Shawn had spent the better part of the day searching for the Rabbit's foot with Ralph. Ralph kept insisting that maybe Eric hadn't taken the charm, and was considerably worried that losing it could place Shawn and himself in some jeopardy, considering the ongoing race for souls. On a brighter note, the shiny objects had been saved near the acorns, waiting for some plan of action at an unspecified date.

The two boys had gone to bed, Ralph snoring. Shawn lay awake, and that's when he heard a scratching at the window....

Shawn had come up with a dozen different plans for getting the rabbit's foot back while lying there, all of them terrible. He started when he heard the scratching at the window, his first instinct to bury himself under the covers and somehow hide. But eventually, curiousity overcame fear, and he crawled out of his bed towards the window.

Pale moonlight made its way onto the floor of Shawn's room in small sliver of light as his feet tip-toed past Ralph's bed towards the window.  Coming to the window, he first saw the sillouette of a something that looked like it was floating outside of the window.
A shadow in the night, the moon behind a hunched over, dwarf figure. Closer still, he saw a hand come out at scratch at the window.  A pawing gesture, animal-like.

Griffix smiled a eager, somewhat menacing smile. He appeared more animalistic than before: Sharp teeth with fangs that were yellow. Hairy forearms and hands, a bushy brow and pointed ears.

"Let me in." He said. More of a question than a command.  "I can help you. I can help you play. Play with me. And we'll find out what to do." He suggested in a soft, delicate and off-putting whisper.

Shawn might've normally welcomed Griffix's help with the situation, but something in his voice and attitude was throwing up alarms. The man seemed...off, and in a scarier way than usual. "What kind of playing?"

Griffix didn't answer right away. Instead, he just scratched at the window again, body moving outside with the summer wind, like he was hovering.

"Let me in. So we can play, don't-cha know? I can 'a tell ya' things n' show you such wonders you never dreamed to see. Nightimes' a time to play. Play for the numbers. Numbers to play and games to play with numbers." Griffix said in an Irish-whisper.

"The numbers? You mean like the Numbers game?" Shawn tried to seem like he wasn't quite getting it, like his curiosity about what Griffix was talking about was the reason he hadn't invited him in, not fear or concern.

"The Numbers....Game." Griffix whispered. And the soft voice seemed to say nothing at all, but it still passed through the window, making its way into the dark corridors of the room so Shawn could hear it.

Gray clouds passed above the night sky, a loud, bright moon cast its reflective gaze, its pale, white light illuminating the carpet under Shawn's feet.

"The Numbers Game." Griffix clarified, and with one, hairy hand---no---with one, hairy paw: his gnarled, yellow fingernails began to tap on the window.

Shawn looked back behind him, at Ralph and Bobby sleeping away in the moonlight. He didn't want Griffix in here with them, but he couldn't just refuse a representative from the Circus, right? "How about I get the game and I can go outside to meet you? It's a nice night, right?"

"The Numbers Game." Griffix repeated, ignoring Shawn's request. "Ah, we can play in the closet, we can. Let me in."


OOC: Shawn Rolls Wits + Empathy with the following results

1-2 Successes: Shawn detects the slightest...

3-4 Successes: Shawn detects the slightest____ but also notices ____

5 + Successes: Shawn detects the slightest ____ and ____, leading to the conclusion that ____

OOC: 07:49, Today: Shawn Cramer rolled 1 success using 6d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s. Wits + Empathy + WP.

Shawn notices the slightest lump protruding from the front of Griffix's vest, as if he had stuffed something inside of his vest. Something round and large. But given the darkness and the distracting smile of Griffix's face, Shawn couldn't tell what it was.

Shawn put on his best gormless impression, and pointed at Griffix's shirt as though they were having a perfectly ordinary conversation and he was asking perfectly innocent questions. "What's that in your vest?"

The moonlight shone on the side of Griffix's face, garishly painting it in bright light, the other side in a the shadows. He placed one hairy, gnarled paw-hand around the lump in the vest and then patted it, as if checking to see if it was secure.

"Oh, it's just a wee bit of fun I brought." he assured Shawn. Patting it once more, the gnarled, yellow fingernails returned to the window and began to tap again. He allowed the hand to slight downward, the nails making a slight 'nails on a chalkboard' sound.

"Yes." he said simply. "It's for the game, it is."

"What kind of fun?" Shawn was playing for time, hoping that eventually Griffix would lose patience and somehow reveal more of what exactly was going on. Griffix's strange attitude was making him suspicious.

Griffix's voice changed slightly. It became deeper, almost demonic, abandoning the brogue voice.

"A tetrahedron die. We will play the number's game. That is what you wanted. To see and to learn. And yet, somehow concealed in the shadows, you will see that this is just part of the preparation for the cataclysm that is about to happen." the voice groaned in a tortured growl.

"We play the numbers game. First to rid yourself of the demon. Of you're Feddler. And then, we play to practice. We practice to win. For, without winning, we lose everything to the Clowns."

Shawn, finally getting a straight answer, nodded seriously and padded over to the closet where he'd concealed the Game. He returned to the window with it in hand. "We can't do it here, though. We'll wake Ralph and Bobby."

Griffix nodded, shaggy hair bobbing up and down.

"Open the window. I need to be let in before we can begin." He smiled, revealing two large canine fangs that Shawn hadn't seen before.

"Once you let me in, I'll take you away to a special place, where no one will be able to hear us."

Hesitantly, after taking a moment to consider it, Shawn carefully opened the window a crack, just a crack. And then after another pause, assuming Griffix didn't suddenly try to bit him or pull him through the glass, he opened it the rest of the way.

Griffix hopped into the room with a stealthy lunge.  He was smiling, and Shawn felt he knew why. It was one thing to have the Circus prey upon Shawn and his life, his friends, his family. But then, it was entirely a different thing to invite the CIrcus in, willfully.

Griffix reached inside the vest with a hairy hand, revealing a large crystal ball. It glistened and gleamed in the moonlight.

"This is the fortune teller's crystal ball." He growled in a low whisper. "This is how she keeps a watch on all with her third eye. Some would say, lad, that this is her third eye. Without it, she cannot see, nor hear us. Truly it is a great risk that I stole through the night to bring it here without her knowledge. With it, you can see anyone connected to the Circus and what they are doing now. I propose we play before we start the Numbers Game." He added.

Shawn was still frightened, but now at least it was a manageable sort of fear. Though the fact he could put that fine a distinction on the specific type of fear he was feeling spoke volumes about the nightmare his life had become. "How do we play?" His whisper was even quieter than before.

Griffix smiled a wolfish grin and Shawn could see that the dwarf creature now had the beginnings of a small snout, nose pushed out.  He placed a hairy hand out onto the crystal ball, caressing it.

"To play, you just have to concentrate really hard, ya know? Think of someone you want to see. Who do you want to see right now? Who's thoughts?"

Shawn closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on a single name and face. This was an experiment, and he didn't want to dive into anything too dangerous just yet. "Bradford." He whispered the name just loudly enough for Griffix to hear.

A purple mist spread from deep within the the crystal ball, filling its interior and touching the glass with plumes of smoke.  Somewhere within the mist, pulsing blue, purple and silver lights from deep within the smoke.  As the smoke dissipated, the image of Bradford became more clear...

---

The room was lit with a dull light.

Bradford was sitting in a stark room that was poorly furnished. In the corner, there was a simply cot, worn strands of blue fabric loose and frayed at the edges. Mr. Clayton was sitting in chair in front of a mirror, sporting a skull-like grin that ran ear to ear but didn't touch his eyes.

Bradford walked over to the side of the room to the only other piece of furniture: a small dresser that was old and lopsided. He opened up a cassette player and pressed a cassette inside. The device closed with an audible 'snap.' Then he pressed play.

"20 simple steps to Ventriloquism" a voice said from the cassette player.  "Ventriloquism is a lot of fun. Anyone can begin to learn how to master the art of Ventriloquism with these 20 simple steps..."

Bradford picked up Mr. Clayton and pushed his hand inside the puppet, facing the mirror and listening to the voice from the cassette player speak.

OOC: Shawn Chooses:

1) Continue to watch Bradford

2) Take any other action

Despite being half convinced that the dummy was going to turn around and look at him at any moment, Shawn kept watching. Bradford had been acting a little weird the last time they spoke, and he wondered if the dummy was somehow to blame.

Shawn looked through the crystal ball, watching Bradford sit as he began to practice with Mr. Clayton, ever listening to the voice of the tape as it began to provide instructions.  As Shawn began to peer through the glass, he began to not only watch Bradford, but feel him. Feel the heavy presence of emotions and throughts, the room Bradford was in, the stale air and the thick atmosphere of solitude.

The smoky plume of mist crowded the edges of the vision inside the crystal ball. The room at the center seemed too bright and too dark all at once. Bradford began to manipulate Mr. Clayton with a practice hand, the eyelids of the puppet flickering.

Shawn began to listen as Bradford followed the cassettes directions.

OOC: If you decide to listen to the link below, please cease listening at 10:09 or after step #8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqnmT7_oxUo

Shawn was confronted with the odd sensation of feeling Bradford, or at least what he was feeling. He tried to get a better sense of what the other boy was thinking - he'd said he didn't hate Shawn any more, that the emotions had gone into the dummy. Could he feel if that was true?

As he continued to half listen to the droning tape, he continued to feel little uneasy. Shawn was still afraid of dummies, and to hear the techniques used to manipulate them was difficult to describe, but he imagined it would be like an arachnophobe learning about how to keep and feed spiders. The whole thing was uncomfortable, but in spite of that, he kept 'listening'.

Bradford mimicked the steps used according to the droning tape, taking care to move the puppet's head left and right, opening the mouth and controlling the eyes, the movement jerking and unnatural at first, but then more fluid. Minutes passed. Then an hour. Then how long Shawn couldnt' say. It was almost as if Shawn was in the room now. Not part of the scene, but so close he could feel the intensity of Bradford's practice, the force of his need to achieve perfection, the smell of the stuffy room.

Bradford's eye was burned out. A large flap of skin covering mottled flesh all dark brown and bright pink with scarring.

Then, after a moment Bradford got up and turned off the tape. "I'm not ready yet Mr. Clayton." He said. "We still haven't practiced enough yet. It's just like the tapes from the Fortune Teller said. The Tatooed Lady was right. They both were Mr. Clayton. It's going to take time. And a lot of practice. We're going to have to be alone for a while yet. We have to get it right. We have to get it right before we can make our own Show at the Circus."

OOC: Shawn Rolls Occult + Empathy with the following results

1 Success: Shawn cannot feel Bradfords thoughts

2 Successs: Shawn Can feel Something about how Bradford feels, using the magic of the crystal Ball

3 Successes: Shawn can think and feel the full scope of what Bradford is feeling in this very moment.

OOC: 21:57, Today: Shawn Cramer rolled 3 successes using 5d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 9,4,10(+8),5,1. Occult + Empathy + WP.

Bradford sat down in the chair, the cold, hard wood pressing against his skinny frame. He picked up Mr. Clayton and gently slid his hand up into the familiar cavity until it reached Mr. Clayton's mouth.

"Why so glum, chum?" He felt Mr. Clayton's head move, manipulating Bradford's hand, the sound of the words coming from Bradford's mouth, though his lips were still.  Bradford looked at his reflection in the mirror, the puppet moving its head and mouth, the still air somehow fresh and liberating.

Time was, Bradford would be upset, worrying about what to do, how to escape the Circus. Now he could see that these ruminating thoughts were wasted. Hours of the day had been spent worrying about Ron and getting back to home, his family and whether or not they were safe at the farm. And through it all, Bradford could feel himself slipping away, as if some dark hand of the Circus was taking him deeper down an unkown, and unfamiliar path. He thought about the additional hours of nightmares, his own mind working out potential resolutions to the many problems, endlessly sorting out avenues and potential paths of action, like a kid obsessed with solving a Rubix Cube that had been twisted and turned too many times, the colors all mixed up.

But now he laughted at those thoughts as he looked at Mr. Clayton in the mirror with the clarity of bright sunny day. Bradford had all of the answers he needed inside of Mr. Clayton.  The mouth of the puppet and its wide-open eyes were both the question and the answer, made whole in one form. He made the puppet bounce jauntily on this lap, and it did a little jig. "Wow!" Mr. Clayton said, "It's like we're dancing."

Bradford caught side of his eye. Some would say that having your eye burned out would half your perspective. But for him, when holding Mr. Clayton, he knew the truth. It had given him insight into so many, many things. He thought of Shawn for a moment, thinking of how the boy was ultimately responsible for Bradford's missing eye. On the one hand, he felt that he should kill Shawn. Punish him for what he did. The betrayal that still struck to the core of his soul. The loss of Ron and the rest of the kids. But was that really his feelings? Or Mr. Clayton's?

On the other hand, the Soul Contest had to be won, and Mr. Clayton had told him that Shawn would be a powerful ally to have in the upcoming struggle for power that the Circus was having. Griffix was on his side, and that was no laughting matter. The beast was a powerful Mage in his own right. It was best to keep your enemies closer than your friends, that's what Mr. Clayton said. And Bradford hadn't resolved himself to any course of action against or for Shawn.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:28, Thu 20 July 2017.

It was weird and sad feeling the inside of Bradford's head, and the memories of all the awful things Shawn had done to him. But Shawn tried to stay focused on his objective; now he knew that Bradford was still angry and hurt, though he'd try to suppress it for the Soul Contest. But afterwards, if they both survived it, Shawn would have to watch out.

"Did it happen?" Griffix asked in whisper, pulling Shawn back into the room, his sense now fully oriented out of the scene shown to him in the crystal ball, and back into the darkness.

Griffix sat on hind legs in full wolf form. He was smaller than a man, but bigger than a dog. His posture was straight, long tail protruding from his back where it lay on the floor. One arm dangled on his right side, long claw loose with sharp, yellow finger nails. In the crook of his other arm, he held the crystal ball. His face had a long snout, mouth open to reveal black gums, thick black eyebrows drawn together in something resembling a smile.

"Sometimes you can feel what they feel when you look through." He explained, voice now missing any sense of the warm leaprechaen that Shawn had heard earlier, replaced now with something more animalistic and sinister.

Shawn shook the vision off, along with his connection to Bradford. He was here, and he was Shawn once more, for better or worse. "I saw - I was him. Just for a little bit." Despite the whispers, his voice conveyed confusion, but also greater understanding.

"Yes." Griffix mused with a detatched, far-off voice. "It happens just like that. In all of it, you can detect traces of the Tattooed Lady. It is her work that you see. They say she has a connection down below. Not to the proprietor himself. But where he lives. Some in the Circus say that is where she acquires the ink that she uses."

He leaned to the right for a second, front teeth nibbling on his right shoulder, a dog's scratching itself, biting itself. No. Not a dog. A wolf. A wolf with long canines. He turned back to Shawn.

"Soon he will be a powerful ventriloquist. A greater ventriloquist." Griffix foretold.

"But the question is? What do you want?" 

Shawn considered the question, and decided that the answer was too dangerous to both lie about it or tell the truth. At least until he got a better sense of Griffix. He gave him a sad smile and a shrug. "What do you think I should want?"

It was a neutral response, given that the question was so vague that Shawn wasn't able to decipher its intended meaning, especially since the haze of leaving Bradfords stuffy room was still fading.

As it turned out however, Griffix's question was far less profound. He wasn't inquiring about the long term destiny or future considerations related to Shawn's dark path. He simply wanted to know if Shawn wanted to continue with the use of the crystal ball, or simply to proceed ahead with the Numbers Game. After explaining this in a grizzled, animalistic whisper, he said

"Whatever you decide, we have to talk about the Soul Contest. Tonight."

"I understand." Shawn wanted to move onto the Numbers game, but really quickly he wanted to try an experiment, a test of something that had been bugging him ever since Griffix taught him the limitations of his card tricks. He concentrated his mind like he had on Bradford, but on a very different name. Eric Trenk.

That purple mist, cold and otherworldly,  spread from deep within the the crystal ball and began to fill its interior once again. It started at the bottom, whispy tendrils of smoke grabbing at the side's of the round glass, grabbing at Shawn's mind. Or at least that's how it felt. Pulsing blue, purple and silver lights blinked in time with Shawn't heart. His breath catching in his mouth. His mouth feeling dry with anticipation, adrenaline .  As the smoke dissipated, the image of Eric became more clear...

---

Smoke filled the edges of Shawn's vision, like a picture frame made out of old, Eldritch clouds.  In the center of the scene, Eric was sitting Indian-style, crouching over what looked like a photo album. A light bulb hung from a wooden ceiling above, walls arched to form a triangle at the roof, pink insulation stuffed at odd angles in crevices. It looked like Eric might be in some kind of attic with dim, yellow light.

There was a faint sniffing and whimpering sound as Eric turned the pages of the album, thin plastic sheets which held polaroid photos pressed against a white backstop, their picture borders once white, but now yellow and brown with age.

---

"I've seen this before." Griffix's hollow voice said to Shawn, without actually saying it. It was a thought communicated to Shawn. Another bystander in the scene, distant and removed. An observer from another, erethereal plane.

"You are sure you want to continue?"

Somehow Shawn instinctively knew how to communicate voicelessly back to Griffix, though he wasn't sure how he knew that. "What's going on? What does this mean?"

"He's looking at some old photos." Griffix's stated. "We all keep secrets. But with the Fortune Teller's Third eye, the one we are using now, the Circus, and it's members can see and feel.  It can learn the secrets that others keep from us. It can allow us to find meaning in the hidden depths of wayward souls. The Circus, in its history, has delved into many, many secrets. Secrets of normal people like Eric. But also secrets of the powerful. Powerful men have fallen from grace as a result of these secrets, because they wouldn't bend to the will of the Fortune Teller. Others became more powerful, learning to bend and kneel to her wishes, their dark secrets kept forever hidden from the public's eye. The Fortune Teller is a merchant in secrets. Hidden knowledge and forgotten lore of the Master Magicians. But also a harborer of secrets that she uses to bend the will of men, to force them to take her preferred course of action.  It is when they refuse or The Fortuen Teller sees an advatage to gain for herself, that their secrets are exposed."

"Still. Most secrets that she learns are forever kept in her own memory. Because knowledge that is hidden is more valuable than something that everyone knows. Hidden knowledge is scarce.

"If we keep watching, we might see what secrets Eric is holding"


Griffix communicated that last part as if he already knew what Eric was hiding. Like he had seen this many times before.

Griffix had always been honest with Shawn - or at least had always seemed to be. So when Shawn got a feeling Griffix knew what was going on, the simplest path seemed to be to ask him. "Do you know what the secret is?"

"I am not entirely confident. But I think I do." Griffix's admitted, somehow also communicating--or perhaps incidentally--that he was sniffing the air, catching a whiff of urine that was wafting towards him from a distant area in the neighborhood.

"But I do not want to tell you what it is. Because it is something that might affect you. Secrets, I have learned, carry a great weight of responsibility with them. They come with a burden. I do not take lightly the idea of off-loading the burden onto others and prefer for them to take ownership of such acts."

Shawn considered things carefully. If Griffix told him there was a serious burden associated with going forward, he trusted the man enough to assume it was more likely true than not. But at the same time, Eric stole his rabbit's foot. He needed that back, or the consequences would be...he didn't want to think about it. He had to understand what was going on. "I still need to know." He concentrated harder on the vision.

The sniffling continued, and through the crystal ball, Shawn could see Eric turn the page. His eyes were scanning the photos: baby pictures. A younger, smaller, infantile Eric. Not the bully that would randomly assault Shawn. Pictures of a more innocent time. And in those pictures...

OOC: Shawn Rolls Occult + Empathy with the following results

1 Success: Shawn cannot feel Eric's  thoughts

2 Successs: Shawn Can feel Something about how Eric feels, using the magic of the crystal Ball

3 Successes: Shawn can think and feel the full scope of what Eric is feeling in this very moment.

OOC: 07:45, Today: Shawn Cramer rolled 2 successes using 2d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s ((4,10(+10,7))).

Erik stared down at the picture of when he was a little baby. Sitting there in his Dad's arms. It wasn't fair that his Dad just abandoned him to go off with his real family. Shawn's family. Stupid Shawn. He was a nerd. He wasn't as important as he thought he was. Some high-flying actor. Eric would show him exactly how. And unlike Shawn, Eric wouldn't be acting. Eric would pound the cold, hard truth into Shawn just like Eric had learned the truth when he overheard his mother talking---and making bedroom sounds--with Eric's Dad...no Shawn's Dad, about a year ago.

Shawn was younger than Eric, and didn't really have a context for what 'bedroom sounds' even meant. Mostly, the whole thing confused him; his Dad knew Eric's mom? Why? On some level he knew it was a betrayal, but he couldn't tell who was hurting whom.

Still, strange as it was, now he had some kind of insight into why Eric hated him so much. Maybe he could somehow use that to become friends...

"Look" Griffix remarked, placing one, thick, yellowed nail on the edge of the crystal ball.  "The Rabbit's foot."

It was sitting on the floor next to Eric. The red eyes of the Rabbit's Foot began to glow. Eric took notice of this change. He put the photo album to the side, placing it next to the side of his bed. Picking up the Rabbit's foot he had stolen from Shawn, he examined it. Eric's eyes narrowed suspiciously at the metallic head, the Ruby-red eyes glowing with a faint hint of malice.

Something was happening. Shawn could see it. The air above and around Eric seemed to whir, the same way heat did over pavement on a hot summer day in LA. It was a change that was gradual instead of sudden. The edges of Eric's figure began to become transluscent. Then Eric's arms. Then his legs. And then, the center of his black T-shirt. Slowly, slowly, he began to disappear, like mist fading over a Great Lake.

Until, he was gone.

"Ahhhh." Griffix remarked, breaking the silence.

"I have to get it back before something awful happens..." Shawn wasn't sure what might happen to Eric if he had access to the Circus, but there's no way it'd be good for Shawn. Or Eric, for that matter. "I had sort of a plan to get it back, but now that he knows what it does, I don't think it'll work..." 

Griffix put the crystal ball on the floor, bringing an end--at least for now--to the magical spying that had been going on. The affect also brought Shawn suddenly back into the conscious state of being in his room.  He could see Ralph's face pressed against the pillow through the moonlight across the room. Bobby, on the other hand, was laying on his back, somewhat of a smile on his face.

A thin streak of moonlight cut through the floor of the carpet just in front of where Griffix stood. He hunched over on his hind legs like some kind of miniature werewolf. A gray, shaggy pelt covered his skin. Even so, Shawn could see every sinew of his legs, arms and neck. Whe he spoke, large, sharp, yellowed teeth glistened against black gums.

"You must know something that I don't know. I just as well assumed that you were brothers of some kind. But from different parents." Griffix let that possibility seep into Shawn.

"It shouldn't be anything that can't be talked out. Why? Are you not friend with the boy already? Or are you afraid that he'll be hurt. Hurt by the Circus? "   Griffix was searching for an explanation, apparently having seen the vision, but not understanding.

"How could he be my brother? Mom and Dad are married." However, despite Shawn's ignorance of the...mechanics at work, he trusted Griffix's judgement enough that he began to at least worry about the possibility. "Besides, he hates me. He's always trying to beat me up."

"I'm afraid he'll be hurt by the Circus, but I also don't want to be punished for losing the foot. The Fortuneteller wouldn't like that." It was a mark of how concerned he was that he was openly admitting to less than selfless motives in this situation.

Griffix shrugged, somehow looking less fearsome now that Shawn was actually talking to him.

"It's true. It something to be worried about." Griffix agreed. He snorted a moment, black nose wet and twitching at the end of his snout. "I meant to say, the Fortune Teller finding out and all. We can't have that."

"But there's another reason why I came here tonight, I did. Not just to play around with the Crystal Ball, which is always fun, it is. I came to tell you about the Soul Contest. We're losing. And we don't have much time. Do you have those tears ready? If you don't, I'm gonna have to ask ya' I will, to have them filled by tomorrow night, I will." Griffix said, a bit of the Irish brogue filtering into the deep voice in his wolf form.

"I heard through some of the Carnie slaves at Side-show alley that Mr. Cherrywinks and the Clown Troupe had killed several kids in a town not too far from here. Gaggles came out from under one kid's bed. And Mr. Pibbles came out of a closet with a big mallet. They took off with the souls and added them to their count. We don't have much time."

"You've got to go make some kids cry. We need tears."

Shawn went to his secret hiding place and pulled out the bottle with Ralph's tears. "I've got one here. I've got a plan to get the other one tomorrow."

Griffix took hold of the vial and nodded in approval, shaggy hair waving up and down with each movement. Then he looked at Shawn.

"What's the plan?" He asked. Shawn could...

OOC: Shawn rolls Wits + Composure with the following results

0 Success: ....not read anything from Griffix's posture. It's hard to read a wolf. Also, its dark

1 Success: ....read something from Griffix's posture. He is after all an actor.

2+ Successes: .... read quite a bit from Griffix's posture. Shawn's been around the block, he's spent his entire life looking into what people are thinking at any given moment.

Shawn tried to put his thoughts in order. He had a plan, yes, but in thinking about how to explain it out loud he really understood for the first time just how monstrous it was. "There's, uh... There's another kid I know named Eddy Hughes. I thought if I could show him that card trick you taught me, he'd like me enough that I could make him cry and he'd still be friends with me. And he knows Eric too, so I thought could get him to help me take back the rabbit's foot afterwards...?" It was an awful thing to do, but he couldn't think of any alternative. He really didn't want to be a bully.

OOC: 20:45, Today: Shawn Cramer rolled 2 successes using 4d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 10(+8),4,1,5. Wits + Composure.

When Shawn started to tell the story, it was clear that Griffix had his doubts. It was the way that long tongue came up to lick the side of his mouth, working its way around the nose and then retracting slowly back inside. It seemed to signal that Griffix was distracted enough not to believe Shawn had the fortitude to follow through.

Then Shawn's mind did the social arithmetic and calculated Griffix's gaze. It wasn't just that. It was that Griffix doubted that maybe Shawn understood the gravity of the situation. Griffix was clearly concerned about the Soul Contest, and he was trying to gauge if Shawn took it as seriously.

"That is a good plan. A very, very good plan. You will have the vial tomorrow night then?" Griffix pressed.

Shawn gave Griffix what he hoped was a resolute and serious expression. "Yes. I know what happens if I don't succeed, and I won't let it. I can do this."

The air seemed to leave Griffix all at once, his angular, sinewy body going slack as he hunched over. A wave of relief seemed to fill his face--if you could call it that--neck suddenly relaxed to one side. Shawn could tell that Griffix was....afraid? Yes. Afraid. There was simply no other way to put it. He bed down low in a hunter's crouch, picking up the Fortune Teller's Crystal Ball.

"You won't be alone." he said. "I myself, have already gathered several souls. "I stopped by Los Olivos earlier tonight." Shawn knew the town, it was outside of LA, northwest of Santa Barbara. Griffix let the rest be understood without saying anything: he had been out hunting, for kids' souls or for their tears, Shawn couldn't didn't know.

Shawn didn't know if Griffix had been out hunting souls or tears, and frankly, he didn't want to know. It seemed like information that could only hurt him in the future. "Thank you. For trusting me with this." He met Griffix's gaze, serious but appreciative. Shawn knew he needed Griffix's help, but really, he was just doing what he'd always done; find the important adult in a situation and try to be the kid he or she wanted. He'd been the cooperative and patient child for the producers, the tearful victim for Mr. Cherrywinks, the fearful but trusting protege for Griffix. It had almost stopped being acting at this point.

Griffix nodded his head. Then he picked up the Crystal Ball and sat on the edge of the windowsill, long tail hanging low and touching the floor. "I'll see you tomorrow night." He said in a conspiratorial, predatory tone. Behind Shawn, Bobby was turning in the sheets, pulling the blanket taught over himself.

Shawn just nodded by way of reply. Now that Griffix was a little further away, and with Bobby stirring, he didn't want to risk raising his voice and being overheard.

And with that, Griffix was gone, hopping out the window and into the night, silent as a shadow, moving across the lawn.

OOC: Shawn Joins Thread

Shawn: Dad Hasn't Been to Work in Days...