Summer between Freshman and Sophomore Years

Altclair is Naomi's campaign, set at the college of Altclair, which is somewhere in Minnesota. Think Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, GURPS Illuminati IOU, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Other source material (that Naomi's not familiar with) might include Elizabeth Hand's Waking the Moon and most of Charles de Lint. Players are me (Justin Thorne) and Josh (Michael Conoway). Manny (Jim Gaffney) dropped out (though he was playing at the time some of the stuff mentioned below happened), and Beth (Diometra) lives in Chicago, and is only an occasional player.

From the Desk of Justin Thorne:

Letter to Damon

Dear Damon,

I am having a miserable summer, and it's barely begun! Classes are all right - this is still stuff I remember from last spring - but no one told me that working on a farm means getting up -before- the sun and making sure he has every opportunity to burn you to a crisp! [picture of Justin gasping in the heat] At least the hens have stopped biting me, [picture of Justin as bullfighter, fending off hens] but I live in terror of the cows. Don't let anyone ever tell you that they're gentle creatures. [picture of Justin running from fierce cow]

Then, there's all the planting and weeding. Can you say "rope burns"? It's much worse than he time Helen left the handcuffs on me for five hours! [picture of rope burned hands]

So, on top of all this, when I was -supposed- to be relaxing at home, I got sick. Violently, messily sick. And, of course, it was my own damned fault. So, I destroyed a perfectly good notepad and scared my mother silly. Tip: Don't get sick. It sucks.

So, how's your summer been? Tell me either way. If it's good, at least I'll know -someone's- having fun. If it's bad, we can have fun complaining at each other.

--Thorne

PS - How are you at paper airplanes? (1)

Summer Vacation Report

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

by J. Thorne

I started the summer by fucking my life up in just about every sense of the word, but things have improved somewhat since then.

Where to begin? I suppose the cast party for Noises Off is as good a place as any. After three performances of different plays that were quite good, but were not the play I had though I was directing, I went to the final performance, prepared, I thought, for anything. I was stunned to see a top-notch performance of Noises Off itself.

After helping with teardown, I changed and made an entrance at the cast party, where Sarah led a standing ovation. (2) Diometra was confused because no one had thanked Apollo and the muses. Remembering that I should have followed her advice before the mock hunt, I proceeded to thank them. Then, the room began to get very bright. While I'm not a Classics Major, I did remember that Apollo is the Sun God, and I started to ask Diometra if the light meant what I thought it did. It did indeed. The great god Apollo, praise his name, was kind enough to visit my cast party to bestow a laurel wreath on me and to assure Diometra that she was indeed a talented bard and should feel free to petition him at need.

Jim and Michael were, understandably, a bit disturbed, but dealt with all of this rather well, probably better than I would have dealt with an angel appearing to talk to them. Jim even said that Paganism suited me, and Diometra started giving me a few pointers. Between all of this, handling publication issues (3), and ducking Jim and Kristie's juggling act, (4) I managed to miss spotting a budding crisis until it was far too late to do anything about it.

Sarah seduced Michael. It's probably just as well that I didn't see them leave, and that I'd promised Daniel not to bait her, since trying to pull her off of Michael would probably have been fatal. (5) I think I still wish it hadn't happened, and it's certainly complicated everything.

Diometra and I planned to ask Apollo questions about what Sarah was up to, but when I got back to campus (6), I talked to her myself. After apologizing for making her stage combat consultant unavailable, I asked what she'd done and why. To my surprise, she answered me.

It seems that despite living in Beth's room for a month, Michael was not having sex with her, or at least not between the time of the hunt and my cast party. This means that Sarah was the first person he made love to since becoming the Summer King. (7) And honestly, I am not sure that there is a better choice on campus. The land approves, and she has been doing an excellent job. However, it does make life more complicated.

Sarah assured me that she was not carrying Michael's child. She asked if I'd checked into my family history, and when I explained why I hadn't, dropped ominous hints that I might regret it. She offered to tell me herself if I agreed to have sex with her. I figured that I didn't need to know that badly. (8)

Romeo and Juliet was lovely, and Sarah received much well-deserved praise for her swan song. She agreed to my conditions regarding the dress I made her, and she didn't even ask me why. She did ask if she could modify the dress. I agreed, but I think I managed to do a good enough job on it that she didn't need to. (9)

After her cast party, which was very subdued, she made a point of thanking me for the flowers I sent, saying that they meant a lot, coming from me. This from a woman who's been acting and directing for six years. I asked her a few more questions, which she answered, turning the tables on me in the process. After breaking down in front of her and giving her far too good an idea of what I will and will not do, I received an unexpected gift: the name of my biological father. (10)

After that, Joseph went up, and Sarah decided to add me to her long list of conquests. (11) I managed to stay out of the way until the end of the quarter.

That would have ended matters for the summer if I had not had to make up two of my classes. Sarah found me when I came back from bleeding on Ash's summer garden on the Solstice. To be accurate, I found her. She was dancing, and, if she told me the truth, she did not expect an audience.

Anyone with a brain would have left immediately, so of course, I watched. Afterwards, I asked why she suddenly decided that she wanted to have sex with me. She said that Michael had been trying to tilt the balance of power too much to his side, and that this was bad for the land. Unfortunately, she was telling the truth, and I knew it. However much I might like to see Michael yank her around for a change, the personal satisfaction this might have caused would have been outweighed by the larger issues. And Sarah decided that she could trust more than anyone else on campus, although I suspect that what she meant was that she could trust me to be an idiot. (12)

So that left haggling over the price, as Shaw would say, and Sarah was willing to pay me in information. She answered a couple of questions, as promised, then answered some more that she hadn't promised to answer. And then, I started to discover all of the hidden costs.

First, I am not capable of distributing some of the information she gave me. (13) Second, while she has no communicable diseases, Sarah is carrying my child. Third, Sarah Lacy is my half-sister. (14)

I learned the first two items directly from Sarah, and I discovered the third while following the name Sarah gave me and searching the Internet and boxes in our attic.

Arnold Lear, my biological father, signed up for a tour of duty in Vietnam and was awarded a bronze star. He chose to sign up for a second stint because he had fallen in love with a French woman named Athenee Lacy. They had a child, Sarah.

During his second tour of duty, my father was awarded a purple heart. Unfortunately, he was also constantly in trouble because the only thing he wanted was to be with Athenee. He was shipped back to the states, much against his will, and court martialed. During this time, he tried to find Athenee Lacy, with no success. That's how he met my mother -- he went to consult the local wisewoman. She tried to help, but, not too surprisingly, had no more luck than he did. Since he couldn't find Athenee, my father proceeded to negotiate for an honorable discharge. Since this is what the army wanted to give him in the first place, he got it.

That's around the time I was conceived, which means, of course, that if he had found Athenee Lacy, I would never have been born. I'm not sure if he married Mother. I did not find any documentation of a marriage. I did find documentation of his death, however. He was killed in a bar fight, probably a stupid one. When I told Sarah, she said that she hadn't known, but wasn't surprised. She also hadn't known that Arnold Lear had tried to find her mother.

Between my unexpected study break, the research I'd done for Delilah (15), and the new information I had about Sarah, I got briefly, if violently, ill, then started laughing my fool head off. This alarmed Mother, of course, who confirmed what I'd learned. Then I scared her even more by trying to discover if the prohibition on information distribution also applied to writing. It did, and I spent a very unpleasant 48 hours. (16)

A couple of weeks later, I broke the news to Mother, who was, obviously, not thrilled, and she asked about recessive genes. This is apparently one area Sarah can't cover. So, Mother's looking up old medical records.

On top of all of this, the entire exercise proved unnecessary, or at least pointless. Michael knew at once that Sarah was pregnant with someone else's child, and he decided to ensure that she was pregnant with his child as well. I found out about this when I decided to talk to him about the balance of power. (17)

I called Mother to find out what Michael's latest move had done, then got together with Michael and Sarah for a weird sort of planned parenthood session. Basically, if Michael's child is a girl, she'll be very powerful, but no weirder than her mother. If the child is a boy, he will live out his entire life in the space of a year, and if Sarah stays queen, she will be his mother, lover, and widow. Sarah knew all of this, and it was one of the reasons that she wanted someone other than Michael to be the father of her child. Michael is praying for a girl.

While not precisely desirable, an abortion would be the safest, sanest course of action. As Mother pointed out, one bad winter is an acceptable price. This wasn't something Sarah could think about until after Lammas. She was her more usual evasive self when I asked what she'd decided, and, ultimately, predictably, made the decision that would cause the greatest amount of headaches for the greatest number of people. That is, she intends to bear both children, keeping the one she intended to have, while if Michael's child is a girl, she'll dump the girl in his lap, since he wanted this child, not her. If the child is a boy, she'll condescend to raise him for the few months of her time that it will take.

She doesn't actually know whether Michael's child will be male or female. All she can tell is that it is the child of the god, which we already knew. I asked her how I would know, if she vanished with my nephew -- or without, for that matter -- if she were doing this of her own free will or not. She said that she'd leave me a note, and agreed that if she vanished against her will, the odds were that there wouldn't be much I could do about it. She and Mother both seem to think that I've grown up. I have yet to see any evidence that I haven't just grown older, but it is probably significant that they agree on something, so maybe there's hope.

Anyway, apart from the colossal idiocy that opened it, the summer was relatively quiet. Fergus collected his boots and left a gold earcuff behind. I mailed it to Daniel who sent it back after confirming that, as far as he could tell, it's just an ordinary earcuff. This puzzled me, until I realized the obvious: I have no right to accept it, and doing so would put me back in Fergus' debt, which is what I made the boots to avoid in the first place. So, I did not accept the earcuff, and it sat on a shelf until Matt sent it back last week.

As I warned Fergus before I started, I am not, in fact, capable of making seven-league boots. He had to settle for one-twelfth-of-a-league boots. Michael pointed out that this was a couple of orders of magnitude less than what I was trying for. I was tempted to tell him that I'd like to see him do better, but the son of a bitch probably can, meaning no disrespect to his mother.

The farm turned into fucking Disneyland meets Midsummer Night's Dream, literally. Michael didn't need sleep during the summer, and he and Sarah found ways of occupying their nights, as well as any spare moments during the day. I probably should have videotaped Lammas Eve.

In addition to this, the animals decided that they simply had to hang around the reigning king and queen. The sparrows were a particular pain until Michael set them to work pulling weeds. He and Sarah had to have stern words with the trees and vines -- the first time we tried an outdoor fencing practice, a branch knocked the foil out of my hand in its eagerness to protect Michael from my decidedly mediocre skill.

Mother talked me out of all plans to meddle on Lammas, pointing out that the quickest, easiest way to achieve balance is to handicap the winning side. So, I spent the night at the forge, carving alphabet blocks. (18) I think the evening went well. Certainly, Michael and Sarah looked happily oblivious the next day. I tossed a blanket over them to keep the sun off.

I got As in both Arabic and Acting, and I received some unexpected help on my database, which led to a solution to a potential ghost problem. (19)

In September, Michael began dying with the land, metaphorically. He compensated for this by having an early harvest which was a three night party. I did the cooking. The main course was Frankie the pig, who knew we were going to kill him, and was, understandably, upset about this. Beth arrived the day we killed him, and Michael and I kept our heads down while she and Sarah took the occasional polite potshot at each other.

The harvest and party went well. Michael made the transition from Summer King to Autumn King. As near as I can tell, he managed to direct a reasonable amount of the harvest. There was square dancing after dinner, and he called the first dance and made sure to dance the last one with Sarah by telling me to ask Beth to dance. We slipped in a crowning by getting the kids to make wreaths with the branches, and I gave Michael mine. He served the cider he'd made.

The second day, Michael ached from the first, so he spent a lot of time working the threshing machine, a huge monstrosity which I made a point of avoiding (not that anyone was going to let me near it anyway). But it was appropriate that the king direct the action from a high seat. He started the apple bobbing after dinner, and made sure to take a bath -before- going to sleep this time.

He was able to put in a fair share of work on the third day, and took a more active role directing the festivities. At my suggestion, he did most of the serving, cutting the apple cobbler, and so on.

About a week later, he had a barn raising, so I got to help build a barn. I also entered some dishes in the local county fair. Michael took several prizes for his vegetables, mostly in the form of gift certificates. I took a first and a third, the former being a gift certificate, the latter being much needed cash.

My bank account was cleared out, except for eleven cents. The bank staff claimed that the records showed my money had been pulled out in legitimate transactions, and they showed me the receipts. They suggested that I changed my PIN number, which I did, but that's not likely to help.

I asked Matt if he thought Fergus might have decided that a gold earcuff was worth two thousand dollars, and he was dubious. Even if this were his work, Fergus would get payment in a form he could use. I wondered if I'd been the random target of a hacker. Finally, I figured it out.

As Matt told me before the summer started, while the Econ building forgot the shennanigans in May by the end of the quarter when all the equations were erased, the professors had not. I was perfectly willing to accept their handling of the episode, so long as it ended there. Ken sent a note written in Math conveying my apologies and asking if matters ended here. It seems the second part's easy to say in math, but apologizing required some improvisation.

A bill was sent back, showing the breakdown of costs. I was charged per equation, and the bill was marked "Paid in full." All in all, I got off cheaply, and that's one more thing I won't have to worry about on Halloween.

Another thing I won't have to worry about is Jennifer going into labor. Ashleigh is now out in the world, and Jennifer agreed to marry Ash. It seems that he proposed before the summer, and she asked him to wait until after the baby was born, and everybody knew about it except for me.

Meanwhile, Michael has proven that I have some version of magical sensitivity. He first suspected when I was trying to explain about how the balance of power was being skewed, and he tried to convince me that most people just don't feel that sort of thing happening, just as most mothers do not talk to trees. I didn't believe him, since the skewed balance seemed extremely obvious. He put a glowing letter Z in my room for the gargoyles to play with, and claimed that not everyone could see it. Unfortunately, we had no way of testing this on the farm, and the Z quickly faded. (20)

He made another one in my dorm, and neither Steve nor Ken saw it, even when Michael poured glittering stars over it. They didn't see the gargoyles either, something which startled me, until I realized that everyone who has seen the nightmare gargoyles has been a mage, a maker, or otherwise odd. Ken could see both the Z and the gargoyles with my monocle, and I think he found it weirder, if more benevolent, than the May hunt.

We're as prepared as we can be for Halloween. I'm just hoping everything goes well.

Footnotes

(1) Justin is deliberately keeping the tone light. Damon had been dating Jessica before Sarah seduced him. Sarah dropped Damon for Michael, and Jessica had no interest in taking him back. On top of this, when everyone made preliminary Halloween plans, it was understood that no one was going to try to get help from Damon, as they didn't trust him because he's slept with Sarah. Justin thought that someone should keep in touch with Damon, as he hadn't really earned such treatment, much as Justin keeps in touch with Angela, a student who decided to transfer from Altclair when things got too weird. Justin actually drew the pictures described in square brackets, but I'm not good at drawing. He asked about paper airplanes because he's thinking of having a paper airplane contest during Fall Quarter.

(2) Justin was wearing an extremely provocative outfit, partly made by Sarah, partly by himself, and the folks at the party were almost as impressed by the outfit as by the play.

Relevant gamequotes:

Lisa: Give as courtly a bow as I can manage. Borrow it from Michael.

Josh: Michael wants it back when you're done.

(3) All four performances of Noises Off were different, and Daniel suggested that Justin publish the first as Noises On. He tried to work out the details of splitting the money between himself, the rest of the cast and crew, and the Theater Department. This got amusing because Justin kept getting his math wrong, sort of a running theme, despite or because of his dating a Math major.

Beth (pretending to be a random Theater person): Do they still use numbers in math?

First, Jim suggested a 60/40 split between Justin and the cast and crew. Then, Justin suggested a 40/40/10 split between him, cast and crew, and Theater Department. Everyone stared at him. Ken started laughing while Jim explained to Diometra that folks generally used pieces of a hundred. Justin tried to correct himself, suggesting a 50/40/20 split. The scary thing is that the mistakes were genuine on my part, and I'm reasonably good at math.

(4) Jim and Kristie were juggling clothing, theirs and anyone else's they could snatch. Justin quickly ducked out of range.

(5) Justin is probably not exaggerating. Sarah had a lot riding on seducing Michael, as did the forces behind her.

Justin did not try to interfere directly. When Daniel had negotiated the settlement between Justin and Fergus, Justin asked Daniel what he wanted for a broker's fee.

Daniel: Just don't play "Bait the Lion" with Sarah at the cast party, okay? Give me one less thing to worry about.

Justin (cheerfully -- how hard could that be?): Sure!

When he realized that Sarah and Michael were missing, he pointed out this fact to Daniel, since he'd promised not to do anything. Now, while Daniel tries to look out for Justin, he doesn't see Michael as his problem. Still, he sent Beth out to find Michael. She found Michael and Sarah so busy making love that they didn't notice her, and she left.

Since Justin now knew the Greek gods were active, he asked Diometra if there were any way to get them to keep Sarah from sleeping with Michael.

Jim: Who would you talk to about a non-seduction?

Jim and Diometra (simultaneously): Hera!

However, Diometra pointed out that asking Hera to take action meant that the petitioner was saying that he or she did not want Michael being unfaithful to Beth, whereas, as Justin admitted, he didn't care whom Michael slept with, so long as it wasn't Sarah. Under those circumstances, everyone agreed that trying to bring Hera or any other god into it was probably a bad idea.

Afterwards, Michael tried to make sure that Sarah couldn't do anything to his body, using mystical means to keep himself pure.

Josh: My-body-is-a-temple shit.

Lisa: My-body-is-a-temple shit?

Josh: Yes, you know, mystic shit, my-body-is-a-temple shit.

Naomi said, and the rest of us agreed, that what Michael was doing was essentially bolting the barn door after the horse had fled.

While Justin was worried about the seduction because of the possible repercussions for the Halloween hunt and because he didn't think sleeping with Sarah was a bright idea in general, he was also far too hung up on Sarah, considering he'd come to the party with Ken and intended to leave with him. He did leave with Ken, but this was after following Sarah's every motion after she returned to the party, as well as silently toasting her.

On the way out, Sarah said that she had enjoyed the performance -- all of them. I think this included all four performances of the play, Justin's entrance to the cast party, and the unexpected appearance of Apollo. Justin gave her the kind of bow I was taught was a polite, medieval Middle Eastern bow, where one does not take one's eyes from the person to whom one is bowing. To do otherwise is insulting, as it implies that one need fear no attack from that person. However, the way I phrased it indicated that Justin's eyes stayed on Sarah's face, rather than on Sarah, and Naomi decided that Sarah used this opportunity to unlace Justin's pants, something Justin was unaware of, until Ken laughed and pointed it out.

(6) After the trip to Israel.

(7) Justin was very surprised to learn that Michael hadn't been sleeping with Beth. Beth told Michael some time ago that she wasn't interested, then, far too subtly for Michael to pick up, changed her mind. The one time he actually managed to keep his pants zipped, it got him into trouble. Still, sleeping with Sarah did get Beth to make it clear that she was interested in Michael. Michael was glad to hear that, and they proceeded to make up for lost time, at least for the rest of the quarter. The Summer King is supposed to be extremely generous with his seed. Michael decided to take the modern solution of donating to a sperm bank.

(8) This surprised Naomi. At the time, I said that Justin had been caught off guard, since Sarah had given him no indication that she saw him as a potential lover or even one-night stand. On further consideration, I think it would have been extremely unlikely for Justin to have accepted.

We're talking about a seventeen year old virgin who's recently discovered that he's gay, who's trying to get into a relationship with someone else, and who's just discovered that he's (partly) responsible for the deaths of three hundred people. When the resident femme fatale makes a pass at him, totally out of the blue, from his perspective, a semi-strategic retreat makes sense. This isn't to say that there's no attraction; Justin is very much attracted by the weird and dangerous, but there's a few steps between that and suddenly jumping into bed in return for a piece of information he's never been particularly interested in.

(9) Justin's gotten a bit cautious since discovering that the Good Folk can steal a maker's creativity if they gain ownership of something he's made. So, he told Sarah that if at any time she was no longer the dress' owner, ownership reverted to him.

(10) Sarah gave that to him because he answered a question honestly. He asked if she'd made up her mind about which way she was impressed by the fact that he'd had an indirect role in the Jerusalem Bombing. Sarah said something to the effect that it wasn't something -she'd- have killed 300 people over, and Justin asked if she'd ever found something she would consider it worth killing that many people over. When she said that she hadn't, Justin broke down completely, partly due to the general stress he'd been under, but mostly out of relief. This horrified him, not just because he was crying in front of Sarah, but because he'd showed his hand. As Naomi put it, he made it clear both how far he would and would not go, and how important Sarah's good opinion was to him. Sarah asked him why he was crying, and he said that it was because he was relieved that she hadn't found anything worth killing 300 people over. That's when she told him the name of his father.

Justin considered this encounter a total loss. What he didn't realize was that he'd affected Sarah almost as much as she'd affected him. He'd been asking her about what she was going to do now that she graduated. She said that she'd be sticking around as an administrator for the Theater Department for a couple of years. He asked what she planned to do then. While she said something about Yale's graduate school, the question shook her, as the question of what she does after leaving Altclair is not one she wants to think about. She's been a student for six years, and Naomi said that Justin was asking the equivalent of A Chorus Line's question: What would you do if you couldn't dance any more? But Justin knew none of this, as Sarah went off to cry in private, and while Michael found her, I'm not sure if he ever knew what set her off, and he certainly never told Justin. Justin still doesn't realize how much of an effect he could, in theory, have on Sarah.

(11) As opposed to merely offering information in return for sex, which Justin figured was a business proposal. Joseph = Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the 10th week play.

(12) A combination of factors were at work here in addition to the ones mentioned above. Justin has a chivalrous streak - or a macho one, if you're feeling less generous - which Sarah appealed to. Also, what she was saying made sense. The balance needed to be kept, and Sarah could trust Justin to understand that and not expect a longterm relationship. Another important factor was a misunderstanding about what Ken was and was not comfortable with in a relationship.

Ken spent his summer in San Francisco, whale watching. I think there's some statistical work involved, which is why he gets paid for doing this. He made it clear to Justin that he did not plan to be celibate while in San Francisco. Naomi told me later that this was open to negotiation, but since Justin didn't know that, he figured that as long as Ken was being smart about protection from STDs, he could deal with that.

This meant that Justin wasn't assuming that Ken would be upset with him for sleeping with Sarah per se, and did not have that as a reason to refuse her. I suspect Naomi set that up on purpose, and I'm grateful because it made it easier for us to get Justin and Sarah together, something we both knew pretty much had to happen sooner or later. Sure, Justin knew Ken wouldn't be happy with the situation, but he figured that was mainly because Ken knew that Justin didn't particularly want to sleep with Sarah, and Ken didn't understand what the problem was.

Ken, of course, was not okay with any of this, quite apart from the complications mentioned in the write up. He had a problem with Justin sleeping with a woman. Justin found this bizarre, but figured that, in any case, having a problem with his sleeping with Sarah, regardless of gender, made sense.

(13) This worried Justin because of what he'd learned about Sarah. Now, Sarah is actually part-Siren, although what she told him was just that she was an alien, and that her people would act to make sure that this knowledge was kept secret.

(14) Sarah made it very clear that, as far as she was concerned, the child was hers, and that she didn't expect Justin to help with childcare in any way. Justin agreed, explaining to Ken, "The way I see it, she owes me a life." Ken's comment was, "Good luck collecting."

Once Ken calmed down, he pointed out that, while Justin didn't really want his mother to find out what was going on, because he was afraid she'd do something foolish like challenge Sarah or something, she was going to find out sooner or later about her grandchild, and Justin had a much better chance of keeping control of the situation, or, at least, of keeping his mother calmer, if he told her fast. Miranda, while she wasn't thrilled, and wasn't at all sure that Justin wouldn't regret agreeing to let Sarah have what amounted to full custody of the child, took the situation as well as could be expected, and with a fair amount of humor. She did, however, scare Justin by saying that she intended to see that Sarah was taught a lesson, despite assuring him that she wasn't planning on doing anything combative or even confrontational per se. As Naomi said, it was time Justin started worrying about his mother, instead of vice versa.

(15) Justin asked the train called The City of New Orleans if she could take Delilah back home (Delilah was invented by Michael, and the home town she remembers does not exist in our world.) The train gave Justin a schedule which noted that the fare was one soul. When Delilah came to the game world, Michael had to get her a soul.

(16) Justin asked Sarah if he could use this trick to get sick if he needed to. She winced, but said so long as he didn't overdo it and made it perfectly clear that he was no threat to her people, they'd probably be amused.

(17) This was highly amusing. I'm not sure if Josh knew that Justin had fathered the other child; Michael certainly did not. Justin explained about the balance of the land, and Michael kept trying to find out how he knew. This confused Justin, who thought it was obvious, much as he thought normal people talked to trees.

Relevant Game Quotes from the cast party, where Justin was describing his upbringing:

Justin: You know, Middle America. Dad goes to the Unitarian church; Mom talks to the trees.

Michael: Justin, Middle America moms do not talk to trees!

Justin: They don't?

I forget exactly how, but when Justin started talking about balance, somehow while Michael was slowly starting to wonder if Justin knew whom the father of Sarah's child was, Justin made some comment on the order of "What's wrong with a little incest as long as we keep it in the family?" Michael got very concerned when Justin wound up laughing hard enough that he wound up on the ground, especially as the laughter was more than a little maniacal.

Michael: Justin, are you all right?

Justin (figuring he's never going to get a better chance at this line): Sir, what are your intentions towards my sister?

Michael stared at him, as this was the first he'd heard about Sarah being Justin's sister, and slowly put that piece of information together with Justin's comment about incest.

Michael: Justin, what are your intentions towards my queen?

Justin: Staying the hell away from her. (realizing that there's only so far away one can get when everyone's on the same farm) Insofar as that is possible.

(18) Justin originally planned to carve a set for Jennifer's child. With Sarah carrying twins, he figured he'd better carve another. The one for Jennifer's child included both English and Arabic letters. The one for Justin and Sarah's child included those, as well as the alphabet used to transcribe the speech of Sarah's people.

Justin: The English is for protection. The Arabic is for knowledge. The other is for danger.

As he expected, Sarah liked this. He had asked her, at one point, to speak some of her language to him, and she did. Well, more precisely, she sang it: It was a siren song, intended to drive sailors to dash their ships against rocks, or, when used gently, as in this case, to seduce men. When Justin came to what passes for his senses and got dressed, he asked her, in bafflement, "How the heck do you say "Pass the salt?""

Sarah: Oh, there's plenty of salt to go around.

(19) Justin decided to start a database on the victims of the Jerusalem Bombing, insisting that this was not masochism, just preparation. He figures that if they show up during the Halloween Hunt, being able to address them by name will be an advantage. He wasn't being especially subtle about looking for the names, so he got an unexpected visit from Israel Bar-Lev, the man who'd been unofficially investigating the bombing. Israel gave Justin the complete list of names so that he'd stop poking around on the web and inadvertently causing more pain, and he assured Justin that he did understand why Justin was looking for this information. He also said something about how Justin shouldn't be quite so hard on himself, something Justin both needed to hear from him and planned, on the whole, to ignore.

The ghost problem Justin referred to was the vague chance that either of the Rashids might commit mayhem on Halloween. Ken suggested he ask Israel to take care of that, since, if it happened, the Rashids were far more likely to cause trouble in the Middle East than in Burnham County. Justin wrote Israel a letter getting back a grumpy agreement. Israel was annoyed about all the messes he was having to clean up after.

(20) Relevant Game Quote when Michael created the Z:

Justin: Michael, your handwriting -sucks-.

Michael: My handwriting's fine, Justin. You've got your eyes closed.

In fact, I had, having misunderstood a bit what Josh was doing, but this was amusing enough to keep. The Z was a lot easier to read when Justin opened his eyes.

Natter

Comment to Eugene Reynolds

Yes, that is a large part of why that session was fun. Another part was the contrast. It isn't clear from my write ups, but the session began with the cast party, so there was a real shift in tone, especially as Apollo's appearance was totally unplanned. Naomi just went with a spur of the moment in-character prayer. As for Rashid, the PCs knew that Rashid could get guns. They had no reason to believe he was doing this legally. They knew that he went home to Jordan on vacation and sent someone to pretend to be him so that he could be elsewhere, and that someone else explained that Rashid planned to be at odds with the government of Jordan. This should have set off warning bells. I'm a bit vague on whom one calls, but I would guess Immigration or the CIA (which I may well be confusing with the FBI). I don't think it occurred to players or PCs that Rashid was being sponsored; even if it had, the shell game should have tipped them off, as this was clearly something he didn't want a sponsor to know about. If Rashid had been a Mossad or CIA trainee, he would have been within his rights to chew out the PCs for being idiots since they should have believed he was a terrorist and reacted accordingly. Calling to report a suspected terrorist would not have blown a CIA/Mossad agent's cover in that case, as he would have had to expect this if he were any good. But the emotional response would probably have been different, as there would probably not have been an explosion killing 300 people at a bus station. That's my guess.