about, having a random mash of letters deters people who might otherwise be interested in joining)

You can use a mention, like this @TEOR MMMM10, to send another user a thread an alert if you need to talk to them specifically or if your post needs a response from one of their characters.

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, there's a hider with a cheat sheet for BB code; the top bar of the editing box also has buttons that you can use to pop some of the more commonly used tags in instantly.

TEOR-MMMM Discussion Sheet

It was on another website (a wikia). I referred them over here because I thought it would work better for them.

Atypicals Anonymous

Lan, Thalia, and Cam

I unwrapped my bear claw as I waited for the curly haired girl to respond, not my favorite pastry but my favorite from the ones on offer. Then again, despite how many people tended to assume I was constantly experiencing a sugar high, I didn’t eat many sweets to begin with. Thalia, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying her danish a fair bit more.

Even with the repeated opening of the door, I could feel the temperature of the room steadily rising with every warm body that joined the meeting.

“You’re dressed fancy. Just get in from a date or something?” I repeated, trying again to grab her attention.

“Hey, you came back! Lan, isn’t it?” the brown haired girl exclaimed, seeming surprised by my presence; “Oh, sorry, your question, didn’t mean to ignore that!” she replied stiffly.

“No worries, Thalia.” I waved off the awkwardness of it all, “And yeah. Considering coming to AA was the last thing Boxcar Joe asked me to do before he went home, I can’t just go to one and then never come back.”

“Yeah, you talked about him last week! Have you seen him since then?”

“Afraid not. His letter said he was heading back west to be with his family.”

“That’s another atypical leaving town. Seems to be a common phenomenon. There used to be several regulars, but now there’s only new people. Kind of strange.”

A woman next to them piped in next, cutting the conversation: “...’Atypical’? Don’t wanna sound like a total dumbass, but I don’t suppose you guys would know a bit more about what this group is supposed to be?”

“Oh, are you new? Wait...what meeting do you think you’re at?” Thalia inquired.

I let out a slight chuckle at the new girl’s confusion, “Probably alcoholics anonymous. Which… I think is part of why Erina called the group what she did.”

The new girl seemed to be annoyed by that sentence, her nostrils flaring visibly. “I’m sober, thank you very much. Or… ah, well, I was sober, anyway. Was half hoping it would be a regular AA, to be honest. But… yeah.” She tucked a curly strand of auburn hair behind her ear, expression sour.

“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that.” I absentmindedly rubbed the back of my head with one hand, smooshing the bear claw into my crimson hair, “I was just saying, that seems like the most obvious conclusion based on the acronym.”

At that, the girl’s previously on-guard expression softened a bit, and she nodded. Her prominently blue eyes wandered up to look at the newly found mess in my hair, obviously distracting her form the flow of the conversation.

“Hey! It’s okay, it’s always confusing for new people! So, what brings you here? Weird things happening in your life, unexplained oddities…” Thalia trailed off, her eyes locked onto me as I removed my hand from my head and grimaced.

“Take me for example. I don’t sleep. Ever. Since I was, like… six, I think” I offered, retrieving some napkins from my backpack to try and clean the crumbs and icing from the back of my head.

The redhead with glasses was visibly taken aback by that, and her eyes fell back from observing my hair. Then her expression shifted to something that resembled mild envy.
“Shit, I wish that were me. I mean, that is me. But you don’t look like you’ve been tired for a second of your life,” she observed. “Unlike me, that is.”

“So what about you, must be some reason you’re here?”

The woman hesitated. “Well, not nearly as glamorous as not needing sleep. I’m able to see into people’s minds, emotions and thoughts. Creepy, right?”

“Not that creepy… What am I thinking right now?” I asked curiously, shifting my full attention onto a particular squirrel with which I’d held a staring contest that morning.

The redhead frowned, then smirked lightly. “Not how it works, pal. I can’t exactly pick which thoughts I see. I can’t read specific thoughts, just snippets. My real ‘speciality’ is emotions,” she explained, then proceeded to close her eyes briefly. The woman’s eyes fluttered rapidly behind her closed lids, and then an intense frown disrupted her freckled face.
“Either you’re thinking about if you came into the right place, getting another one of those snacks, or a squirrel. Any of those? They get lost in the stream easily.”

“I think the more snacks thought was mine,” Thalia replied; unlike me, she seemed to be a bit uncomfortable about the presence of a mind reader in the room.

At that moment, the redhead’s expression turned bothered, as if she could sense the emotion in question. Which, of course, was kind of what her talent was about, as she had just explained. The woman blushed and shook her head, as if trying to clear her mind. “Stop it,” she muttered at herself while massaging her temples.

“It was the squirrel. I’m trying to train him so I can bring him to group for show and tell.” I admitted cheerfully, “I don’t know if we actually have show and tell, I just want to be able to say I trained a squirrel.” Once I was satisfied at how much bear claw I had managed to remove from her head, I balled up the napkins and tossed them into the nearest trash can, “oh, I should probably introduce myself. I’m Chunlan Zhu, but everybody just calls me Lan.”

“And I’m Thalia! Don’t mind the cocktail dress, it’s not usually the dress code! What’s your name?”

The red haired woman smiled and adjusted her glasses. “Cam, I guess. Or, you know, know. Camilla really, but no one calls me that. So just Cam,” she introduced herself before frowning yet again, looking a bit sheepish now:
“So uh… you… you can see the cat too, right? Not just me?”

“Yep. Definitely a cat. Pretty kitty, too.” I confirmed, sliding out of my chair, stopping a moment to place my backpack in it to save my seat before wandering over. Cats were great, and I’d be damned if I didn’t get a chance to pet it.

The Bureau of Supernatural Affairs

Argus

@Searat
"Not bad, Rich." Argus shifted his claws back into their human state before approaching the restrained undead. Kneeling before his partner and their temporary captive, the Djinn's human nose melted away in a riple of flame; revealing slit reptilian nostils, and he took a few deep breaths. "Eugh, that is ripe. I'm picking up a second scent on this body, probably the necromancer who created it." the red haired agent confirmed before rising to his feet once more. "Got the scent, now just need to pick up the trail. Go ahead and dispatch this thing, I'm done with it." the senior agent instructed, fully restoring his human shell.

Rost

@Blueflame@LightningMaiden
"Very well then. Once this assignment concludes, I would be more than happy to begin educating the two of you." the scribe responded, sounding oddly cheerful about the idea, Yes, well... dragons are complicated beings. They do exist, or rather they did -many different breeds of them, as it happens. The problem is, nobody is sure what happened to them. We've found partial skeletons, though their existence has been covered up quite carefully. The last reported sighting of a live dragon was in the late 1800s. A rancher shot down a large, bat-like reptilian creature which had been harassing his cattle. He pinned the carcass to the wall of his barn and had a photograph taken. Though many who have seen the image believe it to be some manner of pterosaur I myself have studied the original image and believe it was a wyvern. One of the lesser dragons. Rost explained, pulling out of his parking space and leaving the agency garage. It would be a bit of a drive to the outskirts of the city, where the supposed kidnapping had ocurred."Prior to that photograph no dragon of any form had been seen for hundreds of years if not longer, nor have we found any since -and believe me, we've been looking. There's theories about where they've gone, of course. Some myths say they are shapeshifters, able to take on mortal forms. If that is the case, they are likely walking among us in hiding as with so many other supernatural beasts. I'm sure one will turn up eventually, I would love the opportunity to study one for myself; alive and willing, preferably."

Atypicals Anonymous

I know for a fact Lan is but I didn't mention it because it didn't seem all that important at the time (and also because straight dude, character is a lesbian. Thought people might read into that in ways that aren't really accurate.)

Of course I realized after the fact that a huge chunk of the cast is cute girls.