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.