No Norm this week, due to crazy levels of work, so the police just kept Darius in the station for the whole episode. I typed most of this while we played, so it should be much more accurate than last time’s one, which was patchy.

After dark, Alex, Megan and Calvin are still in the school after breaking in. In the bio labs, Calvin is having difficulty seeing so goes to flick on the lights. Alex stops him, her slayer hearing has detected the sound of footsteps. The security guard opens the door and swings the flashlight around the room. Megan hides under the teacher’s desk, Calvin dives under a bookshelf and Alex uses her slayer awesomeness to leap up and hold herself flattened on the ceiling.

The security guard crosses the room, opens a drawer in the teacher’s desk, Megan is frozen in fear. He extracts a bottle of something and pours himself a measure. He replaces the bottle, exits the room. Megan breathes again. <!–more-

Alex waits until she can't hear the footsteps any more and drops down, the others emerge. Alex crosses to a window, gestures to Calvin 'hey is there an alarm on this?'
Calvin (checks it): Just looks like a window.
Alex opens the window and jumps out, realising once she has done so that this is the second floor and the others probably won't be following her.
Calvin: did she seem depressed to you earlier?

Megan and Calvin walk out the building, going out the way the meat is delivered, just to pick up on any extra clues. The security door, which is a swipe card activated one and should be locked by default is set on 'unlock', very suspicious. Alex meets them on the other side of the door, conspicuously not saying anything about randomly jumping out of a second floor window. They speculate for a while about who could have been responsible for fixing the door. Calvin reckons its Xavier or a staff member.

*Break for fireworks.*

Calvin breaks open the security door's circuit box so that Megan can look inside. She can see it's been tampered with, an extra bit has been soldered on so she souvenirs it. In the car she examines it, using Calvin's medium sized torch. Calvin drives past the river so they can dispose of the dead flying monkey.

A: So what'd you find, Megan?
M: It's not right, like, I don't see how it could be this magnetic. I guess it must be magic. I don't know, I guess I'll have to take a closer look.

Alex mentions that she's going out patrolling.
Calvin: I'll come too.
Megan:…me too.
Calvin and Alex both look at her black eye incredulously. C+A: Are you sure?
M: Yeah?

They pull up outside the cemetery, arm up and walk in.

C: So, uh, Alex, how's your brother?
A: Oh he's getting better, he's back home. Mum and Dad are hovering around him. There's this real air of blame about the place.
C: Blame?
A: Yeah, they're blaming each other, like, you should have done more, I should have done more.
C: Right.
A: And they don't seem to notice me at all. Like they haven't once asked why I'm going out more often. It's like they don't even notice me or care at all.
C: join the club
M: Jim Lock is always over at my place, and my Dad's only been gone 6 months. *starts crying* I mean, he could totally still come back!
A: Of course he could.
C: Yeah, I mean, Martha was missing for two years and she turned up.
Alex puts an arm around Megan, comfortingly.
A: So, Calvin, how's Gina?
Megan cries harder.
C: Oh, I dunno.
A: She seemed to be coming out of her shell a bit more recently.
C: She has? I haven't really noticed.
A: Yeah, she's been remembering a lot more too, about the world.
C: Probably because of Darius doing that spell in front of the magic mirror.
A: Yeah, she's letting the people know more about the world.
C: Or she's expanding her world.
A sucks in breath: Yeah.
M: Maybe we should go through and check?
C: No way. Not until we can figure out how to fight her.
M: Alex could punch her right?
A: Don't you remember the way she made and threw fireballs?
M: Oh yeah….but she wasn't really making them herself, it was more like she was manipulating the flame that was already present.
C: Kinda like Pyro in the Xmen movie.
A: Right, so I have to work on getting better at dodging.
M: And catching.
C: Right, or we could get Darius to level up, you know. Fight fire with fire.
A: I don't think you could call Darius fire.
Vampires: Excuse us.
A: What do you want?
C: You know, it's really rude to butt in like that.
V: I don't like talky food. *Attacks*

There are two vampires, looking recently dead and with game faces on. Alex displays her cool moves, kicks one in face, hits the other with her machete.
The kicked vampire punches Calvin in the head since he was continuing the conversation and saying 'yeah, you have to get better at dodging' comedic irony. Calvin retaliates by embedding his axe in the vampire's shoulder, Megan skirts around behind the vampire to help Calvin, stakes the vamp, but misses the heart.
The vampire spins to hiss at Megan and backhand Calvin at the same time, who manages to dodge. He swings back round and thwacks the vamp with his axe which finishes it off.
Alex and her vamp are having a tug of war with the machete, which she inevitably wins and kills the vamp.
Alex: Yeah, so I reckon we need to get better at fighting first, then we should be able to take her down.

Calvin drops them home, as she gets out Alex asks how his sister is, he mentions that his parents haven't been in touch.

Inside Calvin's lounge, Mason and Martha are…acting weird, like Calvin interrupted something. Mason excuses himself, saying its getting late. Calvin sits down and looks at Martha.
Martha: Are you OK? Your face..
C: Yeah I'm fine. So, what was all that about?
M: Um…Oh yeah, I'm the older sibling, I don't have to tell you anything.
C: Come on.
M: It's getting late, I'm gonna go to bed.

Megan gets home to an empty house, goes to the loft to find her chemistry and science geek stuff, examines the circuit board. It's been magnetised somehow. Megan then does more research on the photo by checking Bebo. She finds a freshman's profile who has lots of photos of cheerleaders. The guy whose hand is in the murder scene photo is probably Travis Beard. Megan looks up his school record and discovers that he is a recent transfer from another school, he's been in detention a few times, he's had difficulties in his other schools, attacking people. He hasn't joined any clubs, he's got good grades in math and science.

On Tuesday morning Calvin waits out the front of the school for Alex to arrive.
Alex: Geeze, your face looks painful, *reaches out to touch the bruise*
Calvin: Don't! Touch it.
A: Oh OK.

Calvin asks Alex if, while they were dating, Mason ever mentioned Martha to her. Alex says no, apart from saying how strange it was when she disappeared. She asks why Calvin is asking and at first he won't say, but she presses him and he tells her about the night before and how it felt awkward to walk in on. Alex doesn't seem that fazed.
A: Are you OK?
C: Yeah, course.
A: You seem freaked out.
C: I'm not freaked out. It's just weird is all.
A: OK.
C: I gotta go to class. *takes off*
A waits for a minute, stunned, and then runs to catch up with Calvin.
C: What?
A: Nothing, I've got school, too…

Megan isn't in biology class, but Alex catches up with her between classes at the locker. Megan hasn't slept all night, with all the research she's been doing.
M: Hey, do you have a moment?
A: of course.
Jim Lock: Hi Megan! I'm here to fix a lock.
Megan shudders, Alex makes an excuse and they take off.

Megan tells Alex about Travis, his history and his probable being the murderer.

Savannah comes up to them: Hey, Megan, you're friends with Darius right? Is he at school today?
M: I dunno, uh.
S: because we were supposed to be meeting to talk about our science project.
A: I'm gonna go, now.
S: Ew, why were you even hanging out with her?
M: Um…

Meanwhile, Calvin has been subtly stalking Xavier, convinced he's up to something. Calvin opens Xavier's locker again and finds monkey bones on a string.

Alex startles Calvin. Megan catches up with them, they tell Calvin about the Travis thing.
C: Oh and Xavier's the one summoning flying monkeys.
A: how do you know?
C: rattles the bones at Alex.
A: ew.

Calvin terrorises freshmen finds out that Travis hasn't been seen since yesterday.

Alex, Calvin and Megan leave school to check out Travis's house. There is an encounter with Mason in the hall, while Calvin and Alex laugh about 'last night'. She bumps into him, drops books, awkward moment.

Megan grabs a pamphlet on the science fair, worried that her carefully won social life is slipping away from her. She also checks the police records to find out what's going on with Darius. They drive to Travis's house, it's drab, boring bit of suburbia. Middle classish, maybe a bit poorer.

Alex pretends to be a peer buddy, checking up on Travis. His mother is freaked out and says he didn't come home the night before, she hasn't seen him since school.
He was working on his science project.
A: what was his science project?
Travis's mother: He was doing a to scale reproduction of Pompeii.
Alex gets Travis's number off her and little more information.

Alex tries calling Travis's number, it rings for a while and then its answered by a Janitor. Locker 259, the phone was found abandoned.
Calvin: well, we know his name, we just need Darius to do that spell again.
They pull up outside Darius's house and that's where we ended

Previously on Fall…..Episode one
Epsiode two
Episode three
Episode 4 “Watch Your Back.’
Episode 5 “Worst Day Ever”.
Episode 6 “Vanity”.
Slayage by Gaslight and ep 7
Episode 7 “Change the Channel”
Episode 8 “This is your brain on drugs”
Episode 9 ‘You can’t make an omelette.’
Episode 10 ‘Full House’
Episode 11 ‘Head Trip’
Episode 12 – ‘Family Ties’
Episode 13 – ‘Getting Ahead’
Sophie’s recaps.

Darius wakes up and can’t remember where he is. That is, until there’s a knock at the door and Gina asks if he wants breakfast.

Downstairs Calvin and Martha are talking and laughing over some inexplicable family joke that makes no sense to the others. Megan and Gina are giving them space. Darius has a toaster waffle. It’s Monday morning.

Megan goes home before school and has an awkward conversation with Jim Lock, her mother’s new boyfriend, he wants to know where her black eye came from. She makes a lame excuse (she sucks at acting remember) and runs upstairs to fix what she can with make up. Megan swings by Darius’ house on the way to school, although I don’t remember why. Myabe just to get the full story about their trip?

Darius is severely jet lagged and sleeps through much of school.

Megan has a long and awesome conversations with the cheerleaders, who ask about the bruises and also what happened to her over the weekend, since none of them saw her. There is some disturbing talk about how it wasn’t a bruise it was an eye hickey, then the subject of the weekend:
Megan: I went to….the Hamptons? In New York?
Tiffany: Who did you go with?
Megan: I went…by…myself? To meet……..a penpal?
Aurora: A penpal? Like people had in the 80s?
Megan: *runs away*

After school Alex is running late for lacrosse practice, since she wasn’t at school all day. She’s the last from the team in the locker room as the cheerleaders take over, gossiping and taking their time getting ready for their practice. There’s a piercing scream, Aurora has found the severed head of Jason, the star quarterback in her locker. Aurora becomes hysterical, falling to the floor and having to be comforted by Tiffany.

A teacher comes in to find out what all the screaming is about and promptly faints dead away. Alex runs to get Miss Hodgkiss, who is the closest teacher she can find. While she’s gone, Megan goes to investigate the severed head. She gets pretty close and gets a good look at the cut and even touches it before fainting herself. She lands on the fainted teacher. (more…)

I’ve never signed up for Fright Night before, because I was too scared.

True facts. I figured that if Wellington’s best roleplayers were specifically writing scary games then it would be an evening of terror. Plus, it was easy to justify this because it’s a very small convention and games fill up way fast and I was too late to sign up, because I was a ‘fraidy cat, and so I would let the choice be made for me.

This year take up was slow, however, and Sophie sent me a peer pressure email about how I should sign up. Fright Night fell of Hallowe’en this year, and I love Hallowe’en, and I thought I wouldn’t have anything to do since Lee would be performing. I looked through the games and one from each session immediately jumped out at me. I went ahead and signed up. I told myself that I’ve done plenty of horror roleplaying and loved it to bits. I was brave!

Fright Night went ahead and I got into both of the games I had hoped for. Communing in Darkness, a mini-LARP run by Donna and set in 1920s Boston at a seance party. Amphigori played the medium and man, was she convincing. I was Mercedes, a socialite with a fascination with the occult who was sceptical due to all the fake seances she’d been to but also desperate to believe it was real.
(more…)

In England, Darius and Calvin are being driven by a young and enthusiastic slayer called Amelia. She goes very fast and doesn’t look at the road that often.
Calvin: Um, which side of the road are we meant to be on?
Amelia: whichever one’s empty.

She tells them stories about the various monsters she’s slain and Darius mentions that they have their own bone demon. (Haruni). Calvin asks her what she knows about evil twins from another dimension and how to defeat them.
Amelia: you’d have to talk to the technical department about that.

Monday morning at school, Fall River. Alex is looking for Calvin who is not there at all. Mason tracks her down instead.
Mason: Hey, I’m sorry about your brother.
Alex: Thanks. (more…)

Due to unforeseen circumstances Sophie was unable to play on Thursday, however the rest of us soldiered on and an episode of Fall was played with no appearance from the slayer.

The ep starts directly after the end of the last one, Calvin is driving Megan and Darius home from the hospital when he says win uncharacteristic seriousness, ‘Uh, Darius, you know that spell you keep doing which lets us find stuff we know the name of?’
Darius: Uh, yeah?
C: Do you think you could do it again?
D: God, why? I’ve done it like a million times.
C: Well, we never found my sister’s body.
D:…what?
C: She went missing a couple of years ago and the search never turned up anything. I mean, we had a funeral but the coffin was empty.
D: Yeah, I can do it again.

There was some discussion on how to handle the spell, since there was no guarantee that she was still in the country or easy to drive to. Calvin asked if the spell could work with a map, like it would point to a place on the map where she was, rather than just pointing. Darius told the others he would do some research and let them know in the morning.

After some research Darius decided to invent his own spell. Because nothing at all could go wrong there. Nothing at all. He spent most of the night figuring it out and texted Calvin at 2am “I need a personal item and her name.” One of the other requirements was frog’s eyes.

The spell had to be done on the night of the full moon, which conveniently enough was the Sunday night. Darius spent the whole day chasing frogs in his back yard and failing. He eventually went to a pet shop and bought a rather expensive tree frog which he then had qualms over killing. He put it in the freezer for a humane death and by the time Megan and Calvin arrived he had separated the eyes from the frog.
Megan: Eww, what are those?
D: Frog’s eyes?
M: Oh, I found a place online where you can buy those. It’s like 217 for $20.
D:…

Calvin hands over a photo of his sister, Martha and a necklace from her bedroom. Her bedroom has been left exactly how it was of course, and he was careful to choose a necklace that looked new, so it wasn’t a hand me down or anything.

Darius decides to hold the ritual in the basement.
C: Are you sure you should be doing magic right by the mirror into Evil Megan’s world?
D: eh, what could go wrong? Besides I don’t want to get chalk on the carpet.

The ritual involves lighting candles in four corners, and Darius chanting over a globe. There is a pile of herbs and shaved carrots (Darius was substituting some ingredients.) Megan is unsure about the safety of the whole thing and grabs the fire extinguisher. Calvin gets his axe from the car in case something terrible comes through by accident. The flying monkey who is living down there in Nebby’s travel crate is very angry and screams at them all. Calvin hold’s Nebby’s collar to ensure that he doesn’t get within the monkey’s grasp.

The spell is impressive, the flames on the candles flare a foot above the wick and then form a whirling fire spiral. Megan and Calvin look concerned but the flames zoom together and hit a spot on the globe, which then explodes. Darius keels over backwards and smacks his head on the concrete floor. He moans and rubs his head, then looks up at Calvin in confusion.
D: Calvin? What are you doing here? (more…)

It’s Friday night, about a week and a half since the events of last episode. Alex is studying at home, she’s been working hard on getting her grades back up from the Bs she’s been getting lately, she hasn’t been patrolling and she’s been avoiding the rest of the gang. Darius would normally be bugging her about this but he’s been ’sick’, hanging out at home to avoid the jock he took out. Megan has been keeping on keeping on and Calvin’s grades are actually going up, since Gina is a good influence and he’s actually been going to school.

It’s a normal Friday night, her father is cooking dinner, her mother is working on a new movie script and her little brother Jarod is out at a friend’s place. She goes to bed a bit past midnight and gets up at her usual sleep in time around 9.30 on Saturday. When she gets downstairs there’s something slightly weird, something different. Alex places it: no Saturday morning cartoons playing. She goes into the kitchen where she has a mundane conversation with her parents, about curtains and study and stuff. Then her mother says, ever so casually, ‘Where’s your brother?’

Suddenly the kitchen is full of tension, Jared never came home the night before. The parents make some calls around the parents of Jarod’s friends but they haven’t seen him. They then take their cars and start driving around town. Alex goes out for a jog which happens to take her to Megan’s house. Megan’s front door is opened by Jim Lock, locksmith and lothario. Megan and Alex go online and track down a football team photo which shows the names of all of Jarod’s team mates. Alex then looks them up in the online phone book and jogs by each and every house, but no one has seen Jarod.

Once Alex has left Megan gives Darius a call and they have a talk about what could have happened. Megan had been careful not to say anything worrisome, like what might have happened to Jarod. But she let it out when she spoke to Darius. Together they went through options for what to do.

Alex gets home in the mean time. Her mother is freaking out. Alex calls Darius, who is still on the phone. Impatient she texts him and he calls her back.
‘Can you do that spell again? Where you find something with a little stick?’
Darius: Yeah that spell wasn’t too eye-bleedy. I could do it again.
Alex: Have you got everything you need for it?
Darius: Uh…yeah…no, I need the hair of a thief.
Alex: I’ll be right over. (more…)

Darius’s kitchen and Alex is about to boil the weird egg that Calvin brought back from the retirement home. After drawing a picture for Megan, Calvin passes over his phone so that she can take the photos of the beastie off it. Darius vanishes. (What I haven’t conveyed in this paragraph is that this action took about half an hour of game play. Turns out Darius is the motivator for the other characters and when Norm isn’t there….we get silly.)

Alex shakes the egg and discovers that it’s empty, they all figure that it was just a dud egg. Calvin checks around the house for Darius, and discovers the flying monkey.
Calvin shouts: What the fuck?!
Alex comes running to check he’s OK and then catches him up on where the flying monkey came from. Calvin also piles some stuff onto the magic mirror, just cause.

Calvin and Alex figure that Darius has taken Nebby for a walk, but then they find the dog chilling out in the occult library. Calvin calls Darius’s phone and has an odd conversation.
C: where are you?
D: I’m out walking.
C: OK….
D: So, I’ll see you later.
C: …OK?
(more…)

It was the first time I’d ever made it to CONfusion, and I was really glad I went. Following some very bad news received on Friday (more on that later), I wasn’t sure if I should go. The sunshiney walk along the waterfront was the perfect mind-cleanser though and I felt ready for whatever when I arrived at Turnbull House.

I played in two rounds, had a great time and then went home.

Geiger Counter: Hollywood Murders, run by my pal Hix.

Geiger Counter is the game of the horror movie where all the characters get picked off as the danger ramps up. Set in 1950s Hollywood we had some great players playing great characters. We cast actual actors as the characters, which made it a very easy to visualise game.

Mike played Jeff Lansey, a war vet turned private eye played by a young Clint Eastwood.
Steve was Noah, a script writer bent on writing his great American novel and played by Wallace Shawn (Vinzinni from The Princess Bride and Cyrus on Gossip Girl.
Nick played Milo, a sleazy agent who didn’t seem to care about anything much played by Christopher Walken.
Susan played McLeod, the awkward nephew of one of the producers who was trying to be helpful. Played by Michael Cera, so perfect.
Cat played Kitty, a loveable street urchin who worked odd jobs, played by an artfully dirt smudged Dakota Fanning.
Finally there was me, Tommy Falcone, a mafia hitman trying to go straight and played by Nick Cave.

The story itself didn’t end up making much sense, but it didn’t matter at all. The coolness of all our characters aided by some very strong roleplaying and the gradual increase in The Menace made it a hella enjoyable session. I was hoping for my hitman to get through the movie but it wasn’t to be, although I did achieve my character’s goal by turning on the mob just as he was dying. Actually all the characters were killed by the end, with the exception of McLeod who was imprisoned for life for all the murders that had taken place.

Awesome players, it was a pleasure to game with you all. I suspect the Geiger Counter game is best suited for a more straight forward story than the conspiracy theories/double crossing/mafia/studios/two lookalike blondes scenario we’d cooked up. The Menace we had ended up being a bunch of actors and one actress who wanted to make it big in the movies, they were killing off all the people related to a new movie. And those who got in the way, like me.

ETA: details from Steve and Mike over here.

One of the classic moments was when the sleazy agent was hunted down by The Menace…”I’ll shut you up permanently! You should have cast me in that role! (stabs the agent repeatedly)
Agent: You…weren’t right for…the part!

We had fun casting the NPCs, all the men involved in The Menace were actors who had played Superman, so we had Dean Cain, Christopher Reeve, Brendan Routh and Tom Welling all hunting us down. Plus there was a very cool vice cop played by David Bowie. Now tell me you don’t want to see that movie?

Monster of the Week, written and run by my bro the gamester at large.

Mike wrote a game based on Supernatural and it rocks. It rocks so hard it’s like living in a new episode of Supernatural and OK, I know I’m a huge fangirl, but I don’t care. It was wicked awesome. Our group was another awesome one: Donna G, Norman, Steve, Dan S and me. Our characters were a bunch of teenagers who had been involved in some sort of horror movie/slasher/monster attacks event and were the survivors. We’d all lost people to the monster and learned enough about the supernatural to want to go out and fight it.

We had the occult nerd, the bad luck attracting jock, the outcast girl, the psychopathic loner and me, the cheerleader turned martial artist. We cruised into a town where someone had been found flayed…I think we handled the investigation very well. It was the fights that were a bit harder, although my dice were very happy to add to the drama by rolling low right when I was in the most danger (just like an ep of the show when I think about it).

I don’t want to go into too much detail about the plot in case Mike wants to run it again I just want to say it was great fun, again a very cool bunch of people to roleplay with and a very satisfying story played out.

All in all I give CONfusion an A+ and I would attend again.

By the way, I don’t think I ever mentioned this but our theme song for Fall is Fall to Pieces by Avril Lavigne.

School on Monday. Calvin is in his classes, and paying *so much attention*. Alex is trying to be a good student. Darius is being his normal self and Megan is struggling to regain control of her flock of betties. At lunch time Darius sits next to Alex and talks to her about what battle to fight next. He points out that they never figured out what was going on with the Old Folk’s home. Alex is a little distracted though, she keeps looking over towards Calvin’s table where Mason is paying attention to some other girl. She’s not sure if he’s actually flirting with her or if its just her jealous mind working overtime.
Darius: So, the Radiant Retirement Home.
Alex: Yeah, but how are we gonna get in? Visiting grandchildren worked so well.
Darius: We could say that we’re doing research on the area, see if we can talk to someone who was in the civil war?
A:History’s not your forte is it?

They agree that the basic plan might work and Alex excuses herself to go to lacrosse practice.
D: Don’t forget to suck!

Darius moves on to Calvin, his initial plan of sitting next to him is thwarted though, Calvin has a girlfriend now and she’s on the side not taken up by Mason. Darius sticks his head in next to Calvin’s and asks him to join them after school. Calvin declines, giving some completely vague reason like “I might be busy”.

Darius lures Megan away from the cheerleaders with some totally subtle and cool gestures. Megan goes to him but is observed by the girls, who decide that based on some of the emphatic gestures Darius uses that he must be gay. They decide that Megan is super lucky to have a gay guy for a best friend, because that’s all the rage now and totally better than a dog in a handbag. Megan agrees to go to Darius’ after school.

In between classes Calvin meets up with Alex and asks nonchalantly how things went with Haruni the day before. Alex tells him about the TV and Bob Barker and they have a little laugh together. Then things quickly become awkward when Alex asks Calvin if he’s joining them after school and he says no. They both stare at each other for a moment and then part. (more…)

In an effort to stop the game being Buffy in Real Time a couple of days actually passed in the last session of Fall. There was a terrible problem though, which is that due to various amounts of lost sleep, hyperactivity and sugary drinks we all kept having to stop play and giggle for five minutes at a time. Me and Sophie may have also tried to start a dance off.

None of this had any bearing at all on the title of the episode.

The time passing made me happy because it meant that Calvin’s damage was reduced down to a measly 4, which is nothing at all, practically. It also allowed us to skip over the boringness that is school without Calvin and Saturday, on which Calvin took a first aid course so that he can stop hurting all the time. Oh right. This show isn’t just about Calvin.

It’s a snowy Sunday morning and Darius is taking a break from reading. He’s bonding with his dog and playing fetch. Unfortunately due to health and/or safety issues the dog isn’t actually on set that day, so Darius is just throwing a stick off screen and then getting it back somehow. (I think this is where the silliness started, don’t you?) Megan comes over to visit, bringing a vase to replace the one that evil Megan broke. Darius is edgy around her. They talk about what to do with the magic mirror and decide to visit Haruni. They call Alex to see if she wants to come. She is shopping with her mother at the mall and after some confused double speak arranges to come over to Darius’s at 2. (more…)