Thursday, 15 July 2010

Susan Adams: Diary Entry 1

((Not as long as some of the posts displayed by the Mighty Foxton, but hefty nonetheless.))

OK, the weirdest stuff has been happening to me recently, and I’ve got to write it down or it’s all going to get muddled up. I already think that I’m mad – I don’t need anything else to tip me further over the edge.

It all started on 2nd January this year. I was cleaning out the coffee machine after the morning commuter rush when one of the newbies reached across to make a hot chocolate and knocked the steamer – it scalded me all up both forearms. I got them under the cold tap quick, but the day manager wrapped them in cling film and took me to the hospital. They looked pretty bad. I was put onto a holding bed to wait for the doctor while the manager went back to work, and when the adrenaline from the pain wore off I fell asleep.

When I woke up, the only bit of me that wasn’t bandaged up like a mummy was across my mouth. I was lying on a bed and wired up to a drip and heart monitor in a white room with four other people. Dave, the guy that helped me to unwrap my hands and arms is some sort of musician in a rock band, I think. James… he’s a mechanic. Canadian with a rather scary voice. Amy’s a student and Harry – introduced as Old ‘Arry – works in a hardware store though I think he’s ex-military. We were all bandaged in some way, and we were all admitted to hospital on the same day.

The weird thing - well, one of the weird things – is that none of our injuries hurt any more, and the skin on my arms looks pretty much perfect. No scarring at all, like it’d never been damaged.

We were in this pure white room, six beds. No windows and only one door, and that was heavy duty steel. It didn’t look like any hospital ward I’ve ever seen. We were just getting unwrapped and re-dressed (all our clothes being in boxes under our beds) when the door opens and this *robot* comes wheeling through. It followed marks on the floor, so it looked like it’d been doing this for some time. It went up to each bed and gave each of us a subject call sign, announcing that we were absent, except me because I was sitting there putting my shoes on. It nearly knocked Harry flying when he got in its way.

When it left the door banged shut so hard that it bounced open a little bit again. We all decided that it was time to move on, so we wedged the door open with an IV stand and finished getting ourselves ready.

We went out into the corridor, which wasn’t as clean as the room and I didn’t like the look of it. We followed the wheel marks and came across the robot again, which seemed to be in power-save mode or hibernation or something, with a countdown above it. It was ticking down seconds from, I guess, 7000. I assume that when it reached zero it went to check the room again. Dave started rocking it and the countdown sped up, but resumed its one-a-second when he stopped.

I moved on to the corner. The corridor was really disgusting – the walls were yellow and stained, and there was mould creeping out from the corners and it was really starting to get to me. I had this really bad feeling – call it intuition if you like, but that gut feeling has never let me down – and I really wanted to get moving. Only, as I looked around the corner I had this flashback. A memory of intense pain all over my body and a vision of this insanely grinning surgeon leering down at me. It was over in less than a second but I could still hear this high-pitched keening. It wasn’t until Harry grabbed my arm that I realised it was me.

We kept going and found a door to some sort of janitor’s cupboard. Dave and Amy grabbed themselves an improvised weapon each. I think it was a mop or a broom handle. I found myself some marigold gloves, so I put them on to try and keep my hands clean. The lights started flickering and eventually went out, leaving everything pitch black. We stood still, freaking out slightly, and a scream rang out. It wasn’t from neither Amy nor I and lasted exactly two seconds before it suddenly stopped, but it was full of fear. The lights came back on just afterwards and we kept going. There were bugs all over the floor, wriggling in the filth. I could hardly stand it.

We came across a sort of laboratory and the door wasn’t locked so we went in. There were…jars. There was one that matched the call sign given to me by the robot, though the number was lower. It had a… I think it had a roll of skin in it. Dave’s had a hand. He decided he was going to keep it. James’ had a hip joint – the ball and socket were there but the bones were cut short. There was a mass of fibrous tissue in Harry’s, but none of us were looking too closely at that to work out what it was. There wasn’t a jar for Amy. She looked a bit green at that, but I think she was secretly glad, as her head had been bandaged.

On the other hand, Amy did find a computer terminal without a power supply, so she pulled out the hard drive. There was also a notebook which mentioned a thing called Bravo Hotel, and a rip-away-a-day wall calendar. The last date shown was the 14th August 2010. We appear to have lost eight and a half months and none of us can remember anything about them.

Harry’d found a bunch of keys in a janitor’s coat back in the cupboard, and he unlocked the door at the side of the room. It stank of ammonia in there, but we stuck together and all went through. There were bars running the length of the room, like an old-style cage, and inside was an extremely dirty girl, early 20s I thought, with bright green eyes. She said her name was Natalie and she’d been abducted after her finals in mid-May. She’d been, well, we don’t rightly know, but she was scared of the boys and treated like an animal, so I dread to think what she’s been through.

She mentioned the “Professor”. James looked up the date just before her abduction in the notebook, and it says about bringing in “entertainment”. We didn’t want to ask, and Natalie didn’t tell us either. Harry unlocked the door but he was wary – she’d been able to get her hands on a large shard of glass. Natalie walked with Amy and I, though she was all dirty and I didn’t like it very much.

The corridors started to get cleaner again, thank goodness. We turned the corner and met one of the people that worked there. He was pinned to the solid concrete wall by some sort of iron pole. That’s when things got even weirder.

Dave jumped to one side and *climbed the wall* while James turned into a blur as he ran – far faster than he should have been able to – around the corner and back the way we had come. Natalie, Amy and I were just frozen to the spot. Harry (how he didn’t through up, I don’t know) rifled his pockets and found an ID security card. The ID said that we were in the Drayge Institute. This rang a bell with Natalie and we kept going (once Jason had returned and Dave had stopped playing on the walls) as she told us that she’d overheard some of the workers talking about the Beta Human Project. Guess that’s also referred to as Bravo Hotel.

Eventually we hit carpet. It lead to a staircase going up – so we did. Four flights up we met with a door through which we could see a rather messy and abandoned-looking office. Harry found the right key and we went through. It smelt musty, but there was power because the sensor lights came on. Outside was dark, but we were definitely on the ground floor. Amy found a working computer, but it was nearly empty and those that were still there corrupted beyond readability. I took a note of pretty much the only semi-recoverable e-mail:


F¤om: S¤m Marl¤w; Pet¤r Tow¤s¤¤d
Se¤t: 16th Ju¤¤ 2¤1¤
¤¤: Adr¤an Kn¤¤¤¤¤
S¤bject: Re: B¤ Experi¤¤¤¤

Y¤¤ are ¤¤¤ mad! We are so close, ¤¤ y¤u h¤¤¤ any idea ¤¤¤¤ w¤¤l happen i¤ ¤¤ pull the plug ¤¤¤¤ Well n¤¤¤¤¤¤ do I!


----Orig¤¤¤¤ Messa¤¤----

F¤om: Adr¤an Kn¤¤¤¤¤
Se¤t: 16th Ju¤¤ 2¤1¤
¤¤: S¤m Marl¤w
C¤: ¤et¤r ¤ow¤s¤¤d
S¤bject: B¤ Experi¤¤¤¤

Sa¤,

S¤r¤y m¤¤e, ¤¤t b¤c¤¤se o¤ funding cuts, w¤ are be¤¤g forced t¤ stop the BH e¤p¤ri¤¤nt early. It’s not my ¤¤¤¤¤, it’s the ¤¤w ¤¤¤¤¤¤ with this D¤m a¤¤¤¤nce. W¤ ju¤¤ ca¤¤¤¤ a¤¤¤r¤ to h¤ve th¤¤ bl¤¤ sky project on the go

Speak to Pete if you have any issues.

A¤¤rian


We also found out that the Drayge Institute is closely linked to MI6 and Porton Down. It had been working on something called Blue Sky, but funding appears to have been pulled and the entire place pretty much abandoned. The e-mails are dated either June or July, but Natalie last saw the Professor a few days ago.

There were filing cabinets behind one desk, and Dave forced them, and some locked desk drawers, open. They had our complete histories in there – medical, educational, psychological profiles, everything. The last page was a signed permission dated 6th January, but no pages to which it referred. There was no file for Natalie, and though there were other hanging files with names on, only ours held any paper.

Dave found a digital camera in the drawers and there was one photo on there – a man and a woman in lab coats smiling and posing. Natalie pointed that the woman was the Professor.

We were busy poking around and working out what to do next when we suddenly realised that Natalie had vanished. We tried to look for her, but decided that just getting away from there would be better. So we pushed open a fire escape. Unfortunately, the door was alarmed.

We found ourselves on a patch of lawn. The buildings were enclosed by high brick walls topped with razor wire. Dave went up the wall and started to lay coats and twist the wire up – we could hear police sirens in the distance and getting closer. I think at this time he took “his” hand out of the jar and stuck it in his leg pocket.

Harry tried the swipe card on some kind of heavy duty security gate, and it opened just as a couple of police cars came screaming up and the men got out pointing guns at him. James tried to run but they shot him. They fired some sort of gas canister over the wall which made Amy, Harry and James go a bit woozy.

Dave and I gave up on the idea of climbing the wall and instead we made for a tall tree in the compound, to try and hide. He helped me up and we tried to make ourselves as small as possible to avoid the lights and searching police. The men game into the compound, cuffed Amy (who was sitting on the ground with her hands in the air) and then cuffed Harry and James too, hitting them in the face with their guns to knock them out.

They had a dog unit with them, and they found our scent at the bottom of the tree, so Dave climbed down - pretending that he was climbing like a normal person – and they beat him too as he struggled to stay out of the cuffs. I could hardly stand to watch my comrades being treated so roughly and I didn’t want to be left alone, so once the dogs were back in their van (horrible hairy things, always eating the most disgusting thing they can find) I climbed down and wandered after them. I tried to look unthreatening and did everything they told me to, but they still knocked me out once the cuffs went on. Bastards.

Tuesday, 23 March 2010

The game continues...

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse.

Last night was Vampire with the Nerds. After the last fiasco, I thought it might have been a more subdued start to the night. But no...

The group wake up in their Havens, and they all -separately- hunt. Everyone gets some except The Furher, who (although he is charming the barwenches onto his lap) goosed the girl and she slaps him and walks off. However, we were only getting the rest of the group out of the way so that we could concentrate on French Resistance...

He wakes up. He has no blood in his system whatsoever, but he has no trigger near him for Frenzy at the moment of waking. Living on a side alley near the rough bit of the docks and this being early evening, he manages to grab himself a scrawny looking dockworker and once he gets his hands on the poor guy (at least lasting long enough to drag him down a smaller alleyway) starts ripping uncontrollably into his neck. Bood gouts, lumps are chewed from his neck before being spat out onto the floor, FR is covered in the remains of the victim. Thankfully, he dies almost immediately, and luckily no-one comes around the corner. So there stands the Brujah, covered in blood and cradling a thoroughly savaged man in his arms. He plans to dump him in the docks, to which I respond “So you want to walk through the busy docks to the harbourside and throw a dead man into the water in front of a load of workers?” Hubby, meanwhile, jokes that with his strength and potence he could probably throw the body into the water from where he is stood...

“What a good idea!” says FR, “Nic, I'm going to hurl the body up onto the roof of the nearest tall building!”. As I smash my head onto the table, and the rest of the group fall over laughing, I grit my teeth “OK, let me have a look at your character sheet”. Now, I know he has the strength to do it, especially as the body is now a dried husk, and so I check his Dex. I roll it for him. What a shame I roll a fail and a 1...

Looking him straight in the eye, I set the scene...

“Building momentum, swinging the body up and down, you check the range, face away from the wall and prepare to launch the man above your head. With an almighty heave, you throw him into the air... Feeling smug with yourself, you prepare to wipe your hands clean when you hear a smashing sound as the body hurtles through the first floor window and onto the dining table, just as the resident family is sitting down for their evening meal.”

At this point, FR, who has apparently learnt his lesson, runs away from the scene (the scene occurring just a couple of doors down from his own Havan) and jumps into the canal to wash off the copious amounts of blood. Shocked screams echo once more across the Venetian night...

During this time, the rest of the group have met in their usual coffee shop in the main square, where Captain Barbeque regales them with the tale of the previous evening and they all do the 16th Century version of a facepalm. They decide to head in the direction of FRs haven (they know it's in the rough bit of the docks, but not exactly where). Meanwhile, he heads back to the coffee shop, missing them by minutes. Hanging around there, he decides to go and talk to the Prince and apologise.

The guys get to the docks. They follow the screams, and get to the alleyway as the Watch are lifting the body out of the house with a sheet over it. They chat to the crowd and the Watch, getting the various bare bones of the story and spreading rumours to cast misdirection. The best story that they come up with is a wild animal. Only this is in the city. No wild animals. Oh wait...they're by the docks! Circus animals that escape during unloading! A bear - awesome. While I'm reeling form this, the bear gets a name. It is called Bobo. Bobo the rabid dancing bear, loose upon the city and killing people and flinging them through first floor windows.

OMG.

First we had the EelMan of Venice, then the Great Door Smasher, now we have the Phantom Body Flinger and BoBo the Dancing DeathBear.

Thankfully, the rest of the evening was more sensible. But this is a game that will stay in the memory for a very long time

Wednesday, 10 March 2010

And that makes the set!

The three previous games group models were done by May last year. The fourth guy insisted on holding out on me.

However, it was his 40th in February, and I proposed to the rest of the group that I make him his character for a birthday present. The guy for whom I painted the elf with the staff (with the big knob on the end) agreed with this and agreed to fund the project.

And so, I present Vil. It's not perfectly his character, but everyone said it was great and it's a lot better than the previous "pre-painted" model that he had been using!




Friday, 5 March 2010

On the "intelligence" of men

As I have previously mentioned through Failbook, here is the story of last Mondays vampire session...

The group are investgating into a series of brutal and masquerade-breaching murders in Venice, 1536. They are heading around the murder sites to get clues. They go to one and they hear a shutter bang shut (it's a dodgy area of town, a group of five are standing outside looking not at all like the city watch). French Resistance - not the smartest character but by no means the dumbest - decides to ask the occupants questions.

Oddly enough, they are not prepared to open their door to a strange man at 2am. In annoyance he knocks the door off its hinges thereby flattening the frail old man behind it and killing him. His wife starts screaming, and in the distance the group hear the sound of bells as the watch come running. Meanwhile, Hubbys and Pixie's characters (posh and beautiful people, Toreador and Tremere respectively) saunter off arm in arm, The Furher (burly Gangrel) picks up a convenient small barrel, slings it over his shoulder and strides off towards the docks. Captain Barbeque (Lasombra antitribue) decides to hide in the shadows. French Resistance first attempts to climb a wall (succeeding only in ripping off lumps of damp plaster) then runs off, then turns round and goes back. Goes. Back...

He goes back to the scene of the crime he has caused. The sarge is inside talking to the slightly hysterical woman who has seen her husband of many years squashed before her eyes as a locked and securely barred door landed on him. Three watchmen are outside. The woman inside screams "THAT'S HIM!!" and the three watchmen jump him. Two grab an arm each and the third punches him in the nose to no effect. He then smashes the two on him together, making them all stagger back. They draw their swords, two manage to stick him in the gut and he decides to frenzy...

Punching the three in turn, he cracks ribs, knocks one guy to the ground and punches him in the head. Through the face. Cracking the flag beneath and ending up with gore spread up his arm (sigh). He dispatches the other two as the Sarge comes out of the house, takes one look and legs it. Frenchie then wanders off back to his haven happily licking his arm.

Meanwhile, Captain Barbeque is watching from the shadows with an utterly incredulous look on his face, and the rest of the player group are screaming with laughter and going into convulsions of hysteria at the table.

Frenchie is gonna have a LOT of explaining to do next Monday...

Tuesday, 27 October 2009

Pah!

I really need to update this blog more often.

I appear to have gained a stalker. This is a guy who is/was a friend, but he fell for me in a big way, and now I want to get rid of him. It's a shame really - he's a nice guy, but he's also an emo whiney bitch with all the emotional maturity of a 13-year old, and I refuse to be his prop any more. Over the weekend I was quite busy, and didn't reply to his texts (many) asking how I was because - frankly - it wasn't any of his damn business (I was fine, by the way, but I have initiated a new policy of no-contact cold-turkey for him). Drew and I both agree -he will either get the message and come out of this having grown a little bit into a man who actually has a pair of balls instead of being a great flapping pussy bitch-boy, or I will get nasty at the end and actually tell him what I think and he will lose any vesigial friendship that I have left.

The level of texting he does is, quite frankly, inappropriate. I'll be curled up on the sofa with Battlestar Galactica, my dinner, a blanket and my husband and he'll want a conversation. Or randomly text me something like "DnD gnomes just ate my face!!!". I don't care, and I don't want to know. I want to watch TV without interuptions and I want to be able to go out to see my friends without him wanting to know what I'm doing.

So I've cut him off for the week. I've had three pitiful texts and he blogged it. He was getting better and now he's got worse again.

Sad little man. I see an argument in the offing.

Tuesday, 26 May 2009

The wonders of leading the herd

I'm posting this mini-rant on this blog and not my other one, because it concerns a lot of my livejournal friends.

Approximately two-three months ago, I decided that I wanted to start bouldering. This is like rock climbing, but you never go higher than three-five metres off the ground. I mentioned this on my LJ, got a contact from one friend and expressed my desire to give it a try. I then discover that about three other friends have lept on the idea, and are also going to the introduction session the following Friday, which I was unable to make. So I ring up the place and manage to book a one-on-one intro session for the Friday afternoon. Go along. Have loads of fun.

Since then, I have been going fairly regularly with a friend that is also rather good at climbing. I find this very useful, as he encourages me to climb better and try harder problems than if I was going on my own. We have a laugh when we go as well. We get along like a house on fire (with the screaming, burning and subsequent insurance claims).

Another friend joins us for an hour of these sessions. I do not mind this. Much.

However, recently a lot of other friends are getting in on the act. They all go along on a Thursday evening, meet up, have a great time. I am unable to go. I am jealous. I then find out today that a hefty group went yesterday lunchtime as well. And there are photos. They, again, look like they are having a great time.

I am really rather annoyed over this. I know that it's stupid and immature, but this was -my- hobby, and now a load of other people have come in and are taking over and I feel less unique and interesting as a result. The only thing that I can hope is that one of the friends who drives in from Cardiff stops fairly soon because she can't afford it, and another one - whose first session was yesterday - decides not to take it up, especially when he feels how painful it can be the morning after.

So, am I selfish and childish and immature? Surely these people should be able to find their own hobby...

Saturday, 9 May 2009