The Beast Within [Dark*Matter D20]

[Jarval]

It's been just over four months since the incident at Exit 23, and they've been busy for John, Daunte and Danny. The Institute has been training you hard since you joined, and you've all learnt a lot about the occult and the "true nature of the world". Still, you can't help but feel that you're not being told about everything that's going on...

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Febuary 28th, 2004. 10:36 AM. Hoffmann Institute Building, Atlanta, Georgia.

The Hoffmann Institute Building in Atlanta isn't exactly the most impressive place in town, a small, run-down office block in one of the rougher parts of the city. Of course, it's nondescript nature suits its use well. John, Daunte and Danny sit in a waiting room, along with four others, three men and a woman. None of the faces look familiar to you, but maybe that isn't surprising. You've not been with the Institute for long, and they do boast of having thousands of agents world-wide.


(OOC: Getting the ball rolling. Feel free to introduce yourselves to each other, post what you've been doing for the last few months, or whatever else you see fit. You can assume that your characters know that everyone in the waiting room is working for the Institute.)

 

[loxmyth]

Daunte Spinks was the last to arrive, dressed casually in jeans and a grey sweatshirt with its sleeves rolled up, a rolled newspaper under one hand and a sealed mug of tea in the other. With the knapsack slung over his shoulder, he looked every inch the University student he still was. Black-rimmed glasses framed his open, handsome face and as usual, he wore a grin that seemed for a joke he alone got the punchline to. He had an athlete's build, and an athlete's grace, though the Institute's training regimens left him sore and favouring his left foot today.

Looking around the room, he nodded in greeting to the others, then took a seat beside John. He'd grown to greatly admire what he'd come to know of the absent-minded intellectual during the long months of training. Danny too, though he knew less about the short order cook. The truth was, when you team up with a bunch of people to kill a snow demon in a lonely backwater rest stop, a bond is irrevocably formed.

He turned to John, held up his wrist to draw attention to the expensive, complex-looking watch that rested there like a squat metal crab. "Finally got it," he stated with a grin. "This is the last time I'll be late to anything, I swear." He looked at the unfamiliar faces gathered in the room. "Hey, I'm Daunte. What do they got on the rest of you?"

 

[Thomas Hobbes]

John smiles at Daunte over his glasses, nodding a hello, surreptitiously placing a slip of paper in his book as a marker and sliding it into his courier-style pack. The spine quickly slipped into darkness, providing just a quick glimpse of the writing there: The Black Arts, Cavendish. Right between Liber Kaos, by Caroll, and one of Crowley’s journals.

And to think, just five months ago he thought all of this was nothing more than medieval superstition and new-agers crying out for attention! John had always looked at these sorts of things logically and empirically: upon having magic being demonstrated to him, rather forcefully, he had incorporated it into his worldview. And longed to learn more. It was all so fascinating, and he couldn’t wait to learn more. He could feel he was really on the cusp of something, research-wise. This Michel Galvin fellow was a fascinating study. Obviously mad and evil and all that, but fascinating nonetheless.

His doctorate, of course, had been put on hold- this was much more interesting, and a degree was just a sheet of paper. It was rather hard to write about these things as just myths, anyway. Also out the window went his plan to get back in touch with his friends and family, as it had quite slipped his mind, what with the snow demon wolf thing and all. He spent his days pouring through all of the Hoffman archives he was cleared for, or the library, going through some obscure book on intra-library loan. He spent his evenings reading fiction or surfing the ‘net in a small apartment within bicycling distance of the Institute.

And now, finally, they were giving them something to do. And giving them something to do meant giving them more information, which John awaites with ill-concealed excitement.

 

[Argent Silvermage]

Anna sat back in her chair and listened to the men talk. This place scared her less. What she saw could not be explained, and she's not sure if she even wants to. But here she is for your own safety Ms. Spellmann. they said.
She looked up at John and blushes slightly. "Hi. I'm Anna Spellmann. I guess I'll be working with you guys. That's some heavy reading you got there. The most 'Occult' book I ever read was 'Chariots of the Gods?'."
She is dressed in loose fitting jeans and a t-shirt with an EMT jacket slung over the back of her chair.

 

[Thomas Hobbes]

"That's some heavy reading you got there. The most 'Occult' book I ever read was 'Chariots of the Gods?'."

John smiles somewhat sheepishly at the book being noticed. "An entertaining bit of pseudoscience, that," he says of Chariots of the Gods. "I'm doing my thesis on the portrayal of myth in popular culture," he continues. "This is research." His desire not to tell outright lies wars with his desire not to be seen as a nutcase. He doesn't know how Anna came to be associated with the Institute, but she apparently wasn't quite so forcibly introduced to the realities of the world.

 

[WhatKu]

Pacing the room, Eric waves to everyone. "Names Eric. Former Police Detective. Now an Occulut Detective. They got me after everyone's favorite goat eating vampire tried to kill me. I hope were not going south of the border again."

 

[Thomas Hobbes]

Pacing the room, Eric waves to everyone. "Names Eric. Former Police Detective. Now an Occulut Detective. They got me after everyone's favorite goat eating vampire tried to kill me. I hope were not going south of the border again."

John makes small choking noises as Eric, whom he has just met, neatly thrashes his attempts not to make them all look like tin-foil-hat-wearing nutcases and frighten Anna. He glances desperately at Daunte. C'mon, your the people person here, do something....

 

[Argent Silvermage]

Pacing the room, Eric waves to everyone. "Names Eric. Former Police Detective. Now an Occulut Detective. They got me after everyone's favorite goat eating vampire tried to kill me. I hope were not going south of the border again."

Anna's eyes get big for a moment. Then she shakes her head tosseling her light brown hair and says "Eric? Does that make you a goat or just unlucky?"

 

[loxmyth]

Daunte caught John's expression and knew his friend wanted him to turn on the charm. But for what reason? It never occurred to him that someone associated with the Institute would be ignorant of the ways of the Occult, even given her words. But he did follow John's eyes to Anna, saw the embarassed flush of her cheeks. Oooh. Now I get it. John, you Romeo you! He surreptitiously gave the girl the once over. After deciding she wasn't a bad looker, he turned slightly to his companion, so that only John could see, and gave him a barely perceptible nod and a wink of approval and encouragement. Go get her, tiger. I got your back.

Now to get her talking, so that John had a chance to get to know her. But don't be too obvious about it. "I don't know about them sending us south of the border, but I could sure use a vacation myself," he replied to Eric, then shifted his focus to Anna. "So, what do you do, Anna? I'm supposedly the people person, and John here's the academic, which you've probably already figured out."

 

[Thomas Hobbes]

ooc: Are those... wacky hijinks I smell?

ic: John just sat back and let Daunte talk, completely missing his nod-and-wink and fully confident he could cover for Eric's faux pas. Currently his only interest was not scaring Anna away, which he figured would be contrary to Hoffman institute interests. Besdies, she seemed like a nice enough person. Of course, that was his general evaluation of everyone he met until proven otherwise, but this fact was lost on the not terribly self-reflective John.

If he had been self-reflective, he might have realized that he hadn't interacted at length with anyone, much less anyone of the opposite sex (the woodcuts in some of the odder esoteric texts he had read notwithstanding) in several weeks. Given this knowledge, he might actually have caught Daunte's hint, and been appropriately embarassed at the suggestion.

He looks over the rest of the group- Oliver he recognizes, vaguely, from the one time he spotted him at the cafeteria typing busily away at a computer. He had figured he was a lab tech, or some such similarily desk-bound job, but apparently not. He gives the man a nod and a smile. The last man looks nothing short of professional, his business-style suit lending him a very "government agent" sort of look. John hadn't seem him around before. "So what do you all do?" he directs the question generally at the four people who didn't stand beside him at that lonely midwestern gas station.