DiscoDude: ---BEGIN SESSION---
DiscoDude: Session logging commenced
GM: When last we left off, three intrepid heroes had set out together towards the Abbey Road Cinema, where Lightrunner hoped to find the package he had redirected, or at least some clue to its whereabouts.
The scene opens with the three approaching the theatre, which is just as decrepit and boarded up as the smuggler remembers.
Pirrue: "This is totally the kind of place where serious crimes happen," Pirrue says gleefully.
GM: “So uh...” Jack scratches his head. “What are we doing here? Yer going after Serated Opus, so I’m good with following you guys, but...” He shrugs and gives them a look that suggests he wants answers.
Lightrunner: Lightrunner stays silent, "I want that arrowhead, then we can move on."
Pirrue: "Yeah, yeah! If we get our hands on it, we can keep 'em from making other Stand users!"
GM: “Okay. You’re the boss. (Didn’t know there was a thing that could do that...)”
Pirrue: looks around to see if she can find some way she can surreptitiously sneak in.
Lightrunner: He tries to summon his stand, but doesn't come out. "Well it's too bright to summon him, guess I'll have to kick down the door."
Pirrue: "H-hey! Shouldn't we try to do this on the down-low at first?"
GM: Pirrue is moving around the building, occasionally finding some back entrances, but they’re all locked. Meanwhile, Lightrunner approaches the boarded up doors beneath the defunct “Now Showing” overhang.
Pirrue: "Lemme...try something."
Lightrunner: "Nah, unless you can break open locks quietly, if your stand can do that."
Pirrue: (can Pirrue try to unlock one of the back doors?)
Pirrue: (with her metal manipulation leetness?)
GM: (Sure.)
Pirrue: puts her hand on a locked door and concentrates. Her Stand controls metal; it obeys her command. If ashtrays and penknives can bend to its will, perhaps the delicate internal mechanisms of a door lock will also...
Pirrue: -ka-click!-
Pirrue: looks at the door. She almost wasn't expecting that to actually work.
Pirrue: She turns to Lightrunner, beaming with feigned confidence, and gives a grin and a thumbs-up: "We're in."
Lightrunner: "Good." He slowly enters the building and tries to summon his stand.
GM: [MACHINE IN THE GHOST] slowly rises up from Ink G.’s shadow as he enters the trash-filled theater hallway. It looks like someone hasn’t been through this particular area of the building in a while.
Pirrue: follows Ink G. closely.
Lightrunner: He begins to illuminate himself in the darkness with his bioluminescence, "Stay close to me, he can't be near me, so I'll just lend you some control over him, he will listen to you." He turns to Pirrue.
Pirrue: "I can...order him? Okay..."
GM: “Man, this place is old school,” says Jack as the three move down the hallway, exiting out into what appears to be the front reception area behind the boarded up doors. “Come to think of it... I think our dad told me an’ my sis about going here as a kid.”
Lightrunner: "Know any good hiding spots then?" He turns to Jack, and then over to Pirrue, "Yeah, the only problem with that is he cannot target me, and something else you may find out later." He says as he continues to walk.
Pirrue: "Um...okay. Uh...come with us!" she says, beckoning Ink G.'s stand to follow.
Lightrunner: It follows
GM: Jack knocks on the old-timey box-shaped popcorn machine and glances up at the stairs leading to a balcony where presumably the projection room can accessed. “Nah, he only told stories. Supposedly, he met the guy that owned the place, before he croaked.” He peers into the twin vomitoriums leading into the theater proper. “So... Split up? I can see something being hidden in the seats or the projector room. Every other direction looks covered in dust, ‘cept the entrance, which is weird, considering it’s boarded up.”
Pirrue: "Ooh! Could there be a secret trick to opening the front door?"
Pirrue: "Like maybe it's not really boarded up at all..."
Pirrue: "Or maybe it's a Stand trick?"
Lightrunner: "No, splitting up is the dumbest idea I ever heard." He says, "You ever watch horror flicks? If you split up you are dead."
Lightrunner: He looks around, "Just look for things you would never think of being." He says, "Like, hiding something underneath a bottom drawer."
Pirrue: "I hide my sweets and my diary underneath the bottom drawer of my dresser."
GM: “I bet that’s what it is,” Jack says to Pirrue, “it’d be easy peasy to only nail the boards to the door itself and none of the walls.” He glances at Lightrunner. “Oh! Good idea!” [MAROON 5] goes to yank out the bin of the popcorn machine. “Nope, nothing here.”
Lightrunner: "Just look for something, odd paneling, things that don't look like they're matching up." He pauses, "I wish we had an x-ray stand user."
GM: After some searching, the only thing the group were able to find were some old cash in the ticket booth between the front doors, and confirmation of what Pirrue said about said doors; that despite looking boarded up, they opened like normal, in a small trick of carpentry. “Guess that leaves the projector room and the showing room itself. Where to?”
Pirrue: "The projector room," Pirrue says with finality. "If anything's hidden around here it's gonna be there. Plus I wanna make sure the projector's turned off and unplugged. Like if there is someone here, wouldn't want them turning it on and burning up our friend's Stand here..."
Lightrunner: He turns over to Pirrue, tries to say something, but stops, "Yeah, let's go to the projector room." He says.
GM: The three head up the stairs and find a door at the center back of the overlook, and some other doors off to the sides that presumably lead to hallways in disuse, judging by their disrepair. “This is prolly the one we want,” Jack says, pointing at the center door.
Lightrunner: "I'll go up ahead." He says and starts to walks towards the door, slowly opening it before pushing it just enough so it doesn't squeak.
Pirrue: peeks through the door as he opens it.
GM: In the room, you find what one might expect; racks of old, almost moldy reels, a small window for the projector to shine through, some larger windows for the projection operator to watch along and observe the theater, and some break-time amenities like a couple spare stools and a wastebin.
GM: And then there’s the projector itself. It looks normal enough at first glance, but... Pirrue and Lightrunner aren’t sure why they’re feeling it, but it’s giving off this weird vibe. Jack is the first to notice one of the physical details.
“Hey, what’s with the weird dials?”
Lightrunner: "Pirrue, can you try to manipulate that projector, from a distance?"
GM: (Really crappy rushed visual aid.)
GM:
Pirrue: "I have to touch stuff to make it work, I'm pretty sure..."
Pirrue: looks around for something like a metal rod or pole or something she can use to touch it at a distance. She's reasonably sure this might work!"
Lightrunner: "You can use your stand, right?"
Pirrue: "It only works on contact. It's not really telekinetic. I can make a piece of metal fly off like a bullet but I can't make it circle back like a boomerang."
Lightrunner: He shrugs, "Well whatever you say."
GM: “What’s that plaque say...?” Jack takes a step closer and squints into the dark as Pirrue spots a broom in the corner. “Property of... Franz Fergie, proud owner of [TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB]. Huh. Hope he got a refund for that botched grammar. Forgot the ‘The.’”
Pirrue: (is it a metal broomstick?)
Pirrue: ('cause that's what she needs)
Pirrue: (metal "conducts" her Stand's ability)
GM: (Nope. Wood. :P)
Pirrue: curses.
Lightrunner: "I didn't know a jackass like you would care about grammar." He squints at Jack Gray.
Pirrue: "Worse comes to worse I'm pretty sure I could at least break it...this Stand ain't called [Sabotage] for nothing."
Pirrue: Her Stand manifests briefly.
GM: “Is that what it’s called? My Stand’s prolly the best at raw punching, from the looks of it. But if you wanna take a crack at it first, have fun with that. There... doesn’t seem to be any plug. Weird.”
Pirrue: "So, uh." She looks at [Machine in the Ghost]. "This thing is like a shapeshifter, right? It can take any form I ask it to?"
Lightrunner: "Yeah, just not like, a cannon sized, you would have to supply ammo for that yourself."
Lightrunner: "You could just get a heavy caliber rifle and have one round."
Pirrue: "Can he become something like...a bungee cord?"
Lightrunner: "Yeah, totally, although probably only like...2 meters if you use him fully."
Pirrue: (would that be long enough for Pirrue to touch the camera, and spring back to safety if it acts funny?)
GM: (The room’s not that big.)
Pirrue: nods at [Machine in the Ghost]: "Tie yourself around my waist and anchor yourself to the door."
Lightrunner: It does exactly as you say, wrapping around her waist and connecting itself to the door.
Pirrue: "All right. Be ready to yank me back when I say 'pull,' okay?" she says, still addressing the Stand. "Now, here goes nothing..."
Pirrue: Cautiously, she approaches the odd camera.
Pirrue: Her intention is to touch it and see how it reacts to her Stand power.
GM: Nothing happens on the initial approach, but as she touches it with [SABOTAGE], she can certainly feel its inner workings... or lack thereof. There’s nothing to manipulate, so to speak, except for the dials and the reel axises and the switch on the other side from her that turns the whole thing on. Even more unnerving is how her Stand is even having trouble moving those. Like something is actively resisting this mechanical violation.
Lightrunner: Ink G. looks at Pirrue, "Anything off?" He asks, "I thought you could mess with mechanical stuff."
Pirrue: "Pull! Pull!" Pirrue calls out. "It's gotta be an enemy Stand!"
Lightrunner: The Machine in the Ghost yanks Pirrue back.
Pirrue: "There's nothing in that thing," Pirrue says. "There's no way it's a real camera. But...something was trying to resist [Sabotage] all the same."
GM: Glancing down, Pirrue also noticed a post-it note on the table the projector is on as she was yanked, but she didn’t get enough time to read it. The projector itself remains there, emanating that weird, yet not necessarily hostile aura.
Pirrue: "Um." She looks at [Machine in the Ghost]. "Grab that post-it-note, will ya?"
Lightrunner: It tries to snatch the note.
GM: It grabs it and brings it back to Pirrue: “Current year - DEC - 2 - 12(am) | Remember to scramble dials after and discard note.”
Pirrue: "'Remember to...'" Pirrue's eyebrows go all the way up.
Pirrue: "...whoever's Stand this is, they must be a complete idiot."
Lightrunner: "Franz Fergie, that's the owner of the stand. This stand is their property."
Pirrue: "Then Franz Fergie is a complete idiot."
GM: “Well...” Jack rubs his head. “Pretty sure Franz Fergie is long dead, if he’s the same Franz Fergie that owned this theater.”
Pirrue: checks the dials on the camera, a little less irrationally frightened of it now.
Lightrunner: "Then it is an autonomous stand, it can act by itself, even if the user is dead."
Pirrue: "That's a thing?"
Lightrunner: "Yeah, that is a thing."
Lightrunner: "Sometimes the stand has a mind of it's own and kills their user and hops onto another stand user."
GM: There are dials that seem to show numbers leading up to 12 (followed by am/pm), numbers leading up to 31, abbreviations of the months, and three digit numbers, in descending order.
Pirrue: mumbles to herself: "Current year...x month...x day...x time..."
Pirrue: And she sets the dials to what they were on the note, if they weren't already.
GM: Nothing seems to happen. “I think you need to turn it on,” says Jack.
Pirrue: "..."
Pirrue: makes sure it's plugged in, if it needs to be, and looks for the on switch.
GM: As Jack stated before, there doesn’t appear to be any visible plug, which is odd for such an old model. She finds the switch just where she intuitively felt it when she was sensing around with her stand.
Pirrue: flips it on with a smile.
GM: The projector clicks to life, as the film reels start spinning and a beam of light pours out into the theater. Everything is running pretty smooth by antique standards.
GM: “Hey,” Jack’s moved to the larger window, “why is there a stage under the screen? Must’ve been a play theatre at some point.” To anybody observing, the light from the projector seems to spill onto the horizontal stage from the vertical screen. It’s not projecting anything other than light at the moment, however.
Pirrue: "...I'm gonna check it out."
Pirrue: bounds down to the stage.
GM: As Pirrue heads down the stairs, the top dial almost imperceptibly starts to turn clockwise at an extremely slow rate. She reaches the stage.
Pirrue: waves at the projector from the stage.
GM: “Holy shit,” Jack says as he moves back to the projector, “is that all? It’s just a shitty projector that don’t show nothing?” He turns it off.
GM: It takes Lightrunner’s eyes a minute to adjust to the new darkness, but when they do...
GM: He realizes that Pirrue is gone.
Lightrunner: He turns to Jack, then back down, then back at Jack, "You better hope that thing turns on, or I will personally kill you."
GM: The chapter closes on a panel of the time dial clicking a millimeter back into its position before it started winding.
GM: < TO BE CONTINUED /|/|
GM: !end
