Three

Yurei High: Spooks Versus Students (Ghost Hunting)

Matsushima Mitsuko
Classroom 2-A, Yurei High School

Mitsuko nodded slightly at Daichi's question, evidently having anticipated something in that vein. It would be a little bit odd if nobody had thought to question the absurd-looking contraption that she had made use of. "Appraisal-san is one of the items I've created. I've given them the moniker of 'magitech artifacts' to signify their nature as being a combination of the supernatural and mundane, and because I believe that it sounds entertaining." She explained, her voice petering off a bit as she mentioned the second factor behind her decision, though it regained its prior firmness as she continued.

"Essentially, a magitech artifact is created by finding a mundane object and an object with some level of 'supernatural presence' to it, and then ensuring a physical closeness between the two to form a holistic object. However, the two components must have some level of conceptual balance. You can't just stick some supernatural object on any old mundane object and expect it to work; it requires a very intricate understanding of the balance of mundane to supernatural, and of the conceptual purpose of each component and the holistic combination. Explaining the exact principles behind it would take...a very, very long time; it's something that, even after years of practice, I myself have only scratched the surface on."

"Appraisal-san is my most-used artifact. As you've probably gathered, it's the barometer smartphone periphery, with a sliver of wood from a sacred elderberry tree attached to the end of the sensor. After some fiddling with the program and a very lengthy work process, it's been adjusted from an air pressure sensor to a spiritual force sensor, able to detect and report on spiritual force and locations where it congregates. It can also be pointed at an unprotected spiritual entity in order to display what spiritual data it can gather, which will be useful on Saturday. It's an invaluable tool, and one that I've made liberal use of in the past when interacting with spiritual entities."

"Among other artifacts are spiritual-class weapons to damage spiritual entities, should they be hostile, items meant to contain and trap spiritual entities, the Spectral Fishing Rod, and, as a last resort, Mr. Bear. If you don't believe that the items work the way that I say that they do, and that I'm merely an eccentric or am acting out for attention or something similarly trite, then you're entitled to your beliefs. I do hope, however, that you attend the Extravaganza so that I can demonstrate their credibility." Mitsuko finished, shrugging slightly as though she was uncaring towards her own words.

Yurei High: Spooks Versus Students (Ghost Hunting)

Matsushima Mitsuko
Classroom 2-A, Yurei High School

"...really? This has to be a joke."

Shaking her head in response to the ever-escalating conflict that had overwhelmed the club meeting, Mitsuko fixed a cold gaze on Makoto and Charles both before glancing in the direction of the wounded newcomer. "My apologies for my subordinate's actions; if you need an ice pack, do let me know."

Her expression set firmly, a exquisite glass figurine held in place, she stepped forwards to the now-collapsed figure of Charlie and reached over, grabbing the delinquent by the hair to wrench his head up off of his desk.

"I will be blunt, dog. You are here because I have use for you. The second that I decide that the detriment you provide has a higher weight than that use is the second that I break you." She stated calmly, her voice failing to betray any emotion, as though she was talking down to a child. It seemed that she didn't realize that, even in an injured state, Charlie was still fully capable of retaliating against her. Or perhaps she did realize, and simply didn't care.

"Do you understand that, dog? You are to follow my instructions to the letter, and that is final. If you step out of line and I decide that your presence isn't worth my time anymore, then I'm happy to stop playing this little game. I don't care what you do outside of my club. Cause all the chaos you want, seek revenge, start a fire, it does not matter to me. However, when you are following my instructions, in my organization, you are not to take a step out of line, or I can assure you that you will regret it. Are we clear?"

After releasing Charlie's head and sighing to herself helplessly, she turned slightly to Makoto, her expression equally stiff. "...as for you, I don't care how upset you get with others. If you want to resort to physical violence, then do it outside of my club. Debate, discussion, and even argument are all fine; this is a controversial club, so such things are to be expected. What I will not tolerate are showings of physical violence and vigilante justice. As this is your first offense, I won't be taking action, but keep that in mind in the future."

"If you lot can't follow those directions, then things will get especially problematic when spiritual force congregations get higher. It's not the sort of thing I'm capable of handling on my own, and overuse of Mr. Bear would be problematic, so I will be trusting in your capacity to listen to me and trust in my judgment."

With that, Mitsuko airily stepped back to the front of the classroom, a pale hand briefly reaching up to massage her temples before she looked back out over the group. "Now then, if there are any remaining questions or comments, kindly voice them at this time. Newcomer, if you came for the Occult Club meeting, then I can explain what I told the others prior to your arrival after the bulk of the meeting is over; for now, just know that the Halloween Extravaganza will be a ghost hunt on the school campus this Saturday night, and an introduction to the occult; I'll be passing out permission slips at the end of the meeting."

Yurei High: Spooks Versus Students (Ghost Hunting)

Well, with all that out of the way, shall I place Octavia in the characters tab and make a post? Just got back from class and ready to go.

@Octo

Go ahead.

Yurei High: Spooks Versus Students (Ghost Hunting)

Alrighty.

Anyhow, I'll be posting with Mitsuko once the stapler issue's been sorted. @Black Alice told me she got a little busy, so she hasn't gotten a chance to post yet.

Yurei High: Spooks Versus Students (Ghost Hunting)

<Snipped quote by Three>

would it do to say that she just has vague "Self-defense training" without defining a specific style?

@Octo

That's fine. It's probably the best method, in my opinion, if you don't want to have to research martial arts to keep things self-consistent.

Yurei High: Spooks Versus Students (Ghost Hunting)

@Octo
Alrighty, I'll go ahead and hand down my verdict.

Now, the thing is that skills aren't actually that impactful. Their main purpose here is to serve as a way of codifying a character's theme. This isn't the sort of environment where most skills will have much weight outside of guiding character interaction.

With that said, to reach even decent experience in three styles of martial arts is near-impossible order by the age of fifteen, if we're talking true experience and not the waterdown kind. Also, just from a posting perspective it's troublesome for you should she ever make use of that talent, because it requires that you've done a decent amount of research on all three styles, and have a good enough grasp on all of them conceptually that you can think of how to blend them appropriately, which is quite a lot of effort for something with pretty little payoff.

So, on that front, I will have to request that you either pretty sharply reduce her skill in each style, or go all-in on one of your choosing and have an appreciable level of skill in it for her age. Especially considering the sheer breadth of skills she has, it's unreasonable to think that she would have the same level of experience in martial arts as someone her own age who has focused exclusively on martial arts, and even a child like that would be far from mastery with under a decade of experience under his belt.

Also, keep in mind that she's a little girl in Japan, and this is a roleplay about ghosts, so the odds of firearms coming into play at any point in time will be minuscule at best and nonexistent at worst.

Besides that, I don't have any huge issues. While she does seem to have the whole "perfect" feeling about her, in this roleplay specifically I don't have a major objection to that, because things like that don't matter as much in either the character dynamics half, or the horror half, so if you want to make a princess locked in an ivory tower, be my guest.

So yeah, just reach a decision on the martial arts debacle, and you're good to go.

Yurei High: Spooks Versus Students (Ghost Hunting)

Matsushima Mitsuko
Classroom 2-A, Yurei High School

Mitsuko nodded slightly in response to the questions that were posed, turning her head to face Makoto first as she prepared an answer. Did the girl have some sort of experience with a ghost in the past, perhaps of a friend or family member? The wording of her question and pause in her sentence seemed to at least indicate that there was some concern over the state ghosts were in, but this might have just as easily been a standard empathy.

"Well, the means by which a ghost ceases to be depends on how they became a ghost." Mitsuko explained curtly. "For instance, if the soul is anchored to a physical location, damaging that location should result in the soul fading away. Alternatively, there are sources of...'spiritual damage', which can be seen as methods to 'kill' a ghost with. For your specific situation, where a soul has persisted by anchoring itself to a purpose, we can't actually be sure if that's something that can occur, or if it's just a part of legend. That said, I would imagine that if the purpose is fulfilled, the anchor would cease to exist, and the soul would appropriately dissipate; of course, that's just my conjecture."

Following this, the eccentric turned her head to look over Seiko and Yurika, a coy smile playing across her expression as she nodded in agreement. "Of course. This isn't an Occult Discussion Club, after all, it is an Occult Club. To that end, we will be interacting with spiritual entities rather regularly." She explained, fishing a smartphone out from her pocket in addition to...something that looked like a phone attachment. Someone with the appropriate knowledge would recognize it as an air pressure sensor that could be plugged into a phone. Something off, though, was that the end of the sensor seemed to have had a strange piece of wood duct-taped to the end.

Well, it looked like the eccentricies were shining through now.

Plugging the sensor into her phone, and seeming to mess around on it for a bit, Mitsuko nodded to herself before putting the phone and sensor away.

"Perfect. Now, this is the topic of the Halloween Extravaganza. Put simply, it is a 'nighttime ghost hunt' at this school. The faculty's given us permission to come by the school at night, and given me access to it after I explained the purpose of the activity. For those interested, I will be handing out waivers that your legal guardian will need to sign off on."

"Appraisal-san's been picking up coalescions of spiritual force and, while I won't bore you with the details, the sum of the matter is that it's estimated that, on Saturday night, the gathered spiritual force will be enough for a spirit in this school that I've been monitoring for a while to have minor physical interference capacity. Basically, at that time it will become physically observable, though it won't be able to interfere on a material level." Mitsuko stated, her expression smoothing over with a level of self-assuredness. "The Halloween Extravaganza is where we will enter the school to non-violently observe and converse with said ghost. I believe it should be a suitable hands-on experience and introduction to the occult for all of you. For those of you who plan on coming simply to 'disprove' ghosts, you're of course welcome to attend as well, and bring all of the tools you need to test this matter until you're satisfied. Depending on how the Halloween Extravaganza goes, as well as how future spiritual force coalescions come about, we may make these nighttime excursions into a more regular thing, which I would certainly like. With that said, unless a ghost is hostile, we will not take violent measures against it; I have an assortment of items that can cause spiritual damage, but would rather not use them unless needed."

"Does that satisfy your questions?"

Yurei High: Spooks Versus Students (Ghost Hunting)

Oh, my. This looks very interesting. Are there any spaces open at the moment? Because I would like to join if so.

@Octo

That there are!

Yurei High: Spooks Versus Students (Ghost Hunting)

Oh, by the way @Three Fifi, or as we all know her as Fellsing won't be able to participate in the rp as she is currently caught up in writing for NaNoWriMo. If we have some room after one month, she might be able to jump in again.

Talked to her over steam, so just letting you know if you want to let a few more people in.

@Savo

Alrighty.

Yurei High: Spooks Versus Students (Ghost Hunting)

Gosh if you guys keep posting this fast I may need to drop out. I can't keep up considering I work.

@AirBender

I doubt the current rate will be sustainable; there's always a burst of posting at the beginning that slows down considerably after a bit.