SIGINT

WoD P:tH - Perfect

Dice roller link: rpgroller.com/nwod

WoD P:tH - Perfect

Rebecca flinched just a bit, as Kat's hand almost touched her shoulder. But as he gave her but a few kind words, the girl seemed to smile a bit, for the first time that day. "...Thanks." She smiled warmly. "I'll...I might need that."

It was only a few coins, but it meant something. It meant support. It meant someone was there with her, that someone agrees with her when she says 'this shouldn't have happened'.
_brighter
On her own, that voice was very small. Now, it was just a little louder.


She lingered for a moment, as though there was something more she wanted to say. But in the end, that was all that occurred between the two of them at that moment. Young men and women befriending each other, especially in such a setting, created suspicion and unwanted rumors. Like an invisible wall between them, it gave just enough of a nudge for her to let it be for now - as though it wasn't okay to simply know someone. By the time any thought had occurred to her of how illogical it was, her chance of getting to know the boy any more was passed over. This time, at least.


The boy in the wrinkled uniform scrawls something onto a sheet of paper, torn from a notebook. Balling it up, he looks left and right, before nonchalantly tossing it Kat's way. It's angled expertly, suggesting an unusual talent for dexterity, rolling softly along the top of his desk.

Rebecca continued her rounds, emboldened somewhat by the partial success. Just a minute later, she arrived at the desk of a young woman with blonde hair, and piercing blue eyes. "Excuse me." Rebecca leaned forward just a bit, a glimmer of hope in her tired expression. "You might have heard already, but I'm asking ar-"

"You're useless."

"...ound...?"

The young woman slowly turned her head towards Rebecca, her stoic face unfazed by her gesture. "I just...wanted to help...somehow..." The sapphires blinked, gleaming gems momentarily obscured. "And what exactly do you hope to achieve using the lunch money of students?" The woman asks pointedly, "Funerals cost thousands of dollars. From this room, I'd be surprised if you surpassed five. You're wasting your time."

Rebecca was stunned speechless from the sharp words, taking a step back. The basket with Kat's change in it nearly slipped from her fingers. Even with the choking atmosphere, the heavy air, the pervading sense of apathy, she still managed to summon up enough anger to fire back. "A-And what difference does it make to you, then!?" She yelled at the top of her lungs, turning a few heads in the room. "Why do you care!?"

"I don't."

"And neither should you."

Rebecca slumped backwards, as though she'd been hit with a baseball bat, stumbling for her balance. A small bruise on her left shoulder, just above the heart.

She stammers, her pupils dilating from sheer emotion. Her arm jerks, as though she were about to throw the straw basket at the young woman out of rage. Making the decision for her, the blond-haired girl gets up from her desk, sliding her chair back as she heads for the door.

"Bell 'asn't rung yet..." Mr. Gordon called out in a lazy voice, not making any actual attempt to stop her as she closed the classroom door behind her. Rebecca could only stand still, mortified at what had just been said to her with such impunity.


<sup>"Why is Dulac such a bitch?"

"Isn't her family really rich? You'd think she could do something."

"I think that's just a rumour. She'd be at another school if that were true."</sup>


The boy in the wrinkled uniform winces and shudders. The bruise on his arm was not there before.

Rebecca slowly sits back down at her desk, leaving the basket where it is. In the end, no one besides Kat had pitched in. Muttering laughter makes its way from a corner of the room, and she can't help but feel that it's at her expense.
_{the prisoners are released from their cell}
The clock reads eleven after. There are four minutes remaining before the students here are allowed to leave.

WoD P:tH - Perfect

"Excuse me..."

A meek girl with auburn hair in a practical ponytail slowly raised a hand as she stepped near the two boys. In her other hand, was a small straw basket that looked worn, still bearing a sticker on its underside that betrayed its source from a local dollar store. They would both know her as Rebecca - a somewhat moody classmate of theirs who was often friends with the less popular girls.

"Um...if I'm not interrupting, I've been asking around..." Her eyes moved slowly back and forth between Kat and Chester, both of them boys whom she didn't know that well. "I'm trying to raise a collection for...for Malie's funeral."

Her basket was completely empty. Not for lack of trying - she'd asked a few people before the two boys, all of whom had simply ignored her. She was clearly uncomfortable, having exhausted her list of people she talked to regularly, and now going around to students who were more or less strangers.
_escaped
"She...slit her wrists, over the weekend." Rebecca recounted slowly, "It's like no one's heard about it...No one's even wondering why her seat is empty...I'd asked the homeroom teacher to announce it today, since she was in this class, but I guess he...forgot..."
_disconnected
Or perhaps he just didn't care.

"Sorry I'm bothering you...I just thought..." The girl bit her lip, not sure how much she should share with people outside of her circle. Not that she had much of one these days. "...Her and I were friends, and, I wanted to do something for her family...you know...?"

WoD P:tH - Perfect

---

Perfect.

Certainly, perfection is something to strive for. It is a goal to which one runs, albeit asymptotically. But much like Icarus, there is a story of one who reached that unreachable goal.

There is something to be learned from the story of Sir Galahad - that this world has no place for a 'perfect human', and indeed, that such an individual would not be considered 'human' at all.

To reach out for perfection is considered noble, but to reach perfection is considered heresy, and those who achieve such are removed from this world as punishment.

I did not understand this paradox until I, myself, lost my humanity.

I wonder, if I am now to see what before I glimpsed only once...

---

Perfect, huh?

Heh. No, uh...on a scale of 1 to 'Perfect', I'm a 1 for sure.

I didn't even know what a 'perfect me' would even look like, before. I mean, I had a pretty good general idea, yeah, but the details were always really blurry. Some days I'd want to be like one thing, some days I'd want to be like another thing...even basic stuff, like hair color, right? I flip-flopped on that for like forever.

But then, I just, kinda...got there, somehow? I mean, I don't know if I'd call like the entire situation perfect, but...it was perfect for me. It was everything I wanted.

I had it for a little while. And I hate myself for it. The pain of having lost that is, just...I mean, I'd rather have just dealt with never having it at all.

But I know that even if I had never reached it...I'd just spend the rest of my life wanting to be perfect, anyway.

---

	Monday — Morning — Homeroom @Antarctic Termite

The day was far from perfect.

The atmosphere itself felt choking. It was hard to breathe, like the room was filled with smoke. The sky was filled with dark clouds, and the forecast was heavy rain for the entire week. Drenched umbrellas littered the floor of the classroom, and the sound of stampeding raindrops added an almost welcome background noise to the suffocating silence. Even though the window was right there, the world outside seemed so far away. Looking down at the ground felt something like gazing from the side of an airplane as it took off from the city. you could jump right now. it's just high enough, if you angle your head just right, it will

For a room full of students who had supposedly just gotten back from a restful weekend, they didn't look the part. Exhaustion, apathy, and emptiness seemed to take hold in all of their faces. Dark circles under their eyes, lethargy in their limbs. One student, a boy in the back row, was outright asleep. No one seemed to care. The floors hadn't been washed like they were supposed to, and a spilled drink from last week remained as a sticky floor-trap near the back door. The students seemed to have resigned themselves to simply walking around it.

The entire room was beaten down by something. Maybe it was just the accumulated stress of school, or maybe it was just the bad weather. But there wasn't a single student here who seemed to be having a good day.
_guard
"Today marks the beginning of finals week..." The teacher's voice droned on, with a heavy sigh thrown in almost every sentence. He wasn't looking at any student in particular, or really, on closer inspection, any student at all. "Nothing really to do for homeroom, so just...get some last minute studying in, I guess." He rested his chin in his hand, gazing indifferently to the side, his eyes unfocusing. He wasn't keeping track of the passage of time.

It's cloistering. Like the inside of this building is its own world, a sticker slowly losing its adhesion, and slowly, slowly lifting from the surface of reality.


From the corner of the eye. Movement in the ceiling. A tile is dislodged, with a black void beyond. A pair of red eyes momentarily cast their way about the room, before disappearing into the darkness, just as quickly as they showed themselves.

A young woman in an impeccably dry-cleaned outfit sits with her back straight, keeping a refined posture. She seems not to share the lethargic mood of her colleagues, but neither is she particularly energetic. Her hands are clasped together on her desk, patiently waiting for the next period.

A scrawny boy in a wrinkled and dirty uniform holds his head low, staring down at his desk. He perks up just a bit, as though hearing a noise, casting a momentary, worried glance at the ceiling. Blinking a few times, he rubs his eye, and loses his gaze in the cloudy outdoors.


<sup>"What are they going to do for the gym final? It's pouring out there."

"...There's a gym final? How does that even work?"

"I mean...every class has a final, I guess. That's just how it is."</sup>

_{the prisoners are released from their cell}
The clock reads three after. There are twelve minutes remaining before the students here are allowed to leave.

Cambria - The Cloud Forest

A princess on the battlefield.

Cambria - The Cloud Forest

I think you just ask Circ to unlock your profile, make your edits, and then submit it for reapproval.

I've never outright increased a character's tier before, but I have added stuff to a sheet.

Cambria - The Cloud Forest

They know this stuff.

they know

Listen to them!

Cambria - The Cloud Forest

Sounds good! Here ya go:

1) The time since the last firing of the Second Sun is left vague, other than "long". As far as that whole section of the backdrop goes, you're free to make up whatever works for you. Just go for it!

2) Very yes. There's a massive hole above ground zero. Fixing it is actually a CCF goal down the line.

3) Very yes. EVERYTHING went wrong. It was bad. If you can think of a natural disaster, it probably happened around that time.

Cambria - The Cloud Forest

	Cambria — The Cloud Forest — Outskirts @Antarctic Termite @Normie @Scarescrow [Anyone]

The Cloud Forest. North of the CCF headquarters, it is a well-preserved biome bordering the mountain range that signals the end of the northern half of the Plateau. Cloud coverage is constant, moreso even than most of Cambria. A dense fog spills out from between the trees like the breath of an imprisoned beast behind the bars of its cell, cloying and thick.

A woman with her hair tied back stops the engine of the ATV, treading on the damp ground with purpose. A single cigarette is her sole comfort for the mission ahead. For now, they're on the outskirts, but once they're inside, it'll be far too damp to light anything. Even here, the humidity was choking, and the heat only made it worse. The woman's ponytail was matted to the back of her tank top as though it had been sealed there by glue.

But it wasn't too late for this place. For this forest. What was alive here could remain so, if only one with power could intervene.

---

"If you would call me a 'villain', then there is only one thing I ask of you in return."

"Show me what a 'hero' would do, with the very same power that I wield."

"I would very much like to see that."

---

The cigarette snapped in her fingers the moment she thought of him. Simultaneously her benefactor and her greatest nemesis. Did he enjoy placing himself in such ridiculous positions relative to others?

"Atticus Vüqar..."

Muttering his name here did nothing. The ex-mercenary nearly threw her cigarette on the ground, as she would have on any of the core planets, but she had to remind herself that this was Cambria. A planet in a delicate state of slow collapse. Even the slightest interruption of the natural order held the capacity to upset the ecosystem even further. Every change had to be calculated and deliberate. Unintended intervention had to be reduced and mitigated to the greatest possible extent.

That meant her extinguished cigarette went into one of her pockets, at least until the job here was done. 'Leave it like you found it', just like everyone gets taught when they're a kid...


Turning back to the ATV, Jane Hyder removed her fogged-over sunglasses as she discerned who had taken the ride to the forest with her. If anyone else had decided to ride in from the base, there were other transports available whenever they were ready — only the initial team would be here.

Of course, the back of the ATV held more than just people — it also contained their 'goal' for this expedition. No one would come to a planet like this just for sightseeing, anyway. But if she had the choice, she'd rather not have to explain things twice.

Persistent World

I'm not much one for debates with strangers, and would honestly like to stay out of this thread entirely, but since I was tagged, I'd rather not my silence be taken for acceptance.

So, I'll at least say that while I recognize its flaws, I like EH and would like to stay there.