City of IF

[Shillelagh]

Tempora Crepusculi - Chapter Nine


“…find my shoes,” muttered Isaac. He looked around the room, trying to collect his thoughts. The last time he had seen Jacob was only yesterday, though it seemed like ages ago. He had been just as socially awkward then, too. Or maybe Isaac just thought that he had been awkward, because of all that he had been through. Well, did it matter? He needed to get out of the Fraternity as quickly as possible.

Alex wouldn’t be awake for at least another four hours, so waiting on him was out of the question. Tony wanted to help, and he would certainly be able to answer a lot of questions, but… Isaac was already starting to feel overwhelmed; Tony would just bury him in even more information. And, anyway, it wasn’t like Isaac wouldn’t be seeing him during the next Crep. But who did that leave? Will was a good friend, if not a bit uptight… and there was always his roommate, Ben…

“I think that your shoes are over here, in this corner of the room,” said Jacob.

“Oh, right, shoes. Yeah.” Isaac put on his shoes, grabbed his keys from Jacob, and followed him out of the room. At the very least, Jacob was a member of a different Fraternity. Maybe they weren’t all as bad as Tony thought?

“Hang on,” said Isaac, jolting awake. “Where are we going? Isn’t the exit over there?” He had just followed Jacob past the hallway leading into the main hallway, and the set of doors he usually used.

“I am taking you to the rear exit,” said Jacob, with a shrug. “We will have to go downstairs, through the kitchen and into the courtyard. However, it will also be less obtrusive.”

“Obtrusive? On a Sunday morning? Who’s even awake?”

“The executive board is having a disciplinary hearing in the conference room,” said Jacob. “You should not even be here. Matt must have forgotten about you. These hearings are strictly between brothers. You represent a privacy risk. The conference room can be seen from the main foyer. They are trying to keep the distractions to a minimum.”

“What, they can’t handle two people walking past the door? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever- wait, what was that?“ Isaac stopped in midsentence as something caught his eye. “Did you see that? I could’ve sworn I just saw a weird purple light coming from the staircase…” It almost looked like the same light that the crystals emitted during the Crep… but how was that even possible during the day?

“I did not see anything,” said Jacob, with a shrug. “Shall we leave now?”

“I… leaving, right,” replied Isaac, trying to shake away images of the Crep from his mind. “I still don’t see why we just can’t-“

“I warned you what would happen if you kept this up, Reggie,” said a voice echoing down the hallway. Isaac shuddered involuntarily. It wasn’t the voice of Metos… but it had the same raspy quality. Surely Isaac was just imagining things in his paranoia. Could it really be a demon’s voice? Wasn’t there some rule? If the fey couldn’t exist outside of the Crep, how could a demon?

“You cannot use alcohol to provide yourself with such escapism,” it continued. “We warned you against such actions. Consider this your final warning.”

“Where is that voice coming from?” asked Isaac, aloud. “It’s echoing so much, I can’t tell if it’s coming from the lobby, or the basement, or what…”

“I should think that it is obvious that the voice is coming from the conference room,” said Jacob, impatiently. “May we please exit through the basement now?”

“Well…” Isaac looked around nervously. The voice had stopped, and there had been no further lights from the staircase. Was he really just imagining things? If he was right, then there was no telling what danger Jacob might be leading him into. If Jacob was right, he might be making a lot of enemies by not listening to him; enemies who might carry their grudge into the Crep.

[Shillelagh]

[This space reserved for the conclusion of the Crisis Point]

[Shillelagh]

Granted, this Crisis Point doesn't have nearly as much danger as it could. But odd things are afoot, and you've got a decision to make. You did not opt for the options which implied a hasty exit from the fraternity, so here we are. Is Isaac paranoid, or is there something supernatural going on here? Can Jacob be trusted? Who should he try and talk to once (if?) he's left the building?

Try and get as detailed of a response as possible on your thoughts about the DP. If there is a consensus, I won't bother with a poll. If there are mulitple groups of thought, then we'll be voting on a particular member's plans. Thus, the poll's 'options' will be the plans described in someone's post.

[PopeAlessandrosXVIII]

Short, but interesting! Lesee....


*Plots and plans*
Tell Jacob that, you need to start making sense about all this crap that's going on in your life, and to do so, you need answers. Weather or not Jacob will help, our hero should try his best to hunt down the light/voice. Alex may be a good sorce of info, but he's all one sided. If J tries to stop you, make a huge scence, or threaten to. He really seems to not have you seen, so pitching a fit would be a good way to get him to go along with your investigation. Another thing threatening a fit might induce, is J here telling some things to sedate your need for info in an atempt to keep you from investigateing for now. I think it's time for our hero to put his foot down, and start showing some guts!

Well, that's my idea...Keep up the great story!

[Thunderbird]

No. Nonononononononononono!

Demons walking around in the day? This fits with what peculiarities we've seen so far and I think we have enough information to run with already. Any further approach towards the 'conference room' would ultimately be disastrous in the extreme and we should feel lucky that Matteos is so distracted by his errant minion so as to not have addressed us personally already - remaining here, he had us at his mercy up til now whether we realized it or not!

GET THE *bleep* OUT OF THERE NOW!

And go on to discuss what you've just heard/witnessed with our fey friends asap. The demons are breaking the rules of the Crep and that means all hell is about to break loose in RL! Especially if the Fey cannot figure out how to jump the barrier as well.

[Tainted Biohazard]

I wonder how things would go down if we passed through the kitchen and lit the place on fire first. We know the demons are distracted and we can hope Alex will make it out on his own fine. I dont' think he's going to survive long here anyhow so we could be saving his butt longterm this way.

[PopeAlessandrosXVIII]

*Poke* *Poke* Just giving a friendly poke! Wanna sees more!

[Shillelagh]

Heh, it's funny that you poke this. TC is always in the back of mind, but it's definitely been creeping forward, what with Tikanni's list of active SGs, and the notification that my favorite expired. I'm still not sure what to do with this story, and it doesn't help that I've felt like it's been spiraling out of control for half of its existance. Ah well. So.

Here are the lists of options, based on or inspired by your comments. In lieu of a poll, pick one from each list. You can refer to each option by its first sentence.

List one: immediate action
-Trust Jacob. The voices are coming from the conference room, so leaving through the kitchen is ideal.
-Do not trust Jacob. The voices might have come from anywhere, and those lights looked ominous. Leave through the main lobby instead.
-Talk to Jacob. He's trying to rush you out, but maybe you should try and stall to collect more information. Pretend to follow him to the kitchen, but instead of leaving immediately, hold a conversation by the door to the courtyard.

List two: secondary action
-Meet up with Tony. Have a discussion about the weirdness that just happened in your life. You can talk to Alex later.
-Meet up with Will. You haven't seen him since that fateful night- maybe you should see what he's been up to? Tony will see you during the Crep anyway.
-Head home. Talk to your roommate Ben, and then call Alex once he's awake. Tony will see you during the Crep anyway.

[Thunderbird]

Maybe we should run 2 polls? Might be a bit easier to manage and inspire response... I'll wait to see if others catch on before throwing in my opinion.

[Shillelagh]

How is that not what we are doing? By keeping the lists separate, I will tally up the options in each list, and the one that is popular from each list will be chosen, even if no one actually asked for the combination in their vote.

Did I not make that clear? Or do people want to be anonymous in their votes? I guess I could put up two polls, but that just seems like a huge hassle.

[Thunderbird]

I've just seen how these sorts of non-poll pollings go and its usually not the best of response rates... as we're seeing here.

I'll opt to trust Jacob and return home.