SPOOKTOBER 2022: TERROR AT PHOENIX LAKE

[Thursday Violist]

Seraphina says, "Okay," not really sure what Khannie's getting at: she called her 'kid' and not 'a kid'/'the kid' which have totally different meanings.

Speaking of snack table, Seraphina grabs some vegetables since they're here. And one of those small plates. The kind that's orange and purple with some black highlights, and a weird holiday-themed design on it that always gets immediately covered up by food so why is there even a design on it.
And a couple of chocolate strawberries, since those are literally the best things ever invented.

"Oh, that's cool. I used to work at a boarding school thingy before." Not one specifically for protagonists, though. "You liking it? Is it exciting?"

More importantly, "Well good to hear it was only that time. Seems like every time except once, the trains always go all weird on me. So, honestly, it's possible that I'm just cursed and it went weird that one time because I wandered too close."

....Speaking of, her player probably needs to continue that train adventure scene that was going on, eventually.

"..." Seraphina says, as she looks around the party. "Y'know, it's pretty lively here."

[Rebonack]

Khannie is getting at her antipathy toward being called kid, a kid, or the kid, or any such variation!

Sadly Khannie is unaware that being upset about getting called a kid is the surest sign that one is a kid.

"Yeah! It's been a lot of fun. The classes are pretty good and I've got some friends there and all the rooms don't smell like foxes," Khannie reports. It isn't that she disliked going to school at Inari's or anything but the constant fox smell is just... really foxy. "PREP is kind of a strange school though, I guess. Everyone there has something special about them. Like they're really good at sports or card games or have crazy magic or they're a ninja or something. So it's a school for helping us make the most of what we can do!"

Aside from other usual highschool things. Like improving one's abilities in the three Rs, improving social skills, and getting stuffed into lockers by jocks.

"Begin cursed with weird train rides would be a really weird curse," Khannie points out.

A few moments of silence follows.

Then Khannie brightens at talk of how hopping the part is.

"Yeah! Me and my friends helped make most of the decorations! Except the stuff that was got at stores."

[Gullara]

[Delinquentrinity]

Weird girl who bites? Ana tilts her head. Usually when people brought that up in relation to Eliseo they were talking about her. "Well, uh, it's nice to meet you Iknika! I'm Eliseo's girlfriend Anastasia." The girl smiles, unable to help but lean subtly into her boyfriend as she says it. "You're training to be a knight? That's pretty cool! I've been learning to like, swordfight."

When Atsede speaks up, the fox pauses. Right, she promised Annie not to say anything about that. "I-I mean, like, she seemed to think you were pretty cool. Plus it means she's bugging someone else, and you owe me for last time you were over," she adds with a cheeky grin.

[Delinquents Three: Spooktober Drift]

Atsede peers at Iknika, brain running on a similar wavelength to Anastasia's. She'd seen the bruises under his collar before. What was it with Eliseo running into bitey girls? "A knight huh. Well, I'm Atsede! Don't listen to her by the way, her name's Strawberry."" She looked between the goblin and the fox. "You could duel! That'd be a hell of a Spooktober activity." She joked with a grin. "Besides, you're like, already in armor," she added with a nod to the goblins costume. A shiny robot costume was basically a knights costume if you squinted really hard, right?

The changeling brought her hands up in a gesture of religious warding. "Oh Gods no. Keep me the fuck away from any babysitting contest. That goes for Annie too." Atsede sighed. She did still owe Ana pretty badly since she bailed her out that one night.

[Three Delinquents and a Knight]

Iknika snaps her fingers and points her hand at Anastasia.

"Right. I think I've heard of you. Koshal mentioned a girl with a fox tail was accepted by his mentor as a student. I study with someone else and with an axe, not a sword." She looks over to Atsede. "I like the way you think, but this costume is not meant to withstand anything more serious than a goblin kid at high speed. Plus my cousins' aunt Reelshka wouldn't like it. And you don't want to cross her."

[Three Delinquents and a Knight]

"You mean Annie likes people? Coulda fooled me." Eliseo remarks on that topic. She gives him one hell of a look every time he shows up.

"I don't think Ana's suited up for a sword fight anyway. It'd be pretty hard to stretch that costume that way." He muses looking at Ana critically.

[Arkhosia]

[Delinquents Three: Spooktober Drift]

"Atsede!" Ana provides a handy demonstration as to just why the changeling calls her "Strawberry", cheeks lighting up while she looks at her in mild shock. Ohmigod, what is it with this girl and embarrassing her every chance she gets? And why doesn't it annoy her when she teases her like that?

When Iknika mentions Koshal, Ana's eyes light up in recognition. "Oh, you know-" she starts to say, before Eliseo speaks up and draws her attention away. "I-I mean, I'm not that good yet anyways- like, I'm only just starting to learn how to properly swing it around, y'know? But - wait, what do you mean? Like, I think I can move just fine in this?"

There's a bit too much going on for Ana to pivot and remark on the Annie slander from both of her compatriots, but the two of them might notice a flicker of genuine disappointment when Atsede declares her utter opposition to babysitting and other such things of this nature. How strange.

[Thursday Violist]

It seems finding out that being childish is childish is something you have to find out on your own.

"Strangely, I haven't really seen a fox in quite a while," Seraphina says. She looks about, just in case there's foxes around. There's got to be, right? Since Khannie lives here and was complaining about the rooms smelling like foxes. Of course, Seraphina has never been to Inari's, and as such it doesn't come to mind. "From the name alone, it already sounds pretty strange." And that's before crazy magic card game ninjas!

Seraphina grabs a piece of celery that has some orange who-knows-what semisolid on it, and holds it above her plate. "Homemade decorations are definitely the best."
Seraphina looks around the party again, but this time not looking for foxes. "Any particular thing here you recommend looking at? Anything particularly exciting?"

[Rebonack]

That's a very true thing as it happens.

And there are two foxes around! Like that one with nine tails over there with Jason (who Khannie is basically 100% sure is Jason's sister or something? Khannie waves at them both) and that lady over THERE that Khannie doesn't recognize with TWO fox tails.

Huh.

It looks like there isn't anyone here with just one fox tail.

Is that weird?

Or not weird?

Khannie isn't sure.

"It isn't pretty strange but everything Inside is pretty strange. Strange but cool. Most of my friends don't live there but I think they're missing out," Khannie says. Underside was neat but it wasn't cool like Inside is.

Then comes a deeply important question that Khannie wrinkles her nose at.

"Umm... I don't know if we've really got anything for grownups? Mostly we've got games and stuff for kids. Since lotsa people bright their kids here for the party," Khannie replies. "Oh! But there IS one really cool decoration I did it's over here!"

Then she'll move to take Seraphina by the hand and lead her toward a tree with several fake tombstones sitting in front of it. "Get close and try reading what the tombstones say," Khannie instructs her, trying her best to keep her enthusiasm under control.

[bc56]

Jason smiles at Khannie waving and produces a small cylindrical device from his pocket. A blue light flashes and Khannie forgets she saw him (actually it's just a prop).
Jade takes advantage of his momentary looking away from her to stuff an entire chocolate cupcake in her mouth and then wipes the frosting off her lips with the back of her hand before he notices.

[Meowmai]

[Robots, Ghouls, Trainers and Schools]

Ah, Strawberry. Works every time.

Yeah huh, that was weird. Annie had been a lot less hostile towards Atsede than she had expected from everything she had heard, now that she thinks of it. Maybe she was just that cool.

"Gremlin-proofing your costume. Very smart." The changeling nodded at Iknika with approval. "Shame though. And I dunno about that, Eli. Sakura loses her head all the time in the show, so Strawberry getting her head lopped off in the duel would actually be pretty in-character!" So it was the perfect costume for it really.

[Thursday Violist]

A two-tailed person and a nine-tailed person probably don't count as foxes. Unless you want to count each of them as multiple foxes, but then that would be quite weird.


Seraphina's hand gets snatched. Stolen away from her! Taken! Or, she just is pulled along. "It's okay, Spooktober parties for grown-ups are always really boring. Unless it's a dance party, but that would be pretty obvious if it was going on," Seraphina says, reassuring Khannie, as she is taken over to the tree by the girl. There would be more poorly-lit areas and blinding lights and deafening music going on.

She looks at the fake tombstones.
She crouches down, to look at it, and holds a hand up to get the shadows more consistent over the front of the tombstone. "So you made this? It looks pretty good," she says. Seraphina, of course, tries reading it, expecting some kind of pun.

[Morty]

[Robots, Ghouls, Trainers and Schools]

Iknika seems confused for a second, blinking.

"Oh. You're dressed as a character named Sakura. See, I was confused, because one of the camp caretakers is named Sakura. Short lady, flower hair, big ears, has a dozen kids. Give her tusks and she'd be a bigger than usual goblin. Anyway, I wouldn't cut Anastasia's head off. I'm too short. I'd hack her legs off at the knees." Iknika nods solemnly.

[Rebonack]

They definitely count as foxes.

If it has a tail like a fox and it smells like a fox then it's a fox.

That's Khannie's fox standard.

"I like your costumes! You're those people from that one alien movie, right? The one with the sugar bug guy?" Khannie calls out to them before replying to Seraphina.

"All of the ones I've been to so far haven't just been for grownups," Khannie confides as she watches Seraphina examine the headstones. "Oh! I didn't make those things they came from a store. I made-"

SUDDENLY A TERRIFYING SHEET PHANTOM PHASES UP OUT OF THE GROUND AND GOES

"BOO!"

AND WAVES IT'S TERRIFYING SHEET PHANTOM ARMS!

It's kind of translucent and glowing with an aura of spooky gloom! Its featureless black eyes and mouth are bottomless pits into unreasoning fear! Oh goodness what a spooky thing to get spooked by!

The phantom is an illusion, of course. Conjured up by Khannie. But it's a pretty convincing one, provided one is convinced by sheet ghosts. If Seraphina decides to touch it for any reason her hand will pass right through it and feel the deathly chill of the grave.

[Gullara]

[Robots, Ghouls, Trainers and Schools]

Eliseo looks down at Ana's skirt. "Yeah, you can move around fine. Maybe a little too well." He observes, then he nods along with Iknika. "Yeah, and it's not like your knees have any protection."

[bc56]

"Nah kid, it's just a gas leak," Jason replies, grinning. It's nice to see a kid who knows the classics.
Jade waves to Khannie as well, and wipes a few chocolate crumbs off her cheek.

[Arkhosia]

[Robots, Ghouls, Trainers and Schools]

Anastasia blushes again when she realizes just where her boyfriend's eyes are lingering. "H-hey! It's good enough for cheer squad!" she protests, suddenly feeling a need to justify her choice in attire as if the way Eliseo would look at her wasn't a partial consideration.

"I uh, do need to work on my low guards I think though," she admits with a giggle. "And I don't think I've met Sakura - like, I mean I might've seen her once or twice? But I don't really go to GLoG much. Just when Kitty or Obriane needed me to come with them when picking up or dropping off the kids."

[Ember]

Unless someone knew her, they'd have a rather difficult time recognizing Cassidy. Rather than her usual street clothes, she of course dressed appropriately for Spooktober. Wouldn't be much of a party if she didn't, would it?

This was the first spooky party she'd gone to in a while, so she went all out for her costume - starting with a rainbow-striped sweater and denim overalls with a Good Guys logo stiched on the front. Completing the ensemble were red sneakers, a red wig, and a simple mask, in the shape of a white cat. She even had a knife hidden in the front pocket of her overalls, though it was a dull and harmless prop knife.

....She rather hoped someone would get the reference. The trad show she pulled this from was about fifty years old where she was from, after all.

[Meowmai]

[Robots, Ghouls, Trainers and Schools]

"Huh?" Now it was Atsede's turn to be confused. Oh, another lady who worked here was called that. Weird coincidence. Ew, a dozen kids!!?" She shuddered visibly, then turned to joke at Anastasia, "you sure she's not just your mom in disguise? Sounds like your place."

Eliseo's comment draws her gaze to Anastasia's skirt. Hmm. "He has a point, y'know." She idly observed "Scandalous." "Hacking her off at the knees would be a bit rude though, she's short enough already! Oh, uh, no offence." She hastily adds with a glance at Iknika, considering how much shorter the goblin is. Maybe making fun of height given their company wasn't the best move, but it had popped into her head and Atsede could never resist the opportunity to poke fun at the fox.

[Thursday Violist]

To be honest, it's not surprising that Khannie hasn't yet been to a no-kids-allowed halloween party. After all, she's just only barely no longer a kid, apparently.

~ !

WITH THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF THE TERRIFYING PHANTOM,
Seraphina's breath catches and she rolls back and catches herself from falling with her hand behind her, and she quickly looks down and away, so that she doesn't look directly at it.
'Cause it's a ghost.
Can't look directly at the ghost, or it'll come after you.


Several moments later, she notices that it's not doing anything else in the corner of her vision.
"Oh. It's a fake ghost," Seraphina says.

She breathes out, and relaxes her hand so she's sitting on the ground. "Ha ha," Seraphina says.
"It's very realistic. Good job."

[Morty]

[Robots, Ghouls, Trainers and Schools]

Anastasia is easily flustered, clearly. But the way Eliseo ribs her is pretty cute.

"Don't worry, I'm used to short jokes," she says, recognizing Atsede's nervousness. "I think I've seen your siblings around, though." She looks up at Anastasia. "Annie is a real terror. Started a fight over crayons once, or so Brinika tells me."

[Gals with Guns]

The person entering behind Cassidy is much shorter. Like several of the caretakers of the event, she's a goblin. Her arms are cybernetic and not part of the costume, which seems to consist of a long coat, a breastplate with a stylised eagle on it, a very large hat and a glass that imitates a tactical visor on one eye.

"'Scuse me, coming through... this red glass makes it harder to see than I expected."

[Gullara]

[Robots, Ghouls, Trainers and Schools]

Eliseo gives Ana a playful wink. He knows what he's doing.

"You're all gonna make me worried. I'm waiting for the baby chaos to drop at my place. Pip makes things hectic enough." He gives a mock, exaggeratedly worried look.

[Arkhosia]

[Robots, Ghouls, Trainers and Schools]

"It's not scandalous, it's a perfectly acceptable length," Anastasia pouts, folding her arms at Atsede even as Eliseo winking her way stirs her tails into a gentle wag. "A-and I really don't get why kids spook you so much. I mean, yeah, it gets pretty hectic at my place sometimes with so many running around, but they're really cute. Like, seriously, have you met Su-Jin or Pip? They're adorable.

As compelling an argument as it is, Iknika's next comment does put a bit of a dent into the vibe Ana's trying to articulate. She looks back over at the goblin, surprised. "Oh! Um, yeah, that uh, sounds about right. She's still a good kid, but - um, like, really insistent about a lot of things."

[Ember]

[Gals with Guns]

Cassidy almost doesn't notice the presence of the goblin behind her until it's too late - thankfully, she turns back just in time to quickly step aside. "Oh hey, sorry about that. Peripheral vision's a bitch and a half with this thing on." She quickly points to her mask, which completely covered her face save for two eyeholes. "You go ahead of me, yeah? 'S a lot of party to get to."That would likely be the end of it in any normal scenario, but something keeps her eye on her for just a moment longer.

"Hey, nice chrome. Those streetware you've got? Unless they're just part of the costume, but they look wired to me."

[Rebonack]

Maybe one of these days Khannie will make it to an adults only Spooktober party but that'll probably be a few years before that's even a possibility.

This year is definitely not that year, though.

But hey ghost!

Khannie is watching with baited breath here! The ghost pops out! And Seraphina is SO SPOOKED she nearly falls over!

Yeah!

Ghost success!

"It's a fake ghost!" Khannie agrees. "I made it isn't it great!?" she continues, clearly proud of her work. "I only made the one but it's pretty good. It's probably the coolest decoration we've got. There are supposed to be some REAL ghosts around the campground but I've never seen any of them."

Khannie heard that there used to be more of them. Or they used to be around more. Or something like that she really isn't totally sure.

"Hey some of my other friends came to the party I'm going to go say hi to them, okay?" Khannie says before waving to Seraphina and departing, leaving her alone to contemplate the haunted campground.

Then?

She jogs over to Jason and Jade.

"Hey! You guys came to the party!"

It looks like the neutralizer didn't work.

Alas.

[bc56]

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Jade replies. "I don't know about you, but Spooktober is our favorite holiday," Jason confirms. "And GLoG is a good place. Even has ghosts, that's great for the ambiance." When Jade says this, Jason looks over at Khannie's fake ghost decoration, but Jade looks off into the distance, either at something only she can see or at nothing at all.

[Rebonack]

"Spooktober's pretty fun! Me and my friends always try to think up themed costumes. We did giant monsters this year I'm Mothra!" Khannie reports, standing as tall and imperious as she can muster. She's got really good Mothra wings pretty much by default so it was just a matter of cobbling the rest of the costume together.

"I think Spooktober and Thanksmas are both really fun, just different sorts of fun right?"

Khannie is quite certain she's right on this one.

She's also quite certain that all the holiday treats are one of the best parts.

When ghosts are brought up Khannie looks VERY proud! "It's a shadow illusion I made it myself! I've been taking some programming classes at school to get better at giving the constructs instructions to follow. They can't think, right, so they can only do the things I tell them to. So learning about programming has really helped me make better instructions for them. It's about being PRECISE."

She is in fact so proud of this that she doesn't even notice that Jade is probably talking about the actual ghosts. Khannie hasn't ever seen one of them before so she's pretty sure that's just a story the grownups tell to scare the kids.

[bc56]

Jade glances over at the illusion ghost when Khannie mentions it. "Oh yeah. That too," she says distractedly.
Jason nods along to Khannie's explanation. "Programming. That's good stuff. Keep it up." It's good to see kids taking an interest in those things, even if Khannie is using it for magic.

[Rebonack]

Definitely good stuff!

"Programming is kind of like wizardry?" Khannie reasons. "Wizardry is more like math, I guess. But it's all lots of fun! It's like figuring out a puzzle to get everything working right."

How much time has Khannie spent trying to figure out why a particular bit of code isn't working?

Probably many hours.

Okay now she notices something is up with Jade.

"Waddya mean that too?" she asks curiously.

[bc56]

Jade blinks. "Oh. Right. You can't see them." She makes a sweeping gesture when she says it, as if indicating an invisible crowd. "I wouldn't worry about it, they're harmless." "You mean... Real ghosts?" Jason's just caught on too. He wouldn't believe in ghosts, but the Nexus is a bizarre place and his sister is a magical fox, so ghosts are totally plausible.

[Morty]

[Gals with Guns]

Cassidy almost doesn't notice the presence of the goblin behind her until it's too late - thankfully, she turns back just in time to quickly step aside. "Oh hey, sorry about that. Peripheral vision's a bitch and a half with this thing on." She quickly points to her mask, which completely covered her face save for two eyeholes. "You go ahead of me, yeah? 'S a lot of party to get to."That would likely be the end of it in any normal scenario, but something keeps her eye on her for just a moment longer.

"Hey, nice chrome. Those streetware you've got? Unless they're just part of the costume, but they look wired to me."

Olvisin grins toothily and flexes her cyberarms.

"Nah, these are the genuine article. Got them from a surgeon a friend had recommended to me. They're great, aren't they?"

It really does seem like she's very proud of them.

[Ember]

[Gals with Guns]

"Nice. I've always thought wares were cool, as long as they weren't corpo." Olvisin won't be able to tell through Cassidy's mask, but she's returning that grin in a similarly toothy manner - as toothy as a human dressed as a killer doll can be, anyway. "I'd get something done myself, but chrome messes us adepts up bad."

Then, she cackles. "Speaking of bad, bet you get up to plenty with those, huh?" In some circles, that might have qualified as a joke.

[Thursday Violist]

Of course, fake ghosts are scarier than real ghosts, in this context. The real ghosts around the campground are more like people than not-people, which inherently makes them less scary.

"Yup, pretty great," Seraphina told Khannie.
"Bye, have fun with your friends," she tells her as Khannie leaves. Seraphina waves, too.

With Khannie gone, Seraphina stands, brushes off her hand, and decides it's time to finish off that weird celery.

And then, after that, wander around looking at the various things and people (and, of course, notably avoiding the apple bobbing, since she doesn't want to get roped into doing it and accidentally ruining the whole game for everyone by getting the record and intimidating anyone else from trying it).