Shadows of Sandfield RP Thread

Mina's House

The search would pull up several odd bits of non-related trivia, similar words, and similar names - not much related to the search subject...at least until she scrolled down the page. Before long she would see a piece of old news, about three years old.

January 7th, 2013.

Looking on there, Mina would see it was a murder that had happened near San Francisco - and the police lieutenant involved in the investigation had asked for any information about what "Zayufur" was, given that the name was scrawled all over the house in question.

Apparently a gang of hedonists held a party, and the rich girl they "invited" along didn't want to be involved any more after she woke up. What occurred after she tried to escape could best be described as horrible, erogenous chaos that ended with the woman dead.

Heather and co.

"Sick is one way to put it," Miles spoke up.

He then elaborated, "A few of Tobias' drugs were apparently able to induce quite a...a buzz. So when his condition kept worsening, people talked. They said his parents would take the "fun stuff" from him and replace it all with placebos. I don't know how accurate that is, but it's something."

By the time they got Heather back to her place, waving goodbye, Daniel hoped that whatever was going on would not dog them into the following days. There was a lot that had to go right for the upcoming two school events. Let alone the tensions between the schools...

Jayden's Forum Searching

Jayden would not long after his post see the exact same information be brought up that Mina saw, but with some more surprising details;

January 7th, 2013, a gang of hedonists convened on a location one of their wealthy parents owned. They brought in a girl, supposedly drugged up and who was supposed to be the crowning jewel of their party. However it turned out the man who brought her in lied about how conscious she was, how much she said yes to the proceedings, and how aware that she was about what was going on.

When she awoke, she screamed and ran to escape.

The house degenerated into horrific violence and grotesque, forbidden sexual behaviors. By the time it was over, the girl was gone and the entire house was stained by blood and littered with bodies.

And scrawled throughout the hellscape was one word:

ZAYUFUR

February 19th, 2016

Life had mostly calmed down at Monroe High, though there was still a rather odd and dreary atmosphere about. A dark tendency that hanged low to the ground but constantly within the periphery. By the time Lunch came about that day, two days after the excursion to the Phantomwood Forest, Duane convened the club, now titled simply "Investigation Club" due to renewed objections from Mina.

Duane had called this meeting to see what everyone learned and where they could go from here.

Sandfield was proceeding toward some school spirit festivals in the coming weeks, and Duane would prefer that there not be anything potentially dangerous hiding away by then.

"Alright, I think we all probably discovered a few things our first day in. Let's get everyone up to speed just in case."

Jackson White

Jackson groaned as he headed off to lunch. Yesterday's...excitement...was something else. Especially the evening. He stared down at the Starbucks Coffee he now sipped at. 15 dollars was a pitiful fraction out of his trustfund, and his coffee was like many things he enjoyed - stylized, specially prepared and rich. He always needed multiples of these special drinks after experiences like the ones he had last night.

"Ohhh man, why do I do these things to myself? Shouldn't my usual around here be enough?" He wiped his face as he took a seat at the designated "cool kids table". He was as usual the first to take a seat, and then the others started showing up in short order. Jackson looked around. He looked first at Kyle, thinking about him and his brother.

Jayden the little shit asks way too many questions, and probably needs big bro to give him a smack down. And speaking of big bro...I think Kyle's really been hitting the gym...like, really. Not as hard as me. Nobody sculpts their body quite like I do.

Jackson realized he was staring and looked back at his meal - prepped and brought from home. Not like someone as rich as Jackson would eat school cafeteria food. Fuck, I thought I—-just. Just gotta keep my head in the game. We're coming up on Spirit Week. I can't do anything disgraceful.

Slurping up some more Starbucks, Jackson wished it'd just wake him up by now.

Edited by NickTheSwing on Dec 22nd 2020 at 7:28:25 AM

Jayden

Zayufur is likely the real name of the second idol, given the perversion themes. Possible link to Tom? Further investigation needed.

The whole day, Jayden had been checking his phone, hoping that someone would eventually explain the other six idols. But...nothing. Outside of "Zayufur", the other users seemed as lost as he was.

Still, little information was better than no information, so it was a chipper Jayden that came up to Duane in the cafeteria, dropped his backpack on one of the seats, and then sat down next to it.

"Alright! I've got new evidence about this case!" A pause. "Still think we should've just used my club, but anyway..." Jayden reached into his backpack and fished out his journal, opening it to the relevant page.

"Starting to run out of space here... Ah yes! Zayufur!" He pointed at the sketch of the second idol. "This guy. The center of a bloody massacre on January 7th, 2013."

Mina Parker

"Apparently r-rich people of all a-ages are p-part of it all..." Mina commented, poking at the curry that the cook had insisted that she take with her to school. "Wh-Which would include my f-father, now that I th-think about it..."

"Anyhow, th-there's secret places in m-my house that my f-father said were b-bricked off, but aren't. I c-can't believe that Nyczus is involved as w-well. Looks like th-there's an entire ring of people in this, and th-they're all pretty influential," she continued, eating slowly and thoughtfully. "Leave it to m-me to deal with wh-whatever's going on in my house. We sh-should focus on investigating the idols and the n-name."

"B-But yes, I've texted most of e-everything to you guys, including the a-article that I found," Mina said, nodding. "I d-don't know who left me the note, but i-it was pretty useful. The p-paper was a little burnt, too, but that mystery c-can be solved later. Duane, you're the c-club leader. Where d-do we go from h-here?"

Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 22nd 2020 at 9:38:57 AM

James entered the cafeteria and walked over to Duane's table. He didn't bother with getting any food, the stuff they served barely qualified anyway, and truth be told he was a little paranoid about this whole situation. Judging from the conversation it looked like the others had found something. He would have been more skeptical but it looked like Mina was vouching for him.

"Jayden, do you think you can find out about any entities associated with this deity? It looks like it's part of a pantheon of sorts. I have to give you guys credit, we really are onto something messed up here. Also we should avoid mentioning it by name in public, we don't want to draw attention to ourselves."

Part of him was strangely relieved that there was some massive secret behind all of this. It gave some semblance of order to Tom's death. It was somehow less cruel to be victim to occult forces than to a random delinquent.

Icy Team Meeting

"Okay so what do we know about everyone who's vanished already? Cause like, at least three of them are real close matches to the vibes those statues were giving off; wrath, temptation and sickness."

Heather was here, despite her what really should of been the safe option for both her popularity and her safety.

"And if there's statues that don't have matching disappearances, then we need to figure out who in town matches those."

Edited by Pentigan on Jun 22nd 2022 at 8:42:52 PM

Mina Parker

"M-My mother was probably 'justice,' or something l-like that," Mina murmured to the rest of the group. "Unless there's a 'c-cycle of sacrifice' that g-goes on every few years or s-so. Tom—he c-could have r-represented 'knowledge,' because he w-was pretty knowledgeable. He was l-literally the face of the so-called n-nerd community."

Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 22nd 2020 at 9:39:13 AM

Merry enters the cafeteria and walks over to Duane's table. Bringing a notepad and her lunch, she sat down. "So, any updates on the investigation?" She uttered, seemingly ready to note said updates.

Dave DuVale, Coming Soon to a Cafeteria Table Near You

It was at that point that Dave waltzed over to the table. He had a sucker in his mouth. He had always liked them, mostly because most elongated objects that went into one's mouth made you look cool (cigarettes, toothpicks, etc.). The delicious cherry flavor was just a bonus.

"Yo," he said, more to announce his presence than as a greeting. "I've watched enough movies I'm not old enough to watch to know that if I split off from the group now, I'll get murdered by a shadow demon or whatever." He tossed down an index card with his phone number on it. "So I'm now the official Club That Totally Doesn't Exist And Has Never Existed What Are You Talking About driver. If any of you need to be driven anywhere, give me a call."

He paused to readjust the sucker in his mouth before pointing in the general direction of the group at large. "Anything I need to know so I don't die?"

Duane

Duane promptly caught Merry and Dave up to speed on what was going on, whispering more out of respect for any hidden adherents of this dark god, "Well, we got some nice info about whatever's going on here. Specifically, one of the idols. We matched it up with the name "Zayufur". It seems to be a Dark God...Goddess...is it hermaphroditic? What's the pronoun for that? Well, Zayufur at any rate is a deity representing the forbidden, taboo violation, lust, and apparently duality."

Duane then considered what James had to say about it, and, considering the rest of the apparent pantheon, he speculated, "If I had to guess, one of them is pretty clearly a God of Justice, another a God of War, and the Cthulhu thing the God of Knowledge. I think there may be a God of Time in there too..."

He cupped his chin, "Whatever these things are, it's pretty clear they're the cult du jour of Sandfield's upper crust, if I'm just guessing. So we gotta find a way to talk about them without mentioning their names..."

Duane looked over the table and remembered playing tabletop games with Tom, and the fun they had. The times he, Tom and that weird Oumitsunu kid all went to that game store... A few names came to mind! "Alright, if we're gonna talk about them in public, then mm, let's call them "The Ruinous Powers"."

Heather starts giggling.

"Fuckin'... That only covers half the statues dude. But sure, that gives us Slaan, Khorne, Nurg and Zeech."

She catches herself and stammers just a little bit.

"L-listen, I did like base-level cultural-osmosis research once I realized I'd be hanging with you tabletop nerds!"

Edited by Pentigan on Jun 22nd 2022 at 8:43:45 PM

Mina Parker

"I l-like it," Mina said, nodding profusely at Duane's nickname for the dark gods. " V-Very ominous. W-Way better than a-anything else you've come up with s-so far." She glanced sidelong at Heather as if recognizing her nerd cred, and then looked away so as to not expose her.

"All right. I-If we're going to investigate th-things properly, we're going to need equipment. I c-can provide some of it, b-but it might be more useful if w-we could get the r-rest of my digital cameras out of s-storage. A l-lot of them were confiscated f-from the photography club I w-was in because w-we spent a lot of time taking p-pictures of random things—but, here's th-the thing—we also took a lot of ph-photos of the w-woods," she offered, seeming more animated than she had been the day before. "Th-There's no way th-that's just a c-coincidence, and my g-gear hasn't been handed back to me s-since the dissolution of the c-club, b-because I was the one t-to provide all of it! It w-was pretty big news on c-campus, since the club was tied to a c-class, and the class got c-canceled without w-warning in the m-middle of the year."

"I'll try and go th-through the official channels to r-recover my belongings, but if th-that doesn't work, then w-we're going to have do it by c-crook and by h-hook," Mina finished, looking around at all present. "If you get my true meaning, that is."

Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 22nd 2020 at 10:17:25 AM

James nodded "That sounds like a good idea. I was thinking of vesting the local library after school to research local folklore. I'm not sure that there is anything, but it couldn't hurt to check. Might look through a few used bookstores as well. I'm somewhat worried it might arouse suspicion though."

He paused for a second in thought "speaking of arousing suspicion, I think we might want to tread carefully, this conspiracy clearly goes deep. We have an excuse for meeting since most of us know each other, but if we keep talking about this stuff so openly we might get noticed. This goes for electronic communications as well, I doubt we're being monitored but we might attract more attention as the investigation progresses. Is there someplace more private we can reconvene? "

Edited by bobbitwormhobbitwyrm on Dec 22nd 2020 at 1:09:48 PM

Jayden

Jayden gave Mina a cheerful salute, grinning ear-to-ear. "Break into wherever the cameras are being kept and steal them back, got it!" As for researching into this mysterious pantheon... "I've got a journal, dozens of occult books, the entire Internet, and a forum dedicated to the supernatural at my disposal. Here, let me just..." He took out his phone and started tapping.

At that moment, everyone's phones buzzed with a text. "Sent you the link for Ghost House. Feel free to sign up and talk about anything and everything weird! Don't worry, they don't bite.

"Oh, and if anyone wants to do further research, feel free to come on over! I've got, like, the biggest collection of supernatural info at my house. If you hit a dead end, chances are I have exactly what will fix that!" Jayden stood up and slammed both hands on the table, his grin almost manic. "So, with all that out of the way, let's..."

Oh yeah.

Jayden paused, then awkwardly sat back down, a sheepish smile on his face. "Well...maybe not today. I have work after school. Part-time at the Burger Corner."

Dave DuVale, CTTDEAHNEWAYTA Meeting

In response to James' question about a private location, Dave said, "Oh, there's this empty lot I know about. 526 Dark Street, I think."

In response to Jayden's invitation to Ghost House, Dave...well, he didn't react outwardly, but he did start thinking. He wanted to ask about the day he woke up in the woods, but he didn't want the others to know about that, and he felt like he should participate in any idol-related discussions...

Eventually, he decided he'd (later) make two accounts. He'd ask about that day on an account with a generic name like couldntthinkofusername108, and he'd talk with the others under the name...hmm, what should his username be? It should be something that represented him.

The first thing he thought of was "AvatarOfZayufur". What? No, that didn't represent him at all! He tried to think of something else, but he just kept thinking of that name over and over again. Whatever. He'd figure it out later.

Duane

"Alright..." Duane thought about every option that the others were bringing up. Something seemed different today, he didn't know what though. Well, they needed to get moving before any of the trails went cold. But moving out en masse was just gonna make whoever was responsible for these cult events take notice of them. There needed to be more of a covert response...

"I have an idea..." He looked around, "We have a lot of leads, and I've heard of some events that are gonna be going on..."

He looked at Mina, "I'll go with Mina and try and investigate some of her pictures she took near the woods."

Gesturing at Dave and James, "Dave, you and James go investigate Jackson White - no way no how is the richest kid in school not somehow involved in this. I heard he's having some kind of getaway to his dad's Summeridge Property, out by the lake. If you can get inside I think you could probably suss out his secrets."

He looked at Jayden, Merry and Heather, "Alright, Heather you and Merry go ahead and look into Coolidge High and see if you can find out anything about the disappeared kids. Jayden...you just keep watch on that forum and tell us if anyone says anything."

Edited by NickTheSwing on Dec 23rd 2020 at 11:48:42 AM

Mina Parker

"Roger," Mina said, nodding. "I-I'll go and talk with the student council first since it's l-lunch right now and they're p-probably holding a meeting. If th-they don't want to help me w-with anything, then a h-heist it will be!"

With that, she finished her curry, excused herself, and walked to the student council meeting room.

Mina took a deep breath as she stood before the door to the room set aside for the lofty student council. It had been a while since had been here, because the last time she had been here she was the Treasurer, but was all but exiled in disgrace for suggesting that some funds for the football team be allocated to the baseball team instead. She'd barely lasted a month.

"Excuse m-me, it's Mina. I h-have important m-matters to discuss, and I'm c-coming inside," she declared, knocking thrice to indicate her presence before stepping inside to assert that she was not afraid. "Sorry f-for th-the interruption!"

"I'm h-here about th-the—my confiscated e-equipment from the d-disbanded photography c-club," Mina continued, smiling and nodding at everyone whose eyes she met. "Any w-word on that?"

Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 24th 2020 at 9:34:32 AM

"Alright, cool. I've already got an in with Coolidge so I can tug on that, see what questions I can dig up. That said nerds, you better be careful cause if this is a hecking high-level cult shit they probably don't need you to go missing in accordance with the statues to dispose of you."

With that, Heather hoisted her bag and took a few steps away before turning back.

"Unless one of y'all is super rich or secretly a time traveler or somethin'. Then you might wanna be worried about running against Chaos armies."

And she's off to tackle (firstly the rest of her classes and then) her assigned investigation task.

Edited by Pentigan on Jun 22nd 2022 at 8:45:01 PM

Jayden

"Roger roger!" Jayden slid his journal back into his backpack, then hoisted it over his shoulder and stood up. "I'll be refreshing the thread I started every hour. With any luck, someone will have the answers!" And with that, he headed for the door.

...moments later, he returned, awkwardly sitting back down. "It just now occurred to me that in all the excitement, I forgot to eat lunch. Should probably get on that." He laughed a bit, sheepishly.

Merry nodded. "Roger that!"

She noted everything she needs to know, and all that's left to do is to prepare for her task in hand. After finishing her lunch, she heads back to her class.

Looks like James had a party to crash. He didn't entirely trust himself to interact with Jackson calmly, as far as he was concerned the man was directly responsible for Tom's death. Combined with the fact that Jackson could probably beat him to a pulp with little effort made for a very unfortunate situation. At least Dave would be there to rein him in.

"Hey Jayden, your brother's close with Jackson isn't he? Can you sort something out to get us to the getaway? It would be really helpful."

Well this was going to be interesting. Hopefully he would make it out of the experience unscathed.

Edited by bobbitwormhobbitwyrm on Dec 25th 2020 at 3:30:34 AM

Jayden

"Hm?" Jayden swallowed the piece of pizza in his mouth. "Oh, sure, I can do that. I'll talk to him after school and arrange something."

He checked his phone again, refreshing the forum in case anyone else had replied to his post.

After School

The current head of resources was also a football player named Carter who was very close to Jackson White - in fact he was one of the jocks in the car that fateful night. However it seemed that even as Mina and Duane walked in he had been busy with something. There were a number of photos on his desk, along with what looked like some printed information.

He was a tall and broad kind of guy, his hair shaved into a buzz cut. He was one of the few jocks who wore glasses, and presently wore his bias as well as his affiliation on his sleeve - he did his job wearing his letterman jacket, a polo shirt, and jeans.

He seemed rather cagey as he shuffled all the info on his desk into his drawer, "Why—-What the hell is this about? Didn't we—-oh yeah, right. Right. You were on that photography club. I honestly don't remember if we even kept all that stuff or if we just got rid of it."

James and Dave - Investigating Jackson

After school, the duo of James and Dave would be vouched for by Kyle for their entrance to Jackson White's lakeside party house. Supposedly this property was not particularly wanted by Jackson's father, so when Jackson asked to use it, Mr. White didn't particularly mind letting his son make use of it.

And it was easy to see on entering the area why someone might not particularly appreciate the aesthetic.

The property was gigantic but brooding. The trees grew large and shaded around it, many of them empty of leaves, leading up to the black metallic gate leading in to the property, crowned by gargoyle heads at the top.

The main estate seemed divided into wings, the windows at the front larger than many of the others and specially decorated. One particular wing of the estate extended very close to the lake, cresting the side of it. There were still a few boats parked there, obviously used whenever Jackson felt like taking a party out on to the lake.

The lake itself was man-made a while ago, diverting water from elsewhere. The lake was deep and cold, known for being rather inhospitable. Everyone who saw it got a rather eerie vibe from it the closer you got.

The very front of the estate was crowned by a silver and black fountain and hedge sculptures in a variety of forms. Even as the duo entered it would feel oddly like the more humanoid or animalistic hedge sculptures were...watching them.

The ride stopped out front of the estate. Kyle, James and Dave present where Jackson intended to have a get together.

Coolidge High School

By the time Heather and Merry arrived at Coolidge High, it was clear the school clubs were still around campus taking care of business. Obviously so - considering spirit week was coming up.

From there it was a matter of choosing which clubs to go to for info, and who to trust to ask about matters.

Out on the "big green" by the side of the school the Football Team was also just finishing up a training drill. The Quarterback leading the drill due to the coach apparently being out for the day.

Mina Parker

Mina forced herself to remain calm even as Carter treated the matter facing her so flippantly, as if the cameras meant nothing to him. He had no context regarding the situation, after all, even if Mina was sure that this was partly his fault. Still, it was time that she grew a backbone and began to stick up for herself.

"You d-don't remember? You w-were part of the g-group th-that announced the d-disbanding, right? Of c-course you should r-remember," she protested quietly. "I don't know what my d-dad would th-think of th-this. It was h-him who bought those c-cameras for the club..."

"If you're k-keeping them s-somewhere and not returning them, then that's th-theft, isn't it? It's been m-months, Carter, and I-I don't think student leadership c-could use another b-black mark right n-now, given the p-protest that happened a wh-while ago," Mina continued with a dark edge entering into her voice. "And my equipment was s-specifically given into your care, t-too! I-It would be a shame if th-this reflected badly o-on you, w-wouldn't it?"

"Or even th-the rest of the f-football team," she said, looking Carter intensely in the eyes with false sympathy. "Those cameras c-cost more than what w-was the budget for the entire t-team was when I w-was Treasurer, if I r-remember the records correctly. I m-mean, at over a th-thousand dollars apiece, th-they would be, b-because th-the club was pretty popular b-back then. It was a shame th-that it was disbanded b-because th-there was no money to f-fund the excessive photos we t-took, don't you agree? I don't think my father will b-be happy if he finds out all that m-money went to w-waste, if the cameras h-he bought were all destroyed. I d-don't think your new money p-parents would be h-happy to repay him either, right? You d-don't look like the t-type to have the money, Carter. My f-father might just withdraw th-the funds he gives to the f-football team if he c-catches wind of this, and it m-might even be disbanded like my ph-photography club."

"I'm sorry, C-Carter," Mina apologized softly, affecting regret as she leaned across the table. "But if you just give me what is mine, then we can put all this behind us."

The sudden shock of what she had said and done hit Mina like a wall of frozen water, but she still looked Carter in the eyes with a flinty gaze. So this was what standing up for oneself using connections felt like...?

Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 28th 2020 at 12:00:32 PM

Council Room Drama

Carter was honestly glad that he was the only one in right now, because otherwise he would've felt almost terminally embarrassed. Tell the truth, Carter was not one of the more wealthy jocks. His mom had a job selling shoes at the department store, his dad was a warehouse employee an hour or two off of Sandfield. If there was anyone who couldn't handle this kind of pressure, it was Carter.

He did admittedly not have exactly the best relationship with her - considering the fact he took a bit too much glee in announcing the end of the photography club. Perhaps due to his own class-based anxieties and her station relative to his own.

He outright got up from his desk and looked around, "Ah...yeah yeah I just happened to remember that right now! Yeah your dad did get all that stuff for the club!" He grinned somewhat stiltedly, "I uhh, I'll just..." He stomped off toward the back room, "If it's here, it's in the back room, I'll uhh, check right now."

Carter was in such a hurry he didn't even realize he left the drawer on his desk open as he went to check the back room for Mina's cameras. There was even still one piece of info left out on the desk - a party attendance form of some kind, logging the attendees at some kind of get together out of town.

Duane looked rather shocked by the way Mina wielded status and guilt around here. He guessed she was more formidable than the anime style Moe-blob he almost figured her for. He then looked at the table, "Huh, seems Carter's up to an investigation of his own..."

Edited by NickTheSwing on Dec 27th 2020 at 9:41:12 AM