Things are unexceptional even boring in your life currently

Unremarkable and uneventful yet you've heard of weird reports across town recently...

Amy reread her article on the Annual Meeting of the Duck Breeders, added a missing comma, and breathed a sigh of relief as she pressed send. She had been warned by her editor that most of journalism wasn’t sensational Pulitzer-winning stuff, but she had hoped for something more interesting than this endless string of car accidents and meetings of this club and that society.

She told herself that someone had to do it, and she knew how much it meant to many people to see their names in print, as she checked her watch. It wasn’t as late as she had assumed, so, with a new spring in her step, she grabbed her trusted Leica and made for the nearby woods.

Some day soon, she knew, she would graduate to writing reviews on performances and on local politics. And from there, it was just a step to wildlife reporting from exotic places like Manaus, or Mozambique. She froze, as she spotted a squirrel just a few feet ahead, licking its tiny claws with abandon. She raised her Leica slowly, adjusted the focus with one practiced motion, and snapped a picture. The squirrel turned its head and stared at Amy with a strange mixture of fear and curiosity before it ran up a nearby oak tree.

Amy checked the picture, and settled onto a tree trunk in a waiting stance, immobile, to become part of the forest around her.

Photography was like fishing in that it required patience. She allowed her mind to wander, and thought about the weird reports she had heard.

She doesn't find anything in particular sadly... but latter that night she has a dream


A backyard of a normal enough looking home then she sees a storm cellar going downstairs


there she gets the sense something unwholesome, something malevont is waking at long last but she cannot see or hear what...

There are many dreams that are but distant memories when the sun's ray fall on the bed in the morning, and there are others, the ones that remain with you throughout the day.

This dream followed her into the shower, and she shared it with her flatmates over breakfast. Lucy, her mind already clearly set on her workday, was characteristically dimissive of her description, but the ever sensitive Gael earnestly suggested to Amy to respect the voice from her subconscious.

So it was with mixed feelings that she walked towards the Herald's Offices, peering into gardens left and right, not sure if she was looking for the stairs from the dream or proving to herself that she was being silly.

ooc: I've introduced her flatmates. I have no idea if they will be important (meriting merits), or whether they are pale shadows, or not-quite-yet cold bodies. I am happy to leave the question in suspension. It would be great if you gave me a place name and season (country, state), so I know if this is a seaside place, and can choose appropriate temperature, plants, animals...

(Lets say in Autumn around the bible belt? not the coast)

she doesn't find the stairs right away...

Work turned her mind away from mysterious stairs. Amy's piece wasn't rejected. Some of it was tacitly accepted and some even drew grudging praise, with only a few elements altered or criticized, and none of the editor's comments unfair or insubsubstantial. She knew the old man was trying to help her, but knowing that he was right did nothing to make it easier for her.

She had to walk a bit to buy lunch. The Mumbai House, an Indian restaurant where she often went for the noon-special vegetarian take-away was several streets from the Herald. She had been tasked with another assignment for tonight, a student concert at Red Lick Middle School, which meant she wouldn't be able to eat with Lucy and Gael, but it also meant she had the afternoon to herself.

Say go to evening she feels Increasingly restless... and having a difficulty getting to sleep tonight.

By the time she got home, it was too late for a trip to the woods, so she lazed away the time till the school concert in front of her computer, watching wild-life photos and Lucy's new PETA video. She almost missed the concert, but made it in time to be treated to a number of performances, not all of them on key, but all celebrated by supportive parents.

A young African-American girl with a violin stood out, playing the second movement of Mozart's Night with so much feeling that the room fell silent, awestruck. She tried to find the girl to get a statement for the article, but missed her and talked to her proud music teacher instead.Amy was grateful for the girl's performance, because it would be easier to find words of praise for the concert, and she didn't have the heart to mention the disharmonies.

Back home, she rejected an offer by her flatmates to join them for a beer in the kitchen, and typed a first draft with the impression still fresh. Although she felt tired, sleep didn't come. She changed her mind and joined Lucy and Gael's drinking in her old flower-print pajama. They had graduated to tequila, but she only drank one before she realized that they had too much of a headstart, and instead sat on the porch looking at the sky. Something was bugging her, the kind of restless voice at the back of your head you get when you know ou've missed or forgotten something. Amy dialed her aunt's number, choosing the number only because it was earlier in California, but didn't speak when it went to voicemail. Instead, she ended the call and paced the porch.

she hears something but when she trys focusing on the sound it vanishes...

A sound that is somehow ominous...  Nothing is tto be seen for the moment but...
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:05, Thu 24 Oct 2019.

Amy cocks her head and listens into the darkness for the sound.

Maybe it is an animal?

She silently curses herself for putting on her pajama and quickly changes into a set of dark, practical clothes and hiking boots. She picks up her Leica, flash and her mini-tripod. Although she is not afraid of the dark, as she tells herself, she pockets her mobile without thinking.

Then she decides to walk down the street hoping for a raccoon, or a skunk, or some rarer animal.

She finds a place between 2 buildings as shes gone behind it she hears a hiss

If she faces she'll see a mishappen thing that is not normal or human not entirely anyway coming at her!

Amy's first impulse is to run, as she has no weapon and no experience in hand-to-hand combat. But then she remembers all the animal programs thatb she has seen on TV that tell you never to run from a threat.

It can't be real!

Her mind tells her. And then her journalistic impulses kick in: She brings her trusted Leica up to eye level, clicks on Automated Settings, and photographs whatever it is.

The flash goes off, illuminating the darkness for a split second.

it is visibly Startled then enraged and trys to attack you actually manages to knock you down then...

(Permission for blossoming granted)

Something changes. Time seems to slow down to a crawl then stop altogether.

Amy's fear is still there, but it is smaller now. She looks at herself. She is wearing a dark green dress, in a style that she has seen on Roman statues of Goddesses.

Her hair feels different, curlier and smelling freshly, and as she touches it she realizes that it has been done up with artlful neglect. She still has a camera bag in the form of a belt pouch. The fresh smell emanates from her in a cloud of harmony.

Weirdest, she finds herself holding a piece of bamboo wood that is about a foot long. She doesn't exactly realize that it is a magic blowgun - she simply knows, even remembers using it.

She now knows that the creature isn't evil or trying to harm her: "What are you?", she asks curiously.

ooc: She uses the charm sweet fragrance and scores 3 successes. Please set the diceroller to nwod.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:18, Tue 29 Oct 2019.

(Dice roller Set)

Its startled for a moment by the bright light before it...

The creature hasn't harmed her, which shows that you can't judge a book by its cover. She suddenly knows that the poor creature doesn't speak her language and that she must speak its own. She focuses and says: "Let's be nice to each other. I just want to photograph you if that's okay for you?. Tell me, where are you from and what are you?"


ooc: Beats speak + wp point -->5 successes (extraordinary success).
She tries to talk the creatures into talking rather than fighting (1 success on Man + soc + 2 from previous roll).
I've realized that everyone involved has the trusting condition (she + monster). It opens 2 doors, so depending on the creatures stats, it will either be trusting or try to eat her next). It is weird, but she's a princess not a superhero.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:24, Wed 30 Oct 2019.

it looks at her then suddenly gets over things and rushes her clearly hungering for her life...

Amy feels a deep sense of betrayal. She had overlooked the things ugliness, had been willing to trust it completely, and now that.
"You will pay for this", she announces coldly, raises her blowgun to her lips and shoots a tiny spring green dart covered with a powerful opiate at the thing.


ooc: Shame that didn't work. Means that both res and com of the monster are at least 3. Well, at least it resolves the trusting condition (I assume I get a beat for her trouble).
Sensitivity rolled (no successes)
Firearms + dex (1 success): 1+3=4 damage + thing must roll sta + res -3 or be drugged