Archive World of Darkness: The Academy - Home Again, Home Again

[Dawn OOC]

The students, including the two newly returned lambs, stood in the storage area of the girl's side of Lancaster, looking at one another. They were all home, and they were all safe.

Well, all except Lucia, of course.

[Tatiana di Jadzian]

As soon as Sean passed through the Door in Lancaster House, he knew something different... again. He looked down and gave a loud whoop, hands going for his crotch.

"Yes! I'm me again! It's bac - Hnnngh! Tight!" Sean finished with a tight groan. The straps of his backpack dug into his shoulders and waist where he had tightened them when he was on the Otherside, in more ways than one.

Sean quickly adjusted the straps, releasing a breath of relief, then flashed a smile around the room, glad to be himself again.

"Ryan, other Dude, heya by the way, where'd you guys come from?"

[Logic1]

Everett sat quietly back against the wall as he waited for the others to return. It wasn't long before the room began to fill again. He didn't know if the doors distorted time or anything, but it didn't seem like they had been gone long before returning. However it wasn't the people he'd expected.

He stood as the door was rendered active again. Not stepping from against the wall Everett waited to see what or who would come through remaining wary.

"Where'd you guys come from?" Everett asked surprise creeping into his voice. Shortly thereafter the door was activated yet again. This time Sean came through.

"Back already? You alright man," Everett asked as he looked Sean over.

[Rorx]

Jason had barely made it through the Door ahead of Dorn, but joined her in closing and holding the door that covered the Door until it seemed reasonable that no-one was immediately trying to follow them. Seeing Everett talking to Sean he turns to him, "Everett wasn't it? Did anyone come through while we were gone?"

[SalmonMax]

Renata looked a bit disappointed when she saw Sean was back to normal, but she shrugged it off and looked around at Professor Dorn.

"Alright so that wasn't exactly the rescue plan I was thinking," she said tartly. "We go galloping through, then are turned back at customs? Are we serious about this or not?"

[Rorx]

"Yeah? I thought that we turned back because while you were busy feeling up Sean, Deeks machine said she wasn't there."

Jason turns to Ryan and the other guy, "And how did you get to Carmine?"

[Sylvia Dorn]

"Well, there were a few issues. First of which being, they had a lengthy list of 'contraband'... including anything or anyone from Dalton." Sylvia let that sink in for just a moment. "And they were a little too bureaucratically precise to have missed Lucia coming through; the customs officer showed no sign of her coming through. Coming home to take things into stock seemed prudent.

"Then when these two" - she pointed a finger between Ryan and Ravi - "showed up with what looked to be slave collars of some kind, it put a new imperative on getting out of there."

[Tatiana di Jadzian]

Sean turned to Everett, his smile as wide as ever. "That's it exactly. Man. I'm better than alright now."

He listen to Ms. Dorn attentively. He was both disappointed that they had left so quickly, but also relieved, for obvious reasons. When Ms. Dorn mentioned the Caramine's not have possibly missing Lucia, something else occurred to him.

"Hey, guys, just thought of something. Brahn, or maybe his sister, I don't remember which, mentioned something about there being more than one Door on each 'world', right? Well, does each Door always open to the same Door on the 'otherside' or can it reach different Doors on the same world? Maybe Lucia went through to the Caramine world, but come out somewhere else."

As he let that thought out, Sean's attention turned to Ryan and his equally tall companion. "What did you guys say about Blaize? She was in her room only a little over half an hour before we went through the Door... I saw her." Sean added boyish grin.

[Ravi FitzCoventry]

"Blaize was with us." said the exotically beautiful young man, who had been hitherto leaning against the wall, as he finally decided to speak up in a rich tenor voice. "Ravi FitzCoventry, new student from England. De-lighted to make your acquaintances. We all three woke up strapped to tables somewhere on the other side of that door you saw us step through. These snuffling, whining hairy creatures carried off the young woman and clapped those silver collars on us. Then a runner-up from the Middle-Earth 'Mister Congeniality' competition decided to try and force us to work. To cut a long story short, because quite frankly I need a bath and some decent clothing, Ryan escaped up the side of a cliff, I sat down and refused to labor for them, and after awhile I was fetched and taken to those bat-creatures, whom Ryan was in the process of convincing to return us home, where apparently Blaize already was. I helped out in that noble endeavour, and here we are."

"Now." his green-gold eyes caught the light, sweeping the assemblage as he stood upright, projecting an aura of slightly-ruffled but still intact dignity that was imposing to say the least. If he had possessed cuffs on his ragged attire, he would have adjusted them. "Would someone mind telling me A: is this normal extracurricular activity and B: what the hell is going on?"

[SalmonMax]

"I don't get it," Renata said with a frown. "How did they take you away without using the door? We were at the door all morning, they couldn't have gotten past us." Then she did a double-take. "Shit! Blaize!"

She dug her cellphone out of her pocket and dialed her dorm room's number.

[Frida Ricci]

Frida tilted her head at the new student, studying him with an eerily focused gaze the entire time he spoke. After a moment of silence, she stepped forward and met his gaze, and to the Americans present her own clipped British accent matched his, though to his aristocratically trained ear it sounded more traveled, like someone who grew up in a British household but has spent a good deal of time out of the country. It was quite detached, however, as if the girl speaking was more of an observer than a participant in the oddness unfolding around them.

"No, I'm afraid you've arrived at quite an unusual time. It would seem that Dalton Academy has had previous interactions with people from other dimensions, and that those interactions didn't go so very well. So now we have to deal with the consequences of actions by people who were educated or were educating others here thirty years ago. Perhaps if you have the opportunity, you might want to leave Dalton before you get any more involved. It doesn't seem a very safe place at the moment, although I assure you that normally it's quite a pleasant place."

[Ravi FitzCoventry]

"I see. Thank you." Possessed of the social ease of centuries of nobility, Ravi gave the strangely intense girl a genuinely warm smile. "And would you, perhaps, know the significance of what they call Hekzesh, or Touched? Since those bat-like creatures believed Ryan here and myself to be these 'Touched'." His lips quirked in a charming expression of wry humour. "Whilst I would agree we might be considered unconventional individuals, I hardly think we qualify for that term... unless it means something more here than I am aware of?"

[SalmonMax]

"Uh, I think that's probably about the ones that were picked out at the party at the start of the year," Renata said as she listened to her phone ring.

"They picked people out of the crowd. I guess they're supposed to come back later and kidnap them or kill them or something."

[Dawn OOC]

The phone rang three times, then Blaize picked up Renata as finished talking. "Yeah?" she asked, sounding intolerably normal. "Did you say something about killing someone?"

[Tatiana di Jadzian]

Sean's eyes widened when he heard the indistinct voice come through Renata's phone. "Ask her where she's been for the last half hour, hell, the last few hours," Sean hissed, so the person on the other end of the phone wouldn't here him.

[Logic1]

Ms. Dorn answered all Everett's questions with great efficiency. He'd already surmised they hadn't located their quarry but he now knew why. They may have been in the wrong place.

"Yeah, Everett. No, no one else came through," he answered.

[Deacon Knight]

Deek looked up from his gadget and leaned against the wall with a puzzled expression on his face. "So, let me get this straight... we just spent an hour discussing how we're going to go looking for Lucia... another thirty minutes gathering our gear for the trip... ten more minutes getting the door to open... then when we get there we spend all of three minutes there before turning around and coming home."

He looked irritated. "This is just one complete waste of time after another. I'm going to be harvested, what ever the hell that means, long before any of you guys get your head removed from your ass long enough to accomplish anything of importance. I'll be in my room waiting for the damn raven people to come kill me. Excuse me." Shaking his head and slapping the GPS unit on the side a few times to 'calibrate' it he walked from the room.

[Tatiana di Jadzian]

Sean nodded his head at Renata emphatically, trying to get her to ask his question to whoever was on the other end of the phone, then hastened to follow Deacon out of the room.

"Whoa! Dude, Deek, wait up. Look, I know that didn't work out how any of us were expectin', but if you had looked up from your gizmo, you'd have seen that we were in a city full of armoured and armed... well people I guess. And I mean everyone had a weapon."

Sean gave him self-deprecating smile. "And seriously, I guess we should have expected guards, but I wasn't expectin' the city or customs agents. Ms. Dorn tried to talk us pass them without giving too much away, but they didn't seem to have seen Lucia and if your doohickey was workin', well, you didn't say anything."

Sean began to pace in the hall, not physically trying to stop Deacon from leaving, but slow him down some. "Look, I know you're like ten times smarter than us, but don't give up yet, just because we can't keep up with you. Tell you what, if you're sure you can get that thing to work, I'll... I'll go back with you."

Sean didn't sound afraid, but he did sound profoundly uneasy. "I think I have a way for us to go there without drawing too much attention. Maybe in a few hours, then the guards will have changed, right?" He avoided meeting Deacon's far too discerning gaze for a long moment, then looked him in the eye.

"You went to see those amazon girls right? The Chiderans? Remember me finding out that my mother was one too? Well, on the 'otherside'... I'm a Chideran too."

Sean waited in agitated silence for what Deacon was going to say to that.

[Deacon Knight]

"Okay? So when you go back, you're a woman. Great." Deek spun around, he was less than thrilled. "So now you have a plan. Great. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth..."

He pressed a finger to his temple and rubed it gently. "Let me talk slowly so you guys can understand. We. Are. Going. To. Die. If we do not get our act together. There is a number I was given and a bullseye tattooed on my ass. This is not a fucking joke to me, this is my life, that people like Dorn are so casually fucking around with by wasting my time."

He tossed his GPS on the floor and it slid in a spiraling display. "That doesn't work, and I've no idea why. If Lucia found away through the door on her own, then so can I. It'll probably be easier then traveling around in small frickin' armies."

[SalmonMax]

"Blaize, it's Renata. Listen, did anything weird happen this morning? I dunno, funny noises or lights or...batpeople abducting you or anything?"

[Tatiana di Jadzian]

"Hey! In case you've forgotten, I'm number one on the Harvest Top Thirteen, I sure haven't. But the Treaty says we have a month's warnin', and if they only came back after the agreed upon thirty-three years, they'll probably hold to the other part of the bargain too. So we still have time to figure this out, 'kay? Don't think about the end of the game, Deek, take it a quarter at a time."

Sean bent down and picked up the GPS. He looked at for a second, but couldn't make heads or tails of it - his Wrangler didn't have a GPS unit. He handed Deacon his Device with a one-shouldered shrug.

"And I tell you, I'm not thrilled about being dusted with booby-dust when I step through the Door, either. I only mentioned it 'cause I figured if you were able to make something to track people by their... whatever you tracked them by, maybe the guys from the 'otherside' can trace where people come from with - I can't believe I'm saying this - magic. Or something. I was figurin', it they did something like that, I'd pop up as coming from Chidera, and not embargoed Dalton, which I'm guessin' would lend us in deep shit."

[Ravi FitzCoventry]

"Excuse me." Ravi had followed them both out into the corridor. "I know I'm newly-stepped into this mess, but I certainly don't like what I'm hearing. Am I right in my understanding that we have a month before all those considered to be Touched are 'harvested'?" He looked intently from Sean to Deacon. "And you were there looking for someone else, from here, who had gone through the doorway into that other dimension. But she wasn't there." His eyes narrowed.

"Is that the only doorway, then? Might she have used another and thus ended up elsewhere? I apologise for all the questions, but I am attempting to make sense of something that my life hitherto has not prepared me for."

[Deacon Knight]

"Yeah, that's the gist." Deacon said to Ravi. So many people were coming and coing into this debacle in the past 48 hours that when a new face showed up he just assumed they were another 'guest account' logged into their life. "And that's what I was thinking too. Another door somewhere she used, and I think I can whip up something to track it down and hopefully it works better than the last device." For the group making the rule 'don't let this get out' they sure made a habit of telling everyone who asked what was going on.

He looked to Sean and shrugged. "Well, have at it then Sean. You seem to be the epic hero of this grand tale. You sure as hell seem to be quite a bit more busy then the rest of us. So head on through there big guy and go after her, I guess we'll wait here for you to save us all."

[Tatiana di Jadzian]

"Fuck off, Deek," Sean said, tired and without much force. "Ren asked to help in finding Lucia, and I offered to go. So did you."

Sean turned to Ravi, somewhat annoyed by his bearing and the way he talked, as if he was so much better than everyone else. Sean stood as tall as he could, though he was still shorter than the other boy, straightening his broad shoulders and crossing his arms, muscles bulging. Sean really hoped he hadn't heard - or understood - what he had been saying to Deek just a second ago.

"I don't think they are looking for all those 'Touched', whatever the hell that means. A guy - who came from the world we just were at - came to inform us about the Harvest, and just picked people at whim, usually the ones that ended up talking back him, in a way he didn't like. If I'm remembering right, he picked nine or ten of us. And he even took one of us - Lorelei - off his list, because he appreciated her... diplomatic manner."

Sean split his attention between both Ravi and Deek as he continued. "We were told there is more than one Door, but this is the only one we know of. Do you really think Lucia found one at random, when the people here thirty years ago, who were studying this, were only concerned about this one?"

Sean's stormy eyes brightened from doubting to speculative. "But how about this, does a Door always open to the same Door on the otherside? Maybe she went through the same Door we did, but come out somewhere else on the same dimension. That seem possible, Deek? Can you build something to read where the Door is going?"

[Deacon Knight]

"We weren't told a damn thing." He pointed out to Sean. "You might have been, but sure as hell no one told me there was a second door, and if they did I missed it."

"And I don't know," he shrugged taking his GPS back. "The big voice in the sky told me this one would work and when I got there it didn't. That's the thing about the big voice... it's picky like that and its communications skills really suck. Very whimsical and seems to forget things a lot. I could try whipping something up but there's no guarantees, and it'll take me some time, at least several hours."

[Tatiana di Jadzian]

"Bud, all anyone can ask is that you try, eh?" Sean said, giving Deacon a comradely clap on the back. "Couple of hours is good anyway. At least some of us should show up to our other classes, right? And I got to see if my dad is here, he said he was coming down when he heard about... things going on. Maybe I'll get a chance to ask Blaize what she was up to, too, if her sister wants to introduce us officially."

Sean slipped one strap off his arm to let his backpack hang more nonchalantly, then gave Deacon a nod, and Ravi a cooler one. "Guess we shouldn't all leave at the same time either. I'll go first." With that, Sean straightened his shoulders and strode for the stairs, acting as if he had every right to be there.

[Sylvia Dorn]

"All considered," Sylvia said after she'd let the banter go on long enough, "I don't think she was there. Between Mr. Knight's device and the very matter-of-fact nature of the Caramine customs officials, it does not appear that Lucia went there. She may have gone through the door, but not to Caramine."

With a frown, she pulled out the photocopy of the yellowed old letter with its listed keys. Feather from a raven and three drops of blood. It wasn't likely that Lucia would have somehow made a mistake with the blood; that would be difficult to do. But one black feather looks very much like another. Her frown deepening, Sylvia started off toward the lounge and the stuffed raven there. Only at the doorway did she pause and look back. "Mr. Jackson, Mr. FitzCoventry, if you would be so kind as to come with me." Without waiting for a response, she continued out into the hall.

[SalmonMax]

"Uh, hold on just a sec," Renata said to the taciturn Blaize. She covered her phone with a hand and called to Sylvia as she started to leave.

"Hey, about Lucia? I was thinking we should check that list of yours to see what other doors have feathers for keys, right? She could have gotten it mixed up."

Then she uncovered the phone and said, "Okay, back. Sorry about that. So...you still there?"

[Ravi FitzCoventry]

"Mister FitzCoventry, indeed." Ravi muttered under his breath. Ah well, this was America, after all. No peerage, no blue-blooded high society outside New England. He brightened. No interminably long society functions. And now there's other dimensions and strange happenings to investigate. Not to mention interesting young ladies. He looked at Deacon and shrugged, smiling faintly. "It seems I have obligations elsewhere. Good luck with that device: I'm sure you have a better handle on those matters than I."

He turned and, giving everyone else present a polite incline of his head, gracefully strode after Sylvia, his long legs catching up to her before she had gone too far. His eyes glinted in the lights as he smiled at her.

"You require something of me, Miss...?"

[Logic1]

Everett listened to the scattered chatter about the room the most shocking bit being that Sean turned into a woman when he passed through the door. It seemed they'd gone to the wrong place as near as he cold tell. That would explain the lack of Lucia upon their return. Sean raised a good point as well. She could have been on the same world, just another continent if you will.

"Hey Sean, do you think you turn into a woman on every other world, or just that one," Everett asked as Sean walked toward the door.

[Sylvia Dorn]

"You require something of me, Miss...?"

"Indeed I do. And it's Miss Dorn. I am, among other things, the house-mother for Lancaster; I recognize you from the incoming student photos. Let's walk and talk, shall we?"

As she strode along toward the lounge, she explained. "I'd like to know what exactly happened to the two of you wherever it was you went... and to know why it is that they let you go. I doubt those collars were fashion items."

[Dawn OOC]

"Yeah, I'm here," Blaize said, sounding a bit impatient. "What do you need, Renata?" She sounded so normal it was a bit unnerving.

[Tatiana di Jadzian]

Originally Posted By: Everett

"Hey Sean, do you think you turn into a woman on every other world, or just that one," Everett asked as Sean walked toward the door.

Sean shrugged uncomfortably at Everett's question, his muscular shoulders hunched. Crapfuck! Guess this won't be staying quiet. Sean stopped at the top of the stairs, then looked back over his shoulder.

"Erm, this is the only time I've been through the Door, so I wasn't even thinking about that," Sean said in a barely audible rumble. "And really, I'm not in a rush to find out. But I think it has something to do with my mother, not which world I went to."

Sean began going down the stairs, intent on making it back to his dorm-room to drop of his pack and to see if his dad was here yet.

[Ravi FitzCoventry]

"Well..." Ravi took a breath, then launched into the whole strange tale. How he'd been taken in the middle of the night, the strange hairy things with the voices that sounded like nails on a blackboard without the charm, the collar that had itched and tingled around his neck. Then they had taken Blaize away and attempted to put both himself and Ryan to work killing some kind of pests in their fields. Ryan had scaled the cliff and escaped, whereas he had simply downed tools and refused to be a slave.

"Apparently Ryan managed to open negotiations with those strange bat-creatures. They labeled us both as Touched, and seemed afraid of taking the collars off us." Ravi frowned. "Which is strange to me. I like to think of myself as accomplished athletically, but unarmed I'm hardly a threat to clawed alien creatures." He shrugged. "Perhaps they've had bad experiences with humans before? That I can believe." Handsome lips quirked in a smile.

"At any rate, we managed to talk them into taking us through that doorway you saw us appear from, and then they removed the collar, which by the way was a huge relief." Ravi rubbed at his neck, which felt a little sore, as though wind-chafed.

[Sylvia Dorn]

Sylvia's frown deepened as they took the stairs down a floor. "You say that they had Blaize? Are you sure it was her? Because Renata was talking with her on the phone as we left the room upstairs. Something... something is very, very wrong here...."

The teacher trailed off in thought as the trio made their way down another flight to ground level, then out the door, Sylvia making a brisk stride toward the library. "These bat-creatures let you go when you mentioned being 'Touched'. Good thinking, Ryan... and good for you that they didn't have some way to confirm it. As far as I know, Ravi wasn't among those that the Caramine 'picked'."

[Ravi FitzCoventry]

"Yes. About that." As they entered the library, the young aristocrat frowned faintly at Sylvia. "We didn't mention being Touched. They were the ones who brought it up when we asked why we were still wearing the collars."

He glanced around the library, then back at the house-mother. "And we both saw Blaize carried off by those things that took us. So yes, if she's back and acting casual, something is definitely rotten in the state of Denmark."

[Tatiana di Jadzian]

Sean tramped down the stairs, pausing at the hallway heading to the girl's wing. He pondered confronting Blaize now about going through the Door, but seeing some of the girls giggling at him behind their hands - Can they tell? - and others giving him the stink-eye, he continued down the stairs and out of Lancaster House. He'd bring it up later with his Dad and Candi when they got here.

Sean walked briskly back to Mars House, going wide around Diana House. He entered Mars House through the back, taking the stairs up just short of a run, hoping - and dreading - his father already being there. What am I going to say? Crapfuck, if Blaize is involved with this shit, does Candi know about it too? Seems like all the girls I know always know more than they're letting on.

[Ryan Jackson]

Ryan felt terrible and looked worse, he was covered in dirt and grime except his back which was caked in dried blood. The slashes in his shirt were still wet as his wound continued to ooze blood, slowly now, and the rest of his back was now dark red bloodstained cloth plastered to his back. He ignored everybody's questions and started to shuffle, slowly, tiredly, toward the exit. Happenstance provided that Ravi and Ms. Dorn were headed in the same direction.

Ryan listened to the recount of their outing and he nodded his head in agreement adding no words, as no words were required. As they hit the doors to the quad Ryan broke off from the others, and shuffled in the direction of the school infirmary. Anybody turning to watch him go could see the blood and even the gashes in his shirt and the skin below as he made his way, face set in a determined rictus of pain, to get himself taken care of.

[Sylvia Dorn]

Sylvia had watched Ryan go; though she said nothing, part of her worried for the young man. He'd been through a lot these past few days, and while he seemed to be holding up remarkably well, cuts and bruises were still cuts and bruises.

That said, there was a spirit of determination in him, and she felt that now was not the time to coddle. As he had gone off toward the infirmary, she'd continue on toward the library with Ravi.

In short order, she'd found her quarry. The bust of Poe was as it has always been - sitting with a stuffed raven perched upon its head as a perennial joke. Sylvia gave the bird a once-over, and sure enough found bare patches where a number of feathers had been plucked. "This is where Lucia supposedly got her raven feathers to try to go to Caramine, and where Renata got hers as well."

Picking up the bird, Sylvia gave it a closer look. It was obviously an old piece of taxidermy, and had seen better days; an assortment of slight patchings and repairs could be found. "Question is, are all of these actually raven feathers? We should really run it by someone in the biology department."

[SalmonMax]

"Uh...okay," Renata said to Blaize. "You know what? Nevermind. Sorry to bug you." She hung up and ran after Sylvia.

In the library she heard the professor musing and added, "You have the list right? Just look to see which doors have dark feathers, other than raven, and blood as keys. There can't be that many."