Shadows of Sandfield RP Thread

Heather gave a little hum as she watched the crowd calm down and rolled her eyes a little.

"Dang. They were all out there calling for blood and now... Nothing. Thought Corphy was one of those fire and brimstone priests but I guess not..."

She checks her nails and looks around.

"Well nerds, I should really be getting back to the UN... Unless you've got something better I can check out."

Edited by Pentigan on Dec 12th 2020 at 2:39:39 AM

Jayden

"AHAHAHAHAHA...ahaha...aha..." Jayden's laugher finally died out, if only so he could breathe. Taking in a few gulps of air, he straightened, still grinning. "Ahaha, I needed that..."

"Jayden."

Jayden stiffened, the grin sliding off his face. He turned around to look at Kyle. "What's wrong with me this time?"

"Go back inside," Kyle said, sounding more tired than anything else. "You're not going to help much."

"What?! But this is my chance to get clues! I can find out who's involved and then do some investigating and then I can try and find Tom and—"

"It's a protest." Kyle eyed the large group. "Might become a riot soon. I don't need a fight today. Let's go back inside." He turned around and started heading back into the school.

Jayden didn't follow. Instead, he turned back to the Tom Friend Group (plus Zaahira and Heather). "Soooooo while we're here, anyone wanna discuss all the weird stuff that's been happening?" He pulled out his journal and started flipping through the pages. "I've got a ton of ideas! Aliens, mad scientists, elder beings from beyond this plane of reality..."

Edited by LilyTheLitten on Dec 11th 2020 at 7:44:03 AM

"You're tellin' me, sister..." Zaahira said in response's to Heather's expectation, offering an eye-roll of her own, as if eye-rolling was now some sort of language between current and former Mock UN members... made sense, she figured. The real UN probably can't get through the day without rolling their eyes at each other a dozen times. ...She almost wished she hadn't quit, but alas, she needed more time to practice for EVO '16. Those Kens and Karins aren't going to beat themselves.

"...Still," she continued, "I don't want no hotshot reality TV preacher hangin' around, judgin' us for followin' heaven all 'wrong' an' takin' all our money. This is prob'ly, like, for the best. In the long-term. You know? Like, every fight has a bloody linin' that's real hard to scrub off. I guess."

It was only when Jayden came back on the scene that she thought to stop musing. Immediately, as he brought out his journal, she turned to him and mimed closing a door, the 'stop right there' gesture.

"Nuh-uh, Jayden, dude, you're not gettin' outta this that easy, not this time! Were you seriously hidin' in their meetin' room?! Like, under the table or in a closet, like a troll?! Like, I get it, you gotta get your intel, but, like... c'mon, man! For all you know, they coulda just been hostin' one o' those... wakes, or whatever it is christians do! ...I dunno if any o' you are religious, but you get the idea. Right?"

Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on Dec 11th 2020 at 5:30:44 PM

Dave DuVale, Boxcar (as in car carrying box)

A conveniently-placed red light allowed Dave to get a good look at the events that just unfolded (although not a good listen—the radio was blasting Sweet Child o' Mine). Some rich girl walked up, and then a bunch of other people started doing things, and a small group was forming and talking amongst each other. He noticed James in there and decided to offer his help.

He sent James a quick text.

hey i'm driving past the scene, don't know wtf you guys are doing but if you need me to drive you anywhere or something let me know

As he hit "send", a honk from the car behind him notified him that the light had turned green. He returned his attention to the road and drove towards the address.

"Ahh yes, I know of this, I know of this..." Corpheus cupped his chin and slammed his walking stick one more time when people in his crowd started to get more rambunctious. The noise from his staff hitting the ground immediately quieted the near rioting civilians, as well as demonstrating the influence the old priest had over them. "Most likely adherents of the warped gospel of Kellon Nyczus, that greedy pawn of the wealthy..."

But then he processed what Mina was saying about the woods...

And he just about looked ready to panic. He looked around as if scanning both crowds, and then looked down at her and stated in a much more drastic tone, "You children need to keep out of those woods! Did you not hear there was cult activity in there? The forces of the enemy are everywhere in that place!"

Corpheus decided evidently there was no gain in trying to force a confrontation here, not when things arrayed themselves like this. Looking away from Mina, he shouted, "Everyone, return to the Church and make your protest signs ready. We need to move out from here."

One of the people in the crowd moved forward, a younger man dressed in a sweat stained button up shirt and slacks. "But—-But Father, he was—-"

"I know...I know! Hear my words and observe the situation, see the truth of it." Corpheus seemed to point the head of his walking stick / staff at the guy for a moment and he wordlessly nodded and went back into the crowd.

Before long, the large crowd of the rowdy citizenry started to back off, and disperse from the area. They attached a truly remarkable amount of reverence to what Corpheus said. Even as he did so, the guards and security technicians observed the events going on, still standing by in case anything happened.

Before Corpheus started moving to join his allies, he whispered one more time, "Please...keep what I have said in mind. Do not go into those woods. Do not. You'll find no flights of fancy there, only ruin." And with that he started moving out.

Mina Parker

"O-Okay, I hear you, b-but what does this have to d-do with—" Mina was going to ask, but quickly quietened down as it became clear that the priest was going to leave. "Well, g-goodbye, I guess..."

"A rival priest named Kellon N-Nyczus (my dad likes him better than Father Corpheus)...a c-cult in the woods...and what's the d-deal with Father Corpheus' ability to m-make all these people l-listen to him like this?" she asked the others as she rejoined the others, telling them of what had transpired. "The woods aren't safe, h-he says. Whatever's t-taken Tom is still in th-there. Let's g-go forward with my plan to fly my d-drone over the woods after school t-today, okay? And then, a-after that, we c-can plan the next phase of our i-investigation."

Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 12th 2020 at 4:24:10 AM

This seemed like it could get ugly quickly, at the very least Corpheus seemed to be a reasonable man. He felt the buzzing from his pocket that indicated incoming texts. He looked around to see Dave by his car and waved to him briefly.

He took out his phone and began to type.

"Hey Dave. not in need of transport for now, but if things turn south I'd appreciate a quick lift out of here. Nice of you to stop by."

Shoot, according to Mina, Corpheus was ranting about the woods. Hopefully nobody would tell him about James' little expeditions. "I know I was a bit gruff earlier on, but I'm alright with the drone idea. It can't really hurt can it?"

There's something about the scene that just happened that got Merry curious. She quickly waves her hand towards the others. "'Ello 'ello? Did something happened here?"

"Huh, you lot planning on doing precisely what you're told not to? Sounds fun! Besides if anything in this town is a cult it's Corph's congregation amirite?"

Heather laughed out loud and found a chair to seat herself down in.

"That is, if you nerds are willing to let me join in..."

Jayden

...how did Zaahira find out he'd been in there? He'd thought he'd been stealthy! "No, they were gonna discuss stuff," Jayden said quickly, hoping to curb any anger. "I figured out via...perfectly legitimate methods."

An awkward pause.

"Wait, a CULT in the woods?!" he suddenly ask-shouted, whirling around to face Mina. "I knew I was right about the cult stuff!" (He didn't mention that her dad was probably apart of the cult stuff.) "And Corpheus...he must have mind control powers and that's why everyone believes his conspiracies and never believe mine!" Jayden practically beamed. "We're learning so much today."

"Anyway, yeah, let's do the drone. Worst that could happen is that we lose it and Mina has to buy another, and she can buy another. Her family's wealthy as heck."

Duane

Catching up to the others and hearing the info that Mina had gotten from Corpheus, Duane started thinking about what they now knew. Kellon Nyczus was involved in this somehow - of course - and there was a cult in the woods. There had been some rumors going around of a cult out there, but now it was clear that whatever was going on it had not stopped. Maybe the cult was involved in Tom's disappearance...or otherwise knew about it.

"Maybe, whatever cult's involved out there, they know about Tom's disappearance!"

With the plan set in motion, Duane just hoped they could find Tom somehow. Bring him back alive, and prove all those people wrong about this!

After school

As the school day ended that afternoon, the time had come to inspect the woods nestled so close to the town of Sandfield. There had always been rather chilling stories told about those woods, but relatively few things could really be proven. Some said they were the den of a malicious clown. Others said there were hauntings - demonic hauntings at that - and others said there were multiple instances of cult activity.

Now, the newly formed "Disappearance Investigation Club" (as Duane called it) would move out to try and get a bird's eye view of the area.

Mina Parker, Surveillance Expert

After the school day ended, Mina rushed home to complete the rest of her schoolwork and gather her equipment (and wits) for the expedition planned for that afternoon. She anxiously organized her books and binders one last time and checked the clock in her room.

The time had come to roll out.

Thus, Mina found herself trudging up the hill to the meeting place that she had chosen: a dilapidated and old train station that was set up next to some tracks and the woods. She'd hidden here many times from bullies, and she was sure that it would serve as a good launching pad for her drone. Just in case anyone or anything tried to accost the group, she had packed a baseball bat into the gym bag of surveillance equipment that she had brought.

As she was the first to arrive, she set down her drone on a bench and began to connect her laptop and controller to it. Once they were connected, she put everything on stand-by and began to check the energy status of her equipment. She was not going to screw up here due to a battery failure. Not when something so important was at stake.

In truth, her drone didn't look like all that much. It merely had a lightweight fiberglass frame instead of the plastic favored by so many other drones, and mountings for various types of modifications, instead of just a camera. However, its engine had been tinkered with for better efficiency, so it had a rather large range. The laptop could connect to and record what the camera saw, and the camera itself could be rotated on the drone thanks to a special part that Mina had paid to 3-D print and install.

Almost all of this had been crafted by Mina herself, if not outright commissioned by her father on her behalf. Now the only question was whether or not it would help the DIC (Mina had voted against this name) find Tom.

Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 12th 2020 at 7:32:13 AM

Jayden

Fortunately, Jayden didn't have to rush off to his part-time job today, so the moment the school day was over, he grabbed his things and headed out towards the meeting place.

"Hiya, Mina!" he chirped when he reached the top of the hill, plunking himself down on the bench. "So! What are we gonna look for? Evil cults? Forest monsters? Tears in reality?" He started flipping through the pages of his journal. "Paranormal things can seem very similar at first glance, so don't skimp on the details."

Dave DuVale, Road to Adventure (or whatever)

"Alright, we're here." Dave had been given the task of driving James to a location. As usual, he didn't ask anything about the significance of the location. He now saw a few kids, who he recognized from when he drove past the protest, gathered at said location.

Normally, he didn't do this, but he was curious. He walked up to the group. "What are you guys even doing, anyway?" Then a thought popped into his head, and he added with a slight smirk, "You need another member?"

Mina Parker

"Ah..." Mina said, not used to being the center of attention even though there was only a grand total of two people trying to talk to her at the moment. Her face still flushed nonetheless. "I'm g-going...we're going to l-look for stuff in the woods r-related to Tom's d-disappearance in the woods using m-my drone...we're the n-newly formed Disappearance Investigation Club..."

"And w-we'll know what we're l-looking for when we f-find it..." she mumbled, not being able to articulate much of her thoughts to Jayden and Dave in this cramped social scenario. "I'm...j-just about ready to launch, b-but if you wanna witness our f-findings, you c-can stay..."

Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 14th 2020 at 12:25:11 PM

After School, Forest's Edge

Heather Smythe is here now. She has, somehow, found the time to finish her extra-curricular activities for the day, go home to change clothing into something more suited to traipsing through a forest and to grab one of those lens accessories for her smartphone and head out to the forest to meet up with the 'nerds'.

"Yo, waddup DICs? All goes well I am gonna have a hella good shot for Smartphone Photography Club tomorrow and slash or after the weekend."

"Riiight," she had said to Jayden a while ago, just after the protest. "Look, yanno I know your... heart's in the right place an' all that, but you could stand to... be less of a creep about it? Jussayin'."

Leaving him to stew over that, she went about the rest of her day like usual; she ate her couscous, helped her bro-bro Faruq - or 'The 'Ruq' as she liked to call him - with his history homework ("pro tip, they're not gonna stray too far outta the 'states for history, an' the country's only 200 years old, so it's like... super-easy to ace. It's the only subject I got an A for, yanno"), and then... then what? She had planned on getting some more EVO practice in, but she'd been doing that for seven days straight now. And there was no Kickboxing Club today.

She hadn't initially been planning on joining the DIC on their search for Tom - Zaahira was of the opinion he was pretty dead, and this was all the denial phase. They'd get over it soon enough. Right? Well, even if she didn't believe they were gonna get anywhere, she could do with going outside... and they could do with someone to stick up for them if Jackson or some other assholes come along.

"'Sup, DIC-heads?" she said as she sauntered over to the others gathered at the edge of the supposedly super-duper scary woods. "Just to be, like, crystal clear with all y'all, I don't think you're gonna find anythin'. I'm just here to keep you outta trouble. Lookin' at you, Jayden 'Dipper' Gardner!" she made sure to make the old 'eyes on you' gesture at him. She always did wonder if he got the idea to keep everything in a journal from that cartoon. Did people even keep journals anymore?

She shrugged off that thought and turned to face Mina. "Oh! Mina, by the by, 'pparently you brought a bat with you, in case you run into some assholes. Good foresight an' all, but a trained attacker could easily grab it in mid-swing an' disarm you. One o' the issues of blunt weapons, as opposed to blades. O' course, blades are also kinda fragile. An' not good with armour... 'ey, someone should make a sword-bat! Woah, that'd be, like, objectively the best weapon."

Before long, Duane arrived as well, though he seemed a little bit roughed up. He also seemed to be nursing a headache, rolling his shoulders and sighing. He knew that it could get bad, but this bad? Duane crossed his arms as he arrived, "Sorry I'm late, I had some issues to take care of. We good to go?" He started looking around, examining the drone and then...the woods.

The woods near Sandfield were an infamous place around town.

They were deep, thick in many places, often proceeding from a lightly wooded area to somewhere deep, dark and full of various stories. There had been stories of cult activity almost as long as there'd been a Sandfield. Supposedly a local troublemaker back in the 80s named Harlan had started some esoteric cult, and there were still some indications of his activities that turned up.

Rumor had it that Harlan was involved in all kinds of horrible occult worship... until he suddenly just...disappeared from town. Left one day and never came back. Not to say anyone missed him.

The woods were very oddly quiet today. Not a single hint of wildlife - no birds, no deer, no chittering of bugs. Just...quiet.

Jayden

Jayden nodded as Mina spoke, eagerly tapping his eraser against the paper. "Alright. If I see anything out of the ordinary, I'll be sure to let you know!"

It didn't take long for the others to show up...including Heather and Zaahira, weirdly enough. He didn't think that they were interested in this sort of stuff. But hey, every little bit helped!

...the insults about their club's initials stung a bit, though. "Hey, I wanted to fold the investigation into my club, but no one wanted to join. Sooooo DIC it was."

Jayden looked over at Mina. "So are we gonna launch the drone now or what?"

Dave DuVale, The Woods Where Several Disappearances Have Happened and Several Rumors are Flying Around but are Still Just Referred to as "The Woods"

"Oh shit, these are those woods! Tom disappeared in those woods?" Dave said. He seemed shocked for a second, before smirking again and adding "Hell yeah I want to know what's going on with those woods!"

Dave looked out over the small crowd that had gathered and realized he recognized none of them (except James). "So yeah, uh, who are you guys?"

James looked out into the forest. Despite what had happened there, despite the urban legends he'd heard told of it, it still struck him as one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Mind you, he had barely ever left Sandfield, so that didn't necessarily mean much. Provinciality tended to skew your reference pool.

"So, we're the DIC club now are we? Or just DIC I guess. DIC Club would be redundant, like ATM machine"

He looked at Mina's drone and then at her. "I'm ready when you are"

Edited by bobbitwormhobbitwyrm on Dec 14th 2020 at 7:17:14 AM

Mina Parker

"I-I'm Mina Parker, and I didn't ch-choose the name for this, it was actually D-Duane..." Mina tried to explain quietly, but ultimately stopped in favor of running her final diagnostics on her drone. As each scan revealed that everything was fully operational, she seemed to relax and sit up straighter, sighing deeply as if all her troubles had gone away. "If y-you would just turn on B-Bluetooth, you can connect to wh-what my drone is s-seeing on your c-cellphones..."

Then Mina pressed several buttons on her drone, bringing it out of standby and leading it to unfold its rotors. Using her joystick, she directed the drone to rise slowly, then whiz off over the forest, where it would soon reach the perfect altitude for spying from the skies. Mina dragged the windows showing the status of the drone over to one side on her laptop, and began to properly pilot the drone, taking care to not get it caught on any of the taller trees in the area.

"It's gotten real quiet around here, if you'll please notice, which I think is suspicious," she noted, stutter disappearing like mist in the morning sun. "You all are my extra eyes, after all. Keep your eyes on your phones and tell me if you see anything unusual I can zoom in on. Otherwise, don't talk to me. I'm concentrating, if you can't tell."

Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 14th 2020 at 6:08:26 AM

Duane opened his phone and synced up thus giving him a look down on the forest from above as Mina's drone moved...

The forest was quiet, still and eerie even from above. There were very few hints from up there owing to that...but then, as Mina's drone kept moving, she would see something very suspicious indeed. A huge clearing in the woods, as if the trees stopped growing at a certain place, and the branches grew differently, forming a complete, perfect circle in the wood.

There were eight items visible from up there in the clearing, resembling some sort of totems still laying out there in the woods.

Mina Parker

"I'm going to have my drone check that out. You people take a screenshot on your phones so we can have multiple copies of the same picture. I don't trust that someone's not going to try and hide these things," Mina hissed, seeming like a completely different person as her voice brooked absolutely no argument. "If so, we need to be prepared and have backup evidence. Jayden and I can research this later."

Mina then had her drone descend to take a clear picture (and several more just to be sure) of all the idols, waited a moment for everyone else to do the same, and then had her drone continue on its merry way.

Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 14th 2020 at 6:09:54 AM

"Okay well that's something weird. Crop circles mixed with Blair Witch up in here..."

Heather looked at her phone a little more before deciding to avoid doing so and just leave it passively recording a copy of the flyover.

"What's with your voice bee-tee-dubs? You've gone all smooth jazz."