Well, I lied. I actually fell asleep and then didn't find time to write until last night.
☲ ☲ ☲
Tuesday, March 1, 2011 - Afternoon
You leave Mr. Gladly's class, shut the door behind you, and walk to the closest stairwell. Instead of going down to the nurse's office, you go up to the 3rd floor, then walk to the rear stairwell to get to the roof.
You glance in the classrooms along the way, and by chance, you happen to see Taylor: she's sitting at the desk nearest the door.
You think about her for a moment, and compare her to yourself. In some ways, she's the same as you: you're both social outsiders, you both wear plain clothes, you're both a little nerdy. But in many other ways, you're opposites: your wardrobe is plain but neat, crisp, and fits you well; hers looks baggy, wrinkled, and oversized. You wear light colors; she wears dark grays and browns. You always tie your hair back; hers spills out, always down.
Both of you seem to leave school pretty quickly once classes end, but in her case, she's probably running away. You are usually hurrying home — well, back to the orphanage, which is home enough. Most days you have to pick up some of the younger kids on your way back, and then you have to help out with chores, entertaining the younger ones, homework, and dinner.
You're busy with your own responsibilities. It's not fair that you're the only one who cares about thwarting the injustice which is blatantly playing out among the girls in your grade.
But that's the way the world is. It's not fair, and if you want justice, you have to make it with your own claws. Er, hands. Which you're doing right now, right here in the 3rd floor girl's bathroom.
You begin your quest to make justice with your own hands by wrecking one of the toilets.
You jerk the flush handles back and forth until one of them jams. Something inside snaps, and water is flowing continuously. Then, you take two rolls of toilet paper and wedge them into the toilet's chute with a mop handle. The toilet bowl begins to fill with water, which will spill out onto the floor. Now you have an excuse to talk to the janitor.
Disable Device +6; rolled 12 = 18 vs. DC 15
You reach the rear stairwell and ascend to the roof. The door is equipped with an alarm, presumably to prevent students from casually using the roof to smoke — but the alarm is only attached to an unused lock bolt, presumably because a functioning door alarm would have prevented teachers and staff from casually using the roof to smoke. Just press the door literally anywhere other than the alarm bar, and it opens without triggering an alarm.
Warm air rushes out as you open the door and step onto the snowy roof. Gray sky above, damp snow below, the black tar of the roof showing through like tarnish on a silver mirror. The trampled-down snow around the door shows the area where staff and students usually stand, but none of them are here now. Maybe the delinquents leave school entirely after lunch. Maybe it's too cold.
Frustrated, you sigh out a cloud of steam, and warm wispy flames lick the base of the cloud.
Fuck. You look around guiltily, but see nobody.
Whew.
You walk to the corner of the snowy roof. There are a couple hidden slippery patches of ice, but your balance is good and you don't fall. From this vantage, you can see behind the 10-foot high walls of snow where the plow pushed nature's most recent act of spite. You see a couple of students smoking.
You walk to another corner. You can't see into the alley behind the gym, but you can see occasional puffs of smoke rising from it. That's probably the janitor. Mr. Ross? Is that his name? You think so.
Int check +2 rolled 3 = 5 vs. DC 10; his name is actually Ross Riviera.
A shiver runs through you. Right, you didn't wear your coat, because you're just supposed to be going to the nurse's office.
You go back inside and pull the door shut behind you. You rub your cheeks: your fingers feel cold, and slightly stiff. You can't afford stiff fingers. You run down the stairs in an effort to warm up before you head back outside.
☲ ☲ ☲
Running down the stairs didn't warm you up much. You'll just have to be quick. You push open the back stairway's yard exit and hurry outside, then pull up short as you almost collide with a couple of guys. They're the students you saw from the roof, a taller skinny guy wearing a green wool cap, and a broader more solid guy wearing a puffy orange hunting vest. They're untidy, but they smell pleasantly of smoke.
"What there," the taller one says, "What's the rush?"
You take a step sideways, out of the doorway. "Nothing. Go ahead."
"Haven't seen you out in the yard before."
Well duh, you're not a smoker. You don't answer, you just want them to go away.
After a second or two of silence, he turns away. "See you around."
You start to walk quickly towards the back alley where you hope to find the janitor. When you hear the doors click shut behind you, you glance over your shoulder, and you're a bit relieved that you don't see the guys.
Not that you were worried or anything.
You could take them.
As distracted as you were, you don't even need to fake being clumsy as you bump into the janitor turning the corner. You bounce off him and fall backwards, catching yourself on your hands before your pants and shirt can get wet.
"Ow," you sputter, "I'm so sorry, I didn't see you."
"I ain't hurt, little lady," he replies, offering his hand, "Here."
"Thanks, Mr. Ross." His calloused hand is warm.
"Ross is my name, but you oughta call me Mr. Rivera."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Rivera, I'm bad with names," you say, mentally kicking yourself. "I was actually out here looking for you. There's a leak in the upstairs bathroom, one of the toilets." As he helps you up, you slip on the frozen ground, and take a chance on nabbing his keychain. He doesn't seem to notice.
Sleight of Hand +5; rolled 18 = 23 vs. DC 14 perception / DC 20 lift a small object
You make a show of brushing snow off your backpack and slip the key ring into a side pocket.
"Alright, I'll take a look." He sighs. "I was goin' inside anyway."
"Thanks, Mr. Rivera."
You go inside with him. He leaves you at the stairs, plodding up one slow step after the other. You wonder if he has arthritis or bronchitis or if walking slow is just his personality.
Ow, your hands hurt. You look at them. Some abrasions, plus cold water. You resist wiping them off on your jeans, and head to the first floor bathroom instead.
You pass the door to the gym. You hear the thunder of twenty basketballs bouncing. You're glad you don't have gym today: dribbling with raw hands would suck.
You reach the bathroom and warm up your hands under the hot water, then dab yourself dry with the paper towels. You look yourself over in the mirror, and realize you're procrastinating.
Alright. Enough dawdling. Time to commit theft in order to prevent injustice.
You sling your backpack under your arm, with the top unzipped and facing front. You'll want to get whatever's in the locker out of sight as quickly as possible.
You quietly walk to the lockers. Surprisingly, you encounter resistance: the campus security guard, Mike something, is walking the halls. You detour through the second floor to avoid him. When you come down at the other end of the hall, he's gone.
Stealth 5 + rolled 9 = 14 vs. DC 10
You look from one end of the hall to the other. Nobody.
Great.
Forcing yourself to look casual, you walk to Taylor's locker. You remember the general area from the incident in January, and from this morning, and once you're in the right area, it's easy to identify her locker by the dents and graffiti.
There are twenty keys on the chain. Three of them are around the right size for a locker. You try one at random; nope. The second one fits and the door opens. There on the floor of the locker are two nice handbags and two wallets, all in good condition. They obviously weren't shoved through the air vents.
Weird.
You crouch down and stuff them one after another into your backpack.
You stand, and are dizzy for a moment. Headrush. You try to close the door quietly, but it clatters and doesn't latch. Your hands are trembling.
Fuck. You take a deep breath and try again; this time, you manage to shut the locker door without much noise.
Stealth +5; rolled 1 = 6 vs. DC not telling
Perception +4; rolled 12 = 16 vs. DC not telling
You hurry away, toward the nurse's office. That was
way more nerve-wracking than you'd expected.
The nurse is in, talking to someone on her cellphone. She asks the person on the other end to hold on, and looks at you impatiently. You tell her you're having bad cramps, and you slipped on the stairs. You show her your hands. She tells you you'll be fine, gives you an ibuprofen tablet and a fast-food ketchup bag of topical antiseptic to apply. She waves you towards the cots and resumes her conversation.
☲ ☲ ☲
Your hands are sticky from the antiseptic, which is strongly colored, and claims to have iodine in it. You decide not to mess with the contents of your backpack while your hands are like this.
You lie back on the infirmary cot nearest the window and stare out, up at the dull gray sky. You force yourself to breathe slowly, to calm down.
Your eyelids feel heavy. You woke up pretty early this morning.
You watch the clock and try not to nap.
☲ ☲ ☲
You wake up with a jerk and your eyes jump to the clock. Quarter past two. Barely ten minutes before the bell announces the end of class.
Fuck. You have to deal with the contents of your backpack.
You get up, wipe your hands clean, and thank the nurse, who is still on the phone. She scribbles on an infirmary slip and hands it to you: she's written
CRAMPS in large red letters, along with 3rd period and date. Well that's mortifying, but at least it's a solid alibi.
You fold the slip in half and stick it in your jeans pocket. You'll give it to Mr. Gladly later.
You enter a school bathroom for the third time today, pick the second to last stall, sit down, and get to work.
In all, they have $170 in cash. You're surprised at the amount. You put $20 in your pocket, and stuff the rest inside your thick wool socks, around your ankles.
Each of them has a credit card, though you suspect some are just prepaid or debit cards. You've never had one yourself, so you don't know much about them. Into the toilet they go.
Business cards, receipts, a bus pass: into the toilet.
Two health insurance cards. You hesitate for only a moment. Plop, plot.
Sophia's wallet has some kind of weird electronic card with some buttons, a finger-sized square on it and a small LCD panel. Maybe some kind of high-tech kidnaping tracking device? Or is it even more advanced — could it be Tinkertech? Was that how they got the "stolen" goods into the locker? Weird to think of someone using Tinkertech for pranks, but if you had a Tinker friend, surely you'd find some practical uses for her gifts. Anyway, whatever it is, it is not something you want to keep with you. Into the toilet.
Julia's bag has her cellphone. It's one of the midrange clamshell models. You pop out the battery and drop it into the toilet. Plop. You feel a little bad: cellphones are expensive.
You toss the smaller makeup items into the toilet, but you pause at an eyeliner kit with a mirror, and snap off the mirror half of the case. That looks useful for checking around corners.
The phone and everything that's too big to get flushed, including the wallets and handbags themselves, go in the dirty hand towel bin.
You're just finishing up when you hear the bell for class, and not ten seconds later the door flies open.
Search +3; rolled 9 = 12 vs. DC 10
You pretend to do your business in a stall, and leave with the crowd.
☲ ☲ ☲
It's 4:00 PM. Everybody wants to leave. Why aren't you being allowed to leave?
The hall is full, students shuffle forward slowly. You can barely make out the teachers at the other end.
"… chosen at random … please remain … next!"
A few people push past, but the crowd seems remarkably patient. You look around, thinking about who's here, who's not.
Ah. The stoners and smokers must have gone out the side or back doors. The jocks have practice after school, and aren't here. So it's just the regular kids, the people like you.
You think about emulating the bad kids and heading for a side door, but when you glance back, there's something wrong. Something in the shadows
moves. Your instincts warn you that there's someone hiding, but you can't see who or where exactly without looking way too obvious about it.
Perception +5; rolled 9 = 14 vs. DC not telling
It takes a thief to catch a thief, maybe? You wonder if you're not the only unusually skilled person in the school. Something to keep in mind if you ever need to move around the school covertly again.
You hear Mr. Spenser's voice boom over the muttering of the crowd. "This is taking too long." Gym teacher: big guy, big voice.
"I have an idea," Emma says in the ensuing pause. "I'll call Julia's phone. If anyone hears a ring, that's the culprit."
It's kind of pretentious how she talks like she's a lawyer, but you guess that's just her mask.
"Alright. Everyone quiet. We'll try this once." The campus rent-a-cop sounds tired.
Emma holds the phone up triumphantly. For a couple of seconds, it's actually quiet enough to barely hear her the ringing from her ear speaker. There is no corresponding ring, of course, and you alone know why.
After that, the line starts to move a bit quicker. They must be letting more kids by with less scrutiny.
Fine by me.
You get close to the exit. It looks like they have some of the long folding tables set up, and they've roped a few of the teachers into acting as impromptu security guards, for some reason. Mr. Spenser is bodily blocking the exit, looking each student over and deciding if they can go or if their bags will get searched. He nods at you and gestures at the door with his head. You nod back in thanks, and leave.
At last. That's fifteen minutes of your life which you won't get back. Oh well, mission accomplished at least, and now you've got a couple of hours to get something done.
☲ ☲ ☲
Mission Accomplished: 300 xp
+ Theft of significant value: 100 xp
+ Punishment of injustice: 100 xp
After School Activities, Day 1
Vote CLOSED
Choose
ONE or TWO of the following:
[_] Finances: Find a place to sell your gold coin.
[_] Shopping: A prepaid cell phone.
[_] Shopping: Sporting Goods: compound bow, some arrows, a hunting knife.
[_] Shopping: Self-Defense: metal baton, pepper spray.
[_] Shopping: Other (write in).
[_] Investigation: Take the bus to the PRT and ask about the Wards program.
[_] Investigation: Taylor probably left around the same time you did. Follow her home like a stalker with a crush.
[_] Investigation: Go to the library and research cape stuff. (Or research other stuff: write in.)
[_] Socialize: Track down Taylor and talk to her about the events of the day. Try to find out why she became "victim girl".
[_] Socialize: "Hey Julia, hey Madison. They said you got robbed? That sucks! What happened?"
[_] Territory: Walk around the Chapel Hill Orphanage neighborhood, saying hi to the shopkeepers, and look for signs of gang activity. Help locals if you can.
[_] Training: Yuu can probably help you find someone to train you in the skill you want: martial arts / firearms / driving a car / first aid / (or write in which skill).
[_] Larceny: Yuu can probably help you find a shady locksmith who will copy some of the janitor's keys, which are still in your pocket. This will cost a bunch, but you can probably afford it.
[_] Have A Party: It's your birthday! You don't care much, because you're 16 now and totally way too mature for that stuff, but the kids love cake and parties so you do your best to act un-embarrassed. (Note: If this option loses, then today is
not your birthday.)
Draconic Aesthetic
Vote CLOSED
Choose
ONE of the following:
[_] Subdermal Armor: Your level 2 scales are subtle, but all over. People who see your body from far away might not notice, but anyone looking at your hands or feet closely will see that there is something unusual about your mostly-human skin.
[_] Draconic Stigmata: Your level 2 scales are obvious, but localized. People who see your knees, elbows, belly or the back of your neck will immediately notice your inhuman skin. A long-sleeved shirt will cover you fine.
[_] Mask of Scales: Your level 2 scales are very obvious, but you can make them disappear at will. Your scales cover and distort your face, hands, neck, etc., but you can make them disappear with a Standard action. Hiding your scales also deprives you of their AC benefit. REQUIREMENT: It turns out this is just a very limited application of the Lesser invocation Humanoid Shape. You are required to take that Invocation as soon as it is available, and never trade it out.