So it's that time of year again…which is to say Metroplexity's coolest, most in-depth, choice-heavy holiday- Halloween!
For the newcomers, Halloween has always been a special event, a showcase of long-term collective choices, big parties and big funding drives. See Halloween for a summary of past plot events. The results of the previous Halloween parties have been largely determined by the choices the players have made leading up to- and during the party.
For this year, there's been an increased security presence at the dorms which have been under construction all year.
Quotes from the interested parties:
New security on the dorms:
Workers swarm in and out of the dorm's outer shell, filling in its inner workings as fast as they can. Between the workers and the drones, it shouldn't take too long.
Peering through the windows, you can see there are almost as many security guards as workers… and over half the drones are hound drones rather intended for construction. Huh.
"Well, I have to work on my dissertation. It's taking long enough without me taking breaks."
"But, even if I didn't, I'd stay away from campus around Halloween. Some of the new students don't seem to realize, but… well, I won't say it's cursed, but only so many awful things can happen on Halloween before everyone notices the pattern."
She pauses for a moment before whispering "right?"
He sighs without a hint of theater or drama. "I'm… man, after last year. Everybody in that dorm just… gone, you know."
He settles uncomfortably into his seat. "I… it's not like me, but I just want a simple party, you know?"
You manage to distract him from his talk of "ten credits" and change the topic to Halloween. He seems… legitimately excited.
"It's almost a year since the hall here opened. I hope they decide to get the sculpture exhibit upstairs opened back up. It got… kind of trashed a while back, but there was great stuff up there."
He furrows his brow for a second. "Even the Orbital Wars monument was okay if you looked at it ironically."
"I guess that's all up to the Event Coordinator, though."
He nods. "You have to admit, last year was the stuff of college tales for generations. Partying so hard you collapse the fucking dorm? Mythic."
"Anyway, Midgard's got the place on lockdown so tight you can leave coal there overnight and get diamonds. Which is a fucking shame, because construction sites make for great parties."
Her smile drops completely. "I got named Event Coordinator again this year, but there's some sort of fight about our funding."
You wait for a second and she quickly becomes uncomfortable, picking the thread of the conversation back up. "It's on Midgard's side. Emily, the old Event Coordinator, works there now… she says some of them want the party back in the Dorms, another bunch want to get the second floor of the museum done, and the rest just want to write us off."
"I won't know what we're doing until I hear from them. I just hope they decide before Halloween or I'll have to make these books into paper mache candy bowls and fill them with those awful OmniTech peanut butter things."
"Hmm? Oh, yeah, Midgard's going to throw good money after bad." He shrugs and kicks back his over/under.
After a second his eyes widen theatrically, as though he forgot something. "It's not as if I don't care about all those students dying… no, that's exactly what it is."
"Anyway, I'm staying out of it. People who play with fire get burnt and fire that doesn't burn, well…"
Or with chess:
He carefully sips the top layer off his over/under and smiles at you. "Midgard would like us to say everything's going according to plan."
"But they're hedging their bets in a serious way. The dorms they're rebuilding… it's taken a year without being nearly done, which is insane to begin with, but there's also a small army of MSec officers and drones stationed there. Sorry, Midgard Security."
"Because," he downs the rest of the drink, "that's not where they want the action. Drinks to credits, they're going to spend a few million cred on a smokescreen."
"Covering up what?" He shrugs. "Can't say exactly, but a company that makes drones as good as Midgard's don't take a year to build industrial housing."
God forbid or we'll get peanut butter things.
