Character University

Auditorium

"The kind thoughts are much appreciated." Rachel said. "For that matter, I'm rather surprised that the entire current attendance has been rather amiable about it." Then again, Rachel looked almost ordinary next to Kit. When there happened to be anthropomorphic animals running around, zombies of any sort weren't very exciting.

"But I still wouldn't be surprised if there were other people on this campus that'd make crazy assumptions like that," she continued with a slight frown. "There's still a fine line between the things that are obviously not human, and therefore easier to accept...."

She nodded in Kit's direction.

"...and the things that look human, but are just a few details off and therefore look unsettling and unnatural. It's the beings in that latter category that tend to have more problems, I've found."

[Bio Lab]

"Well it's so...n-nice we're all getting along"

Ezra's voice shakes a little as he says this.

"Perhaps... I'll go get the bacterial colonies I was going to count?"

He begins inching towards an incubator near the door.

[Auditorium]

The musician shook his head in clear disappointment. "How distressingly inaccurate, he said, "for 'tis clear evidence that you are unable to discern the existence of any life philosophy aside from your own." He frowned. "Have you been paying no attention to my musings?"

He looked around in hopes that somebody else would have overheard their conversation.

edited 20th Jun '12 10:08:43 PM by KillerClowns

"It's one thing to say I'm wrong without pointing out how. Like it would be your first lie of the day," Prisha answered. Beginning to wonder how one of the other three got themselves in this situation. "Oh and my second guess would be For the Lulz?"

It was probably Corey and his fascination for weird things like himself and also the tendency to get distracted. Come to think of it, the second guess might have been more accurate than Prisha thought. Corey might have been playing games with this man before Prisha got here. Though it was only a possibility.

edited 21st Jun '12 12:24:05 AM by PsychoFreaX

[Courtyard]

"Znubb? Oh, He's a Tharxaian Familiar. I tried to convince him to just use a cat body, but he had to be picky. Not entirely certain what kind of form he eventually decided on. Something chimeric, obviously but.."

Znubb glanced at the other two with resigned exasperation. He'd obviously listened to Gerald's endless chattering before.

[lab]

Leaning against the counter, Vince crossed his arms casually, reading over the calculations on the board. Towards the end of the last portion, he caught a few tiny problems in their infancy, akin to sign errors and third grade-level arithmetic errors he observed when helping his grandson with precalculus assignments.

"These aren't very difficult calculations, and that's coming from someone whose last physics course came from the likes Ptolemy and Newton." He uncapped a marker in a color other than what Cyrus had been using for most of his calculations and scrawled what he thought to intended workup under the offending portion, taking his time with the numerals. Hopefully, it wasn't that bad- he could read it, at least. "You seem far too bright to be making mistakes like this..."

He caught sight of another young man starting to scurry away, bullshitting something about bacterial colonies. A lab like this, as clean and in good condition as it looked was unlikely to still have biological samples on file- they would have left as an asset long ago, and even if they were actually left behind, they would have either died or left the building condemned as a biohazard. It would hurt nothing to ask. He turned to the young man. "There something the matter?"

In a clean, uninhabited corner of the board, Violet picked up a thin black marker and doodled a mouse with ears wider than its head proper and a happy smile.

[auditorium]

Sora refrained from pitying the new boy, whatever forces had caused him to take the place of yet another equally demonic middle schooler. In some ways, he reminded him unpleasantly of the worst aspects of his wife and how her life seemed to revolve around finding new ways to gather prey. The musician was wasting his breath. In his personal experience, boys- as well as girls -his age have little appreciation for things beyond themselves, a sort of blinding arrogance that lasts from age thirteen to the onset of driver's education. As is such with arrogance, there is little that can be done until they see for themselves.

He himself had to come to terms with this truth after observing the exact same traits through a decade of teaching, a single control that held fast throughout the rises and falls of trends, the march of social attitudes and fashions and values, and sometimes even parental upbringings. A phase, if you may, which simply exists for its predetermined period of time without any sort of question or negotiation, and leaves when it's time is up, like schooling or childhood.

He saw no sort of merit in arguing with one blinded by arrogance and offered the purple-haired boy a single thing in return, a simple glance with a twinge of ice, and went back to drawing. The strings and detailing of the guitar took shape.

edited 20th Jun '12 11:50:02 PM by CrystalGlacia

[Bio Lab]

Cyrus sighs. "I know they're silly mistakes. I was a bit... excited. Just let me, well, fix them. Thanks."

With another sigh, and with his head hanging in shame, Cyrus picks up his marker. He glances at one of the runeological ratios and realizes that would be wrong, too. Shaking his head, he erases the cluster of spiky, angular symbols.

He was so careless and overconfident because he was showing off. How idiotic. Cyrus erases the whole lot and starts over, this time a bit more slowly.

edited 20th Jun '12 11:59:41 PM by SnowyFoxes

[Library]

"Such amazing way of thinking." Raze commented, finally closing the book. He had skipped one or two parts that bore him, but all in all, it was a good read, about the how life on earth came to be. But this book bears no place in his life-creation experiments, he couldn't wait a millennium to achieve another success.

He peeked outside through a window, spotting that the rain was still gushing its watery load without cessation. Then, he shifted his gaze to the small bunch of people, talking merrily. "Ah, youth, how I miss those days." He kept his thoughts inside and stood with the intent of finding some more books to read.

[Auditorium]

The musician shook his head and said, "really, how you phrase it. 'For the Lulz?' Such a dismissive tone 'tis nearly painful." He sighed, morosely, the said, "but as... crude as your summary of my purposes is, I suppose it is technically accurate. Which is a very deceptively inaccurate form of accurazy, would you not agree?" He smiled wickedly, as though planning to return to his previous game, then said, "ah, but there I go, forgetting myself again."

Then he bowed, and said, "ah, but again, I forget myself. Names, names, names. I do believe the first name by which organics called me was simply 'the Serpent', back in the old days of Eden." He frowned, tapping his chin to recall. "Others came. As Prometheus, Bringer of Flame, I awoke mankind's true potential, even though it cost me the wrath of my now long-dead kin. Under the guise of ha-Satan, the Accuser, I helped a man discover the true meaning of his faith. I inspired some of mankind's greatest art and poetry whilst known as Eris, Sower of Discord. And oh, how many old, stuffy, backwards theocrats I defied in the name of the arts and the sciences — the two things theocrats most fear — whilst known as Lucifer, the Morning Star. But..." he shook his head. "Forget, for a moment, these previous names, and the countless others. No, they are not names at all, but titles. If you must know by what name I would most love to be addressed, know only that I am Shamsiel."

Take Shamsiel's claims with a grain of salt, though the gist of them is loosely true.

edited 21st Jun '12 3:32:42 AM by KillerClowns

[Auditorium]

"Right, so if you really are what you say you are, I can see why you would need to hide it. What with an entire religion hating you and all," Prisha frowned as usual. But, he didn't really believe what this... Shamsiel is saying of course. Even without the far fetched claim of being Satan. Whether or not this man was being honest about his identity wouldn't have people trust him any less anymore.

"So what made the devil decide to work at a university?" Prisha asked. Though, after some time, he now thought there may be another reason for this game. Something that Shamsiel playing at the curiosity of others could have achieved.

But what if the people he was talking to were christian? Or any religion for that matter? How would he expect them to react?

edited 21st Jun '12 5:26:46 AM by PsychoFreaX

[auditorium]

"I already explained this to your friend- this place is abandoned. One would have to be a special breed of stubborn to still believe that they are employed at a crumbling university campus." Sora adjusted his tie, then turned to the musician. "I do thank you for giving us your name, however. I find that referring to a person using only titles adds an unnecessary element of distance to a conversation."

In truth, he wouldn't care if people just called him by his name- it avoided confusion with Ryu, the last thing he wanted. But judging by Shamisel's speech patterns, it was unlikely that Sora would be able to convince him otherwise.

[Courtyard]

Familiar, eh? So Magicky magickness or something was abound with Gerald? Good for him then, Tyler supposed. Pity there was nothing else to say. Except why a cat?

"There are other animals to transform into."

[Courtyard]

"Maybe he's just a cat person." Loyce suggested. He'd also guessed that magic of some sort was involved, but he couldn't help but wonder what kind.

edited 21st Jun '12 7:31:53 AM by YsaSlayerOfSporks

[Courtyard]

Tyler shrugged in agreement. Not being any particular "animal" type person mean that it was rather hard to agree or understand. All animals were animals. Was there really that much of a difference?

"Wait a minute," Prisha started again. His frown directed at Shamsiel. "Time! Was that the answer to your little riddle?"

[Bio Lab]

"Dude, Cyrus, don't beat yourself up. At least you're fixing them before you started building, right? Are we distracting you or something? Need some space?"

Naomi realized that she probably sounded like she was trying too hard, like when Jeanie got another rejection slip and she was trying to tell her that there's always a next time and Jeanie just wouldn't buy it, convinced that the world just wasn't ready for her style or genius or whatever bullshit excuse she came up with. Well, Cyrus didn't seem that arrogant. He'd probably just find more ways to blame himself. Why did she have to be so bad at this comforting stuff?

edited 21st Jun '12 10:56:35 AM by TerminalOptimist

-Library-

"I see..." Tina said. "You guys musta had some crazy adventures, huh?"

[Library]

"Yeah, that we've definitely had," Peter said, "but I wouldn't consider them all the good kind of crazy adventure."

[Auditorium]

Shamsiel sighed, his hand gently landing upon his brow. To Prisha, he said, "you answered it already — I asked you why I was not giving my name, and you discerned, in a painfully over-simplified manner, it was simply because I sought to enjoy the conversation and riddling that the efforts of others brought."

Then he turned to Sora and said, "I of course understand and agree, and I do apologize if my previous reticence seemed rude. I'm sure you are familiar enough with the Judeo-Christian religions, in whose dichotomic morality plays I am cast as the villain, to recognized why I wished to make an impression before freely tossing out my exact identity."

He looked around — though it was a failing, Shamsiel did find himself disappointed by the lack of usual responses. Where was the aggressive skepticism? Or the horrified reactions and ineffectually flashed crosses? Well, maybe they'd come in time.

edited 21st Jun '12 3:57:34 PM by KillerClowns

Auditorium

Well, it seems this little conversation had come to a standstill. Rachel thought it was just as well - a few more exchanges, and she would be covering subjects that she did not want to talk about. She wasn't particularly good at changing gears mid-conversation, however.

She took another look around the auditorium. The attendance didn't seem to change majorly, although it seemed the foul-mouthed male from earlier was gone and replaced by yet another male who didn't seem to be much of an improvement in terms of personality. Yet another person to keep a good distance away from....

The conversation said male was getting into, however, piqued her interest a bit. While she missed most of it since she had her own conversation to participate in, she did manage to catch a few details about the musician - namely, that he was apparently the devil.

If that was true, then that certainly explained why he was apparently perfectly fine with her appearance. In turn, she wasn't particularly turned off by this new piece of information. Part of that was indeed skepticism - about the only thing that supported Shamsiel's claim was the fact that was was unusually good looking for a human, and even then most people from her home would have laughed and dismissed him as a loony.

There was a little bit more to her reasoning, and that was because a devil of any sort was rather meaningless to her. Rachel was not particularly religious - to her, the world was just not a nice enough place to justify there being a thinking god. If there was a higher power at all, it was an unthinking, unfeeling force. Plus, it seemed everything about the recent advances of science wad dedicated to disproving everything that was supernatural about the world.

In fact, given what she had just been talking about, sympathizing with him wasn't hard for Rachel to do. The same reason that she tried to hide her infected status - that people would promptly jump to conclusions based on stereotypes alone - was probably among the reasons the musician was so evasive about revealing his identity. On top of that, he didn't seem evil at all.

That didn't stop Rachel from eyeballing the place where he had kissed her, however. If a boil containing millions of tiny spiders started growing there, she'd be perfectly willing to change her views in a heartbeat. The supernatural was running rampant here, and its rules were not the ones she was used to following.

[Auditorium]

"Well to be honest that riddle didn't exactly have a closed answer. My fourth guess would have been that you were on drugs that made ramble on all that," Prisha frowned. How the hell did the other three get in this situation really? "Anyway that was a nice way to convince others that you're the devil."

"You want any tips for tempting the son of God in thirty days?" He then joked. Of course there were flaws to the time theory. Particularly after he "revealed" himself to be the devil. But if it was true what would Shamsiel trying to waste time for?

edited 21st Jun '12 5:41:33 PM by PsychoFreaX

[University]

Shamsiel shook his and said, merrily, "I fear not. That particular incident was nothing more miraculous than a series of starvation-induced hallucinations." He scoffed, then, after a moment of thought, added, "albeit very brilliant ones." He shrugged, and waved a hand dismissively. "But no matter. I was otherwise engaged, delighting myself in the intrigues of the court of Emperor Guangwu of Han at the time. Indeed, I must grant you some advice to use if ever you should attain immortality: there's always some strange little game going on in China worth participating in." He tapped his chin, and added, "I did make it back to Judea for Jesus' crucifixion, though. Can't tell you details, though. Spoilers..."

edited 21st Jun '12 5:51:16 PM by KillerClowns

Doltur was lost in thought. "I was going to argue with you...but I think your right. That would explain why people hate Kit and like foxes and wolves." Doltur said. He listened in on the other conversation, and could only scratch his head. "Errr...hey, Rachel, mind filling me in here? Who is this 'Satan', and why does anyone care if he's him?" Doltur asked. Satan meant no more to him than Jeff, so he was very confused.

[Auditorium]

Prisha now remembered the research he needed to do. He previously thought he could get some information about the university from Shamsiel. But given his responses thus far, he wouldn't get any reliable answers.

"Well as much as I'm honored speaking to the prince of darkness, I'm sorry I can't stick around," Prisha said walking towards the door. Then waved back his hand still with his usual expression, "Catch you later."

edited 21st Jun '12 6:21:57 PM by PsychoFreaX

Auditorium

Just as Rachel got done thinking about her view on religion, she had to explain a religion to someone else. Well, this was going to be interesting....

"Back where I come from, the dominant religion is called Christianity. The basic gist of it is that there is one God, who was responsible for the creation of everything. He is supposedly forgiving and kind," she explained. "Satan is His opposite - ruler of Christianity's version of the underworld, where the wrongdoers go to suffer for their sins. Christianity's sacred texts say that he was once one of God's must trusted lieutenants, but feel from grace after a mad pursuit of power."

She shrugged. "Personally, I'm not a Christian or even that religious, so either way I fail to find the concept fearful. Other people are appalled because Satan apparently stands for all that is evil."

She looked towards the doorway. While the information she picked up here was interesting and she had the knowledge that at least two people on this campus had her back, her main priority was trying to find a way out of this place. She still didn't have the foggiest idea of how she got here.

"Since there's nothing much else for me to do here, I think I'll head back over to the library and see if it has any information on dimensional mishaps. Would either of you care to join me?" she asked, addressing both Doltur and Nathan. It had been a while since the incident in the library - certainly things should have calmed down now.