This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time...

[hesourhostage]

Somewhere in the basement of the Gauche, there is a room that has been procured for the sake of eventual D&D tournaments, although, at this point, the only furnishing is a rather large table sans chairs. Laying on top of the table, using a stack of D&D guidebooks as a pillow is Andrew Wells, who seems to be speaking something into a tape recorder

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[wots_her_name]

Penny has slowly become more comfortable with going out on her own, again. It's been awhile since she had to face up to the fact that not everyone is inherently good. Not everyone has good in them. She still blames herself for much of went down at the ball. It's this power that she has, that she has such difficulty controlling. It makes her afraid to be around anyone other than Billy for fear of what it might turn someone into.

She does venture around the complex though since they moved in. There's a different atmosphere here than in the Gauche, a hopeful one. She gives off calming pheromones more often than any other kind.

Penny approaches Eli, slowly, a mug of coffee from Billy's newly built coffee machine in her hand. "Hello," she says, with a half smile that says she's not even sure about that word. "Are you okay? I mean, can I get you anything or

[nosparkofhope]

Eli looks up and allows a smile to cross his features. "No, I'm quite fine. Thank you. I'm just... Very distracted."

Which isn't a lie. Between the headaches of the visions and the bloodthirst, it's a miracle he can get anything done. He closes the journal, figuring human contact might be a better distraction than just throwing himself into his work.

"And I don't believe we've been properly introduced. I'm Eli Kelly and you are?"

[ohsogrounded]

Amber, in a fit of boredom, is exploring the basement. Mostly, this involves poking her head into whatever rooms aren't locked, seeing what's in there... And so she encounters Andrew.

"Oh! Hey! I didn't mean to interrupt your... Um... Narration." She smiles a little and shrugs. Okay, she's been on Andrew's side in snowball fights, and they had Thanksgiving together, but mostly she's been hanging out with her guitar and her plants.

But all periods of emo must come to an end (unless you work for Torchwood), so she's been venturing out and looking for... Things. Company. Whatever.

[hesourhostage]

Andrew stops mid-sentence, which is probably for the best, because he was doing some tangential (and nonsensical) metaphor about the universe, involving mangoes and root beer floats. (Don't ask.)

He snaps off the recorder and sits upright. "It's a work in progress. I think stream of conscious works for me." The last bit is said more to himself than anything. He shrugs and hops off the table, waving his arms in a grandiose gesture. "Welcome to the dungeon... Or, well, what will be the dungeon when we have chairs."

He has dice though! Andrew has all the dice.

[ohsogrounded]

"Yeah, chairs... would be good." Amber peers at the stack of game manuals... There are a lot of Players' Handbooks, as well as... "Whoa. Some of these haven't even been released yet."

Okay, Amber might be a bit of a geek. Little bit. Mostly she just geeks-by-osmosis, though. "Back when I had friends outside the Gauche... you know, before they died or moved away or whatever," and no, she's not bitter about that at all, "I'd hang out with this one guy, Jon? He would not shut up about the release dates for a few of these. He ran an awesome campaign, though." Her shoulders slump a little, and she goes back to peering at the stack.

[hesourhostage]

"Really?" Andrew drawls out the word and eyes the stack with a new eye. Of course, being from a few years in the past, some of these are new even to him and he didn't even have an updated set of handbooks when he moved in with Buffy, even though he was coming close to breaking Xander down.

And, oh... Andrew wouldn't have to be a vague telepath (although these days it's a conscious thing more than a subtle picking-up-everything... thing) to get the deeper meaning behind that.

"Well, my attractive red-haired friend, I can promise you that I run campaigns that are beyond awesome." He crosses his arms over his chest and nods firmly and we'll just pretend he didn't just call Amber his 'attractive red-haired friend'... Or that he clearly thinks that being adorably arrogant is the way to go here.

[thecellsiam]

Aubrey is poking about the basement, taking the long way from xes apartment to Tesla's abandoned lab. Xe's been spending a lot of time in the lab, fiddling with things that xe's not entirely sure xe should be fiddling with and maybe missing Tesla and/or a purpose a little bit, for lack of something better to do.

And oh hey! A person other than that bitchy scientist lady down in the basement! A rare occurrance! ...Granted, it appears to be Andrew, whom Aubs still insists to xemself that xe doesn't like very much, and he's got that camera. But it's at least someone that Aubrey knows, so xe leans on the doorjamb of the room, one eyebrow raised, watching Andrew narrate for a bit before saying, "You're insane, I think."

[hesourhostage]

"I prefer to think of myself as advanced," Andrew says... Into the tape recorder as a matter of fact. He shuts it off and sits up on the table, giving Aubrey a bit of a smirk.

"I'm practicing voiceover narration." This is all the explanation you will ever need. "I don't think my narrator voice will ever be as good as Edward Norton's, but hopefully my words will be the sort that will be remembered."

It's possible he's not actually talking to Aubrey anymore. He's just staring wistfully at the ceiling and thinking about Edward Norton. Reality is a place that Andrew does not spend much time in.

[thecellsiam]

Aubrey gives Andrew a disbelieving snort at the first comment; it's more to cover the fact that xe might otherwise have burst out laughing, though the effect is the same. But xe returns the smirk to soften it. Kind of.

And the rest of the explanation isn't helping your case, Andrew. Aubrey's smirk morphs into an amused, bewildered look. "...why do you want to sound like Norton?" xe asks. "What do you need Special Norton Voiceovers for?"

[charminglioness]

"Excuse me?"

Lily is standing near Andrew, eying his D&D books interestedly.

"'Dungeons and Dragons'....is that a catalog? Only, you can use dragons as guardians of things in my world, and they have been known to guard prisons in the past, but I've never seen their purchase be quite so publicized before."

[hesourhostage]

Andrew blinks a few times, realizes his tape recorder is still recording, shuts it off, and then shares some more. He processes that she's talking about his books, he processes that she says that she's from a world with dragons, he processes that this makes her very, very interesting.

"You're from a world where there are actual dragons? Well, that's assuming there aren't dragons in mine, because I've always suspected that if there are demons and weird monsters and hellhounds, then why couldn't there be dragons? I always wanted a pet dragon. I wonder if dragons respond to pan flutes."

By the middle of that ramble, he's not even talking to Lily anymore... He's just... Talking.

[januarywife]

Through the Prophet's complex bustles one Ms. Victoria Lynn, seeing to business of some sort or other. She notices Eli and makes a quick detour, even as she's checking two or three legal documents against each other.

"Oh, honestly, Eli, would you like me to call in a lamb for you?" Chicago's use of public spaces bylaws are a bit... convoluted. Just like everywhere, really. She's never had a head for legalese. "Fredrick grew up on a farm; he'd probably know how to skin and dress it, and then the rest of us could have mutton and you could get something in your stomach."

[nosparkofhope]

Eli eyes Victoria over the frames of his glasses. "If it were that simple, I suspect we'd all be doing it, but at least it's better than starving." Something twinges at the back of his head. Something about lamb's being oddly appropriate in this scenario.

"Honestly, I think I've just been preoccupied or I would have sent someone down to the hospital." They're not a influential group by far just yet, but they've got a couple of people among their ranks who can make back door agreements with blood banks and the like when the need calls for it. Most of those people will do anything to make the vampires happy and keep them from draining people in the streets.

[januarywife]

"Great men," Victoria mutters to herself. "You never stop to consider your own needs. Really, you and the Prophet are cut from the same cloth." In this, at least. But then, the same is true of her - they've all got more important things to occupy their attention than themselves. "Really, I can send someone out to bring you something. My mother said a good edge of hunger makes the mind sharper, but I've always been of the opinion that we think best of sated stomachs."

[nosparkofhope]

Eli scratches his head and smirks a little. "And what great men would be anything without a woman to stand behind them. I don't know how we'd manage without you, Victoria." And Eli's the sort of person who doesn't give that sort of praise lightly.

"I think we're headed for some serious trouble," he says, not so much off-handedly as just to point out that there's a reason he hasn't been considering his own needs. Prophecies don't just solve themselves and he's never had anything show up this muddled before.