Cape Booth Preparatory School (Closed)

[Goblin Society]

It feels too hot for September, even at eight in the morning, as the wrought iron gates of Cape Booth are pulled open by the groundskeeper. It's late enough that a crowd of students have gathered outside, and you can hear murmurs as they push towards the old main building, a brick manor at the top of a steep hill, behind which the rest of the campus spread out.

"Have you heard from Melanie?"
"Not since, you know... Since the lake." Theresa and Dorothy were cutting through the crowd, making sure they were the first inside, so they could claim their seats.

"Aren't there a lot of new kids? Nobody moves to this town. Have you seen half these girls before?" Bernadea was at the back of the crowd, leaning into Joyce to whisper just a little too loud into her ear.

"Warui desu, ne?"
"Oh my fucking god, Sophie, knock it off." Joan, the junior in charge of the anime club, had hit her yearly limit with Sophie before the first homeroom bell had rung.

The students pushed through the narrow doors of the main building, and through its winding halls and steep, uneven staircases, filtering into their homerooms. The conversations continue, as the close quarters force them to get closer and louder. With seventeen students in the cramped room, it's almost unbearably hot. Alyssa's taken a desk by the open windows and Sophie's made her customary dash to the second-to-last desk by the windows as well, more for the sake of her role as protagonist than relief from the sweltering heat. Dorothy and Thersa have long since taken their desks at the front, and are trying to hash out what happened to the third of their group, and it's clear from their expressions that they're already planning how to make Doris, who took Melanie's presumed seat, miserable. Joyce has straddled her chair like AC Slater, and it trying to get the measure of a wiry girl with bleached white hair and liberty spikes, who's new to all of you, and dressed in plain clothes that honestly look like they were made at home, and not by an expert. Bernadea's thrown her trenchcoat on the floor, and is typing on her phone with a look of intense concentration. And then, there's us, the monsters, on the first day of school.

You've only got a few minutes before the homeroom teacher arrives and tries to set the classroom to order. What do you do?

 

[theunderwolf]

Alecta flitted around the classroom, paying little heed to the laws of gravity. It was September, though she couldn’t really feel the hot an cold but school was starting again. She wasn’t sure how many sophmore years it had been now, she’d lost track, or more accurately she had just started keeping track. She hadn’t been aware before and now she was. It was odd. She felt dead but alive. No one could see her, but she existed. She had a dorm room and a classroom and never much left them except… She had seen a girl over the summer, and she stole something. Her sleeves. They were stripey and soft and warm and they made her feel very… something. Something good and violent and exciting but something she couldn’t quite… get. Like there was something blocking the idea. Girls started wandering in (One sprinted right through her) and she looked at them all from her perch on the lockers, then the desks, then floating above the teachers desk. She snuck behind one girl and hung her coat for her. Finally she hovered above what she didn’t know was called the “Haunted desk”, waiting for her next repetition of the first day of the year.

 

[Sophos]

Ana wandered into the class after most of the other girls were already in, smelling vaguely of clove cigarettes and cheap perfume. She scanned the room for a place to sit, before spotting the girl hovering over her own desk. Ana's eyes went wide with shock, and she almost said something before noticing the other girls in the room weren't even paying attention, at which point she shut her mouth and deliberately walked down the aisle next to the floating girl, shooting her a wink. It was only once she was in her seat behind the goth chick with the long coat that Ana realized that the girl had been wearing a pair of her striped sleeves.

 

[CelticSol]

Mara Goodwell​

While the phrase now seemed painfully ironic now, Mara would really rather be dead than go to school. Like, actually dead and rotting in the ground.

But instead of being at the bottom of a lake in the middle of the fucking woods, she’s at school. Instead feeling the warm summer air on her tanned skin, she feels nothing but a bone deep chill she hasn’t been able to shake since she woke up on the shore of the lake. Instead of reuniting with friends or feeling excitment for the possibilities of a new year or whatever the fuck she used to feel prior to all... this, because she remembers feeling so much for everything and everyone, but instead? There is a hollow space in the pit of her stomach where she knows feelings should be, but aren’t.

Where there were feelings, something gnawing and growling and ravenous chews her alive. Everything that is not hers calls to her, everything of value screams her name and she finds her focus fixated, enraptured, and it aches and burns until she takes it. And so, she weaves through the throngs of similarily dressed girls to get to her class, avoiding getting smashed into by freshmen too lost to pay attention and seniors too absorbed in phones or friends to pay others mind, Mara’s sharp eyes scan over the faces in the crowd, watching, waiting.

Then, she begins to bump into a few on purpose, swiping a wallet from an open purse, a bracelet off a thin wrist. One girl she hits with enough force to knock herself flat on the ground, and she smiles as the desperately apolegtic freshman tries to help her to her feet. Mara takes her hand and slides the amethyst ring off her finger as she stands, assuring the girl there is no harm done with a pat on the shoulder as she slides her hand into the side pocket of the girl’s backpack to relieve her of her phone, too.

Her smile slips off her face as she passes the girl, shutting off the phone and sliding both her prizes into the front pouch of her non-uniform sweater, retrieving the wallet from her bag. She searches the contents of the wallet as she walks, retrieving the cash, gift cards, and rewards cards within. The wallet itself would probably catch a good price, but if she keeps it then she’ll be tempted to use the credit cards she sees inside, and those would likely eventually bring them to herself. Instead of keeping it, she drops it onto the ground to be found later by some goodhearted student or staff member to be returned, or to be stolen by someone else.

She slides her plunder into her backpack just before she enters the classroom. She quickly looks for the open spots as far into the back as possible, walking through the aisle to sit herself into a seat beside a girl that distinctly smells of cloves.

 

[Goblin Society]

Ming Zhao was running a little late but, to her credit, she was running at all. She'd arrived just in time to see the crowd pass through the opening gates in the distance, and disinterested shuffle became a determined jog as she rushed to join the back of the pack.

She hadn't slept much last night. She didn't sleep a whole lot in general, any more, but it was at least half anxiety over getting herself back out there. The job was already started, having joined the swim team over the summer, but now... Well. She'd taken the time she hadn't spent sleeping on her makeup, and outfit coordination, and her back-to-school playlist, and packing a lunch for herself, and then making lunches for the rest of the week, and... it'd been a busy two in the morning. The beat of the CHVRCHES song in her earbuds made her resent that the world wasn't moving to the same pace as she tried to push her way through the clogged hallways of the main building, standing on tiptoes to try and see above the heads of the crowd.

Ming walked into the classroom, and checked for anyone she knew. She'd missed most of her freshman year, drifting through the work that was sent home for her and barely passing, in the maelstrom of everything that'd happened after the accident. The only one she knew at a glance was... Oh, Mara. She didn't look like she was doing well. Ming bit her lip and turned away, not entirely sure what she could say, or whether she could say anything. Instead, she took a seat in the back corner of the class, pulling a tape recorder and a novel from her backpack, and regretting the heavy sweater she'd worn over her uniform already.

 

[spec]

Selene has taken her seat, quietly, looking melancholy out the window. The wind seemed to whisper across trees outside, a wholly unfamiliar sight without the softness of seaweed underwater. She had lost her pelt, and so she was stuck here; might as well enjoy the sights. She flicked her eyes around the room before setting on the slightly predatory features of the girl in the corner, before looking away. Someone like that might be able to get my pelt back... she thought, before going back to a mope. Well, at least after she shrugged her own jumper off; this room was stifling.

 

[TrashRabbit]

Charlie had gotten to class early, she tended to wake at dawn and had mulled around the school property for some time before the doors had been unlocked. It had been a long time of planning and spying and stealing to get herself out of the woods and into the school and she wasn't about to let herself be late or make a mistake. She had opted for the long floor length navy blue skirt the uniform offered, she didn't get along with pants very well yet. The collared shirt was an anoyance but she felt okay about the situation. She wore flats, the kind that were barely more than slipers becuase she also didn't get along well with shoes. Her hair; she had brushed it but it was parted haphazardly, wich worked for her wild eyed long blond butch-fatal thing she was oozing.

She had staked out her home room and chosen the far back corner so that she could see everyone- close quarters made her feel on edge but humans had stubby little hands and soft nails. She looked at her own for a while, clenching and uncleanching them as the girls trickled in- accept there was a girl floating.
Just floating around.

She sat wide eyed like a cat who could see into another dimension. She clenched her fists beneath the desk and watched the girl land at a desk- and she looked just very normal sitting there, like she had never floated down from on top of the lockers. She wasn't versed enough to know what a wink was yet, she failed to pick up on Anna's acknowledgment of the ghost. Though of all the girls who had walked in, Anna looked like the kind she'd wonder, under less tense circumstance, which one of them would win in a fight. But the kill bill sirens were going off in her brain. And then another impossible girl walked into the room. She didn't know her name but she new for certain- with blood curdling certainty, that she had found this girl washed up on the shore. Out by Moony lake. She had pushed her warm nose against her cold cheek to be sure. That clicked something in her brain- the bones. The bones she had found- the old yearbook, the album- That ghost was Alecta odyssia- the bassist from Chinese odyssey.

She smacked her hands on the desk dramatically and stood pointed at Alecta and or the empty seat there- but was stopped dead in her tracks as Selene Walked in.
"Fuck," She said anticlimatically and shrank back into her seat and tried to make herself as small as possible. She had followed the doe eyed girl, with her graceful movements and dreamy looks about town for the last few weeks. She didn't even know her name yet. When Ming came in- it was the final straw, looking exactly like she spent an hour coordinating her outfit- wich she was certain she had. Befriending Ming had already been high on her priority list- a thing she thought about frequently in the last few weeks. Something she had looked forward too- now it was not even priority number two.

Two dead girls and both the girls she stalked for fun in one room. she was gonna die. She was going to go back to the woods and never come out. She continued to stare holes into the back of Alecta and Mara's heads- and then glancing at Selene gazing out the window when she needed strength. Playing human girl at human school had been a calculated risk but boy howdy was she bad at math. She wished she could growl- just let the vibration of her anxiety rumble around her chest like a warning. Instead she sat very still with clenched fists.

 

[Goblin Society]

Ming had, over the last minute, gone from sitting upright to slouched forward across her desk. All that time this morning, and she didn't look up a damn weather report, and now it was probably a hundred degrees in here and she'd worn a sweater, and, aaaargh. Fine. It's fine. She was still wearing the collared shirt underneath, so, whatever, she could change before homeroom started. She hooked her hands behind her neck and pulled the sweater off. Her oxford came along with it, sliding up to reveal the pale skin of her back and sides and Ming grunted in annoyance as she freed an arm from a sleeve, and tugged it back down, meeting the eyes of the redhead who was sitting a few rows over. After removing the sweater without further incident, she forced a smile and waved at Selene in a 'okay, hi' sort of way.

(A good boyBOT-Today at 5:12 PM @GoblinSociety: 2d6+2 = (6+2)+2 = 10

Rolling to turn on Selene, since I need to start filling out my strings chart)

 

[theunderwolf]

Alecta froze in place and stared. Oh dear oh dear. That was wassername! The thief! The dirty thief! The one she stole her nice sleeves from! which was a bit hypocritical true but she figured that she did a lot for people and maybe the sleeves were a small ask. And then Ana winked at the ghost and Alecta flipped backwords out of her seat, hyperventilating. Freaking out more then a little she looked over to Ana and ran through three people to wave furiously at the thief, gesturing at ana’s Eyes and then herself furiously with a flabber gasted look on her face. That was when she heard the quiet “fuck” from behind her and saw a strange (but pettable?) girl. Who was pointing right at her. Alecta, now convinced she had been spotted by two seperate people panicked and let out a small “eep!” And dove underneath Ana’s desk, fight or flight instinct saying she was the less scary one.

 

[Sophos]

At first Ana was worried when she saw someone she had thought was dead walk into class, flashing back to the rather unsuccessful ritual she had performed over the summer in attempt to contact the spirit of a classmate who had briefly gone missing. And then the weird ethereal girl flipped the fuck out, and it looked like someone else spotted her, too.
"Mind telling me what the fuck you're doing down there?" Ana whispered to the girl in as low a voice as she could manage.

 

[spec]

Selene blinked, heart suddenly fluttering for this poor, overwarm creature. She was familiar with that, getting stuck south with her winter coat when the world seemed like it was on fire. She got up from her desk, and stepped lightly over, kneeling beside Ming, softly blowing against her cheek. To cool her. Obviously.

@Spectralent: 2d6+2 = (5+6)+2 = 13

 

[theunderwolf]

"Y-y-y-y-you can see me?" Alecta stuttered out after a moment of trying to chew through her fingernails, "And hear me? How can you? No ones been able to do that before... You're not going to tell anyone right? I know everyone thinks my desk and room are haunted but I'm nice! I swear! Really nice, I mean I kinda maybe did some things to scare people on accident but I'm harmless I promise I just wanna help and..." She realised she was chattering and stopped and twitched nervously, before looking up at Ana again and whispering "Is the scary looking girl still looking at me? The one in the flannel? C-can she see me too?"

 

[TrashRabbit]

Charlie had pushed back in her chair and ducked down low so that she could look through the legs of the chairs and the desks between her and Alecta. She was for certain. Still watching.

 

[Sophos]

Ana didn't even look, she just shrugged. "I dunno, I guess she might be?" She said, and paused for a second. "Wait, are you saying you're a ghost? Or are you more like... a brownie or sprite or something?"
After considering the matter for a second, she came back around to the thing she originally noticed. "Hey wait, did you steal one of my sleeves? If you are a ghost, how are you wearing it?"

 

[Goblin Society]

Ming's eyes widened in surprise when the red-haired girl reacted to her wave by walking up to her desk, kneeling next to her, and started blowing on her face. Is this- do they do this where she's from? Is this normal? What's even happening? Ming turned bright red, from a mix of first and secondhand embarrassment.

"Um. Hello?" Ming was backing away as well as she could in her chair, not entirely sure what to do with a stranger's face next to hers. As Selene started to touch her face and make reassuring noises, Ming desperately tried to establish some sort of control over her situation

"It's, uh, it's nice to meet you?" Pap pap pap. "Is this- um. I mean, I don't hate it but-" Shoooosh. Pap pap pap. "Can we, uh-" Pap pap shoooosh. "Is this some sort of-" Pap pap.

Ming was pretty much frozen in her seat.

 

[spec]

Selene smiled, reaching up to squeeze her hands, smiling fondly. "Are you cooler, now..?" she said, gently, to try and ease the poor over-warm girl.

 

[Goblin Society]

"Uh- y- It's- yeah, I'm very good!!" Ming shouts, as Selene takes her hands. Why is every girl here so pretty? Why am I so gay??? Ming turns red and hangs her head as some of the girls around her turn to look at her.

 

[theunderwolf]

"I-I-I, didn't steal your sleeves! I was cold and they looked cozy!" Alecta stuttered out as she saw Charlie lean down to look at her. Maybe she was just looking for her pencil! or her wallet. There wasn't any way two whole people could see her right? She waved at the scary looking girl cautiously but then hid behind Ana's legs again. "I dunno if i'm a ghost or... I'm just here. Right? You won't tell anyone right?"
Turn on@Thoth w/sillystring: 2d6-1 = (6+3)-1 = 8

 

[Sophos]

Ana suddenly shivers as Alecta dives under her legs, and only partially because ghosts are cold. Having a girl who was more than a little cute dive through her to hide behind her was a little unnerving. She stutters out an agreement, and quickly looks around to make sure no one was watching her own reaction, less concerned whether or not anyone else could see the ghostly girl.

 

[TrashRabbit]

It was just too much. Today was supposed to be her first taste of normal not her first time spotting two dead girls- not to mention Ming and Selene being in the room. She felt like she was filled with bees, and she couldn't keep her feet from squirming beneath her desk. Some of the other girls had begun to look at her, because her wide wild eyed look with her tousled hair looked less cute and more alarming. She needed to go. She grabbed her bag, open up the low window, the kind that opened inward and gracefully peaced out. She didn't land very gracefully on two legs and plonked down to her ass- it was only a story drop and she exited at the floor. She got up and ran for the woods. It wasn't far. But the safety of the woods also brought out big hot tears- she touched her eyes and the wet of her face. She spert most of her time as a wolf and she was not accustom to tears. She punch a big mossy pine tree and sat beneath it, skirt pooled out around her.
Today was supposed to be her first normal day. Everything was awful. And she argued with herself weather or not to go back, berating herself for ruining all her work at the library and wallowing in her misfortune in turns.

Keep cool 2d6-1 = (1+1)-1 = 1
Run away 2d6+1 = (3+6)+1 = 10

 

[Goblin Society]

We cut between Charlie jumping out a second floor window, and landing with the characteristic grace of a wolf jumping out a second floor window, and the classroom, a few girls noticing her exit, everyone else too absorbed in their own personal drama to take any note of a girl leaving through definitely-not-a-door. As Charlie goes to the ground, the homeroom teacher, a woman in her early 30s, who looks barely older than the students, enters the room and starts trying to take control of the procedings.

Later, after a first day that was mostly teachers trying to establish that they'd be the ones running the class, you're shown to the dormitories. They're an old converted manor house, with irregular rooms each converted to bedrooms, a kitchen, a lounge with a surprising array of games, from arcade to ping-pong and bathrooms with shower stalls. Each of you is assigned to a room by the dorm proctor, and introduced to your roommates.

Describe what sort of probably-not-originally-a-bedroom room you're living in, and your first meeting as people sharing a room!

 

[TrashRabbit]

Charlie and Ana​

Charlie peeked into the dorm room, having played hooky on her first day she felt some how that she would be in trouble- the same way that librarians were mad when you got mud on books, or how shop keepers demanded shoes. But there was Anna inside the small dorm- she had yet to be screamed at by some one her own age so maybe she was safe. though Anna had harbored the dead girl beneath her desk. She didn't know where that put them. She didn't have much experience existing in rooms- so she slunk in, as quiet as could be and sat on her bed, her little blue suitcase at her feet. (kinda hopping ana will turn around and not know she had come in)

Ana was busy setting up a small table covered in what Charlie would most likely assume were sentimental objects, unless she had read much about witchcraft in the library. After she was finished, Ana turned and surveyed the room, before giving a startled cry upon noticing Charlie. "Holy crap, don't startle me like that! Are you my roommate? How long have you been sitting there? Is that suitcase all you have?" The barrage of questions was rapid-fire, leaving no time for Charlie to actually answer, until Ana paused for a breath and stuck out her hand. "I'm Ana. Well actually my name is long and kinda stupid, but everyone just calls me Ana, so you can too."


charlie jumped in turn,"Sorry!" She heard the influx of questions but only really processed the last one, "Yeah, I -uh travel light," She said with a laugh born of nerves. "I'm Charlie," she added taking her hand for a rather too firm handshake. she picked a leaf lingering on her skirt and let it flutter to the floor. she took in Ana's side of the room- she had a whole collection of things that she was setting up. Maybe not having a collection of things wasn't normal. she glanced at her little blue suit case, it was all necessities. A how to be human emergency kit. But there was a more burning question. "Um- in home room today, who was that girl, that got under your desk?" She breaches the question as tactfully as she knows how, which is with out warning and out of the blue, but she does ask casually like there had not been anything strange about first period and like it hadn't driven her to throw herself out a window.

Ana's eyes go wide at Charlie's question, and she smiled. "You could see her too? I thought I was the only one! I think she's a ghost, or maybe a fairy. She was scared of you for some reason though. Do you know her?" Ana frowned for a second, hoping the interesting girl from homeroom wasn't in trouble. Lucky for Charlie, Ana had been a bit distracted by the ghostly girl and hadn't noticed her strange exit, so that wasn't going to come up unless she brought it up.


"Kinda, her music's great but she's completely fucking dead as hell," Charlie blurts out.

"Oh. So she is a ghost. That explains some things," Ana said before suddenly realizing something else. "Wait. Music? I didn't hear any music. That's weird."

"No no I mean when she was alive, she had a wicked sweet band, its at the library," Charlie said, "That's how I recognized her."

"Ohhh. So do you spend a lot of time at the library? I guess that could be cool," Ana said, sitting down on the bed across from Charlie.

"Yeah!" Charlie said a bit too eagerly and then shrinks back behind her hair. Some how having some one confirm that the dead girl was dead put her at ease- suddenly she was no longer alone in an unfamiliar situation of "how to handle a dead girl" all by herself. It wasn't the concept of a ghost that bothered her, but how to deal with it. But now it is replaced with the struggle to make normal conversation.