vault backup: 2025-12-03 16:28:03

.obsidian/workspace.json

@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
               "type": "markdown",
               "state": {
                 "file": "AndrewNotes/Avalon/02_Sessions/session_5.md",
-                "mode": "source",
+                "mode": "preview",
                 "source": true
               },
               "icon": "lucide-file",

AndrewNotes/Avalon/02_Sessions/session_5.md

@@ -312,41 +312,54 @@ Offer a DC 13 Persuasion- if they succeed, they get what they want (within reaso
 >“If I honor it, I waive the after-school punishment and the formal mark attached to _this_ incident. That is all.
 >You still attended a dangerous failure. You are still now on Mister Vaelor’s ‘safety briefing’ schedule. You are still on my informal list of ‘students who will be nowhere near my sublevels without permission’.”
 
-# Transition Out
-[TODO]
->[!quote] To Ben:
->Your sending-stone buzzes in your pocket with a cheap little default tone.  
-The screen lights up with a contact you remember all too well from the Circle the other night:  
-**PIP** – black-lettered, no emoji.
->new messages pop up one after the other:
+## Transition Out
 
-paste into discord:
-`pip: hey lil stinky`  
-`pip: fun run the other night`  
-`pip: but my boss aint laughin`  
-`pip: circle. after school.`
-`pip: tonight.`
-`pip: dont make me come find that nice house up the hill`
-
-Call for a DC 13 Insight check:
->[!quote] On Success
->You get a cold little drop in your stomach.  
->This isn’t a “let’s talk business” text.  
->The way he phrases “my boss” and “route” screams **this is about more than your $25 bags**.  
->And that last line about “that nice house up the hill” isn’t a bluff – he’s done enough homework to know where you live.  
->If you blow him off again, he’s not just going to be annoyed; he’s going to be **under orders** to make an example out of you.
-
->[!quote] On Failure:
->It reads mostly like wounded pride and flexing.  
->Pip’s pissed he got clowned, sure – but this feels like more of the same: “I’m hard, meet me at the Circle.”  
->The bit about your house feels like a scare tactic. He probably doesn’t actually want trouble in the rich-kid neighborhood; that’s heat he can’t afford.  
->You’re pretty sure if you show up with a good story or talk fast enough, you can spin this back around.
-
-If Ben waffles about not showing up:
 >[!quote] Narration
->Your stone buzzes one more time.  
->Photo attachment: a grainy, night-shot of your **actual street**, your driveway in frame.  
->Headlights wash the front of your house.
+>The meeting ends not with an explosion, but with the soft little _click_ of Larkvale’s door behind you.
+>Out here, the hallway looks the same as it always does: ugly motivational posters about “TEAMWORK!”, the faint smell of burnt coffee from the staff room, the low hum of the building’s lights.
+>It’s almost insulting how normal it all feels, knowing there’s a dead conduit and a blind god-tree under your feet.
+>For the rest of the morning, classes blur.
+>– Teachers talk. You nod at the right times.  
+>– A couple of kids ask, “So what happened last night?” and you give them versions of the story that wouldn’t get you dragged back into that office.  
+>– Every now and then, you feel that buried hum under the floorboards tighten like a muscle remembering a cramp.
+>By the time lunch rolls around, the adrenaline from B2 has burned off and left something heavier behind:
+>– For **Joe**, it’s the weight of Pappy’s action figure in his pocket, like a loaded die.  
+>– For **Soren**, it’s the echo of the root’s whisper and a courtyard full of people who don’t see her.  
+>– For **Ben**, it’s the gnawing knowledge that if _anyone_ is going to make last night your problem again, it won’t be admin. It’ll be the guys who lost money.
+
+>[!quote] To Ben
+>Your sending-stone buzzes in your pocket with a cheap little default tone.  
+>The screen lights up with a contact you remember all too well from the Circle the other night:  
+>**PIP** – black-lettered, no emoji.
+>
+>New messages pop up one after the other (read these aloud / paste to chat):
+>
+>`pip: hey lil stinky`  
+>`pip: fun run the other night`  
+>`pip: but my boss aint laughin`  
+>`pip: circle. after school.`  
+>`pip: tonight.`  
+>`pip: dont make me come find that nice house up the hill`
+>
+>Call for a **DC 13 Insight** check:
+>
+>**On Success**
+>>You get a cold little drop in your stomach.  
+>>This isn’t a “let’s talk business” text.  
+>>The way he phrases “my boss” and “route” screams this is about more than your $25 bags.  
+>>And that last line about “that nice house up the hill” isn’t a bluff – he’s done enough homework to know where you live.  
+>>If you blow him off again, he’s not just going to be annoyed; he’s going to be under orders to make an example out of you.
+>
+>**On Failure**
+>>It reads mostly like wounded pride and flexing.  
+>>Pip’s pissed he got clowned, sure – but this feels like more of the same: “I’m hard, meet me at the Circle.”  
+>>The bit about your house feels like a scare tactic. He probably doesn’t actually want trouble in the rich-kid neighborhood; that’s heat he can’t afford.  
+>>You’re pretty sure if you show up with a good story or talk fast enough, you can spin this back around.
+
+>Either way, the bell for lunch rings.  
+>The cafeteria doors swing open, and the whole student body surges toward food and gossip like nothing under this place has changed at all.
+
+
 # Ben's Folly
 Run this last, after the school encounters for the day:
 ## Arriving 
@@ -564,12 +577,22 @@ Let Soren say some nasty things.
 > There’s a soft _pop_ and the smell of burned fabric. Millie shrieks as the charm on her bag explodes in a shower of sparks, the leather blackening, straps snapping. Half her books and her phone, mirror, and makeup case spill out, cracked and smoking.
 
 ## Transition out
+
 >[!quote] Narration
 >As the scene erupts—shouting, people rushing to help, eyes turning to you—the hum under your skin **fades**, satisfied.
 >The voice sighs like it just had a good meal:
 >“See? You don’t have to be invisible.  
-They’ll remember _this_.”
+>They’ll remember this.”
 
+>– Some kids stare at you like you're a bomb with legs.  
+>– Some pretend they saw nothing.  
+>– Millie is suddenly the center of a (different) kind of attention.
+>For the rest of the afternoon, the day limps on:
+>– Soren catches half-hidden looks and hurried whispers in every hallway.  
+>– Ben feels his stone in his pocket like a weight, every flicker of the lights making him think of B2 and the Circle.  
+>– Joe hears Pappy’s plastic joints creak every time he sits down, like the little figure is restless.
+>When the final bell rings, normal students get to go home.
+>You three get told to report to the one place on campus that hums loudest with that buried heartbeat.
 # Safety Drills
 Run this after school- Soren's lunch comes first.
 >[!quote] Narration
@@ -666,14 +689,51 @@ Ask Ben if he tries to dodge or brace. Either way:
 
 >[!quote] Elias
 > “Joe… who was that voice just now?”
-## Transition Out/ Session Wrap
->[!quote] Estrada, addressing all:
+## Transition Out 
+
+>[!quote] Estrada
 >“All right, circus is over,” Estrada says, blowing his whistle again. “Good hit, questionable vibe. We’re done for today before one of you actually dies.”
 >He points at Joe.  
->“You. Whatever you just did? Learn to turn it on **without** sounding like you’re channeling a dead sergeant. I don’t need root-possessed linebackers on my record.”
+>“You. Whatever you just did? Learn to turn it on without sounding like you’re channeling a dead sergeant. I don’t need root-possessed linebackers on my record.”
 >He points at Ben and Soren.  
->>“You two, ice up and try not to pick fights with haunted toys.”
+>“You two, ice up and try not to pick fights with haunted toys.”
 
->[!quote] Elias, to Joe:
+>[!quote] Elias, to Joe
 >“Joe,” Elias says quietly, eyes on the crystal still flickering with residual data. “Next time… if you feel him pushing like that again, maybe tell me before you let him drive, okay?”
 >“Because whatever’s talking through that action figure? The field heard it. And so did the root.”
+
+>[!quote] Narration
+>Practice breaks up in a haze of sore legs and awkward silence.
+>Estrada stalks off toward the locker rooms, already yelling at some imaginary future team. Elias hangs back to shut down the console, the glow of the diagnostics reflecting in his tired eyes.
+>
+>You’re cut loose.
+>– Joe heads toward the parking lot with Pappy heavy in his pocket and the trench still half-overlaid on the field in his mind.  
+>– Soren peels off toward the buses, the memory of Millie’s face playing on loop, the root’s approval still buzzing faintly in her bones.  
+>– Ben starts toward home on autopilot, shoes scuffing the cracked pavement, until he remembers the messages waiting on his stone.
+
+>By the time the sun’s dropping behind the hills and the campus lights blink on one by one, most Avalon kids are at dinner, or practice, or home.
+>Ben?
+>Ben has one more appointment today.
+
+## Epilogue
+
+>[!quote] Narration
+>That night, Avalon looks almost normal from the outside.
+>The dorm windows glow. Streetlamps buzz. The grid under the valley hums a little too loud, but only three people on campus know what that means.
+>**Soren** lies awake staring at the ceiling, replaying the courtyard on a loop—Millie’s face, the looks, the way the hum surged when she finally did something.  
+>Every time she almost drifts off, she feels a little echo of that vibration under her bed and hears a thought that isn’t quite hers:  
+>“Next time, don’t hesitate.”
+>**Joe** sits on the edge of his bed, Pappy’s action figure in his hands.  
+>For a long minute it’s just cheap plastic. Then the room goes too-quiet, like someone turned down the outside world, and that gravel voice mutters from somewhere behind his eyes:  
+>“Good hit. We’ll do better next time.”  
+>The Mageball field and that other battlefield overlap in his head until he’s not entirely sure which one he belongs on.
+>**Ben** counts the cash in his drawer and the grams in his stash and realizes he’s not just playing pretend dealer anymore.  
+>There’s a real boss somewhere down the line who now expects him to be the guy with campus intel.  
+>Every time the house creaks, he imagines headlights sweeping the front of that nice canyon driveway and wonders whether he’s more afraid of Pip showing up… or Elias finding out he didn’t call.
+>Far below all of you, the root shifts around the dead branch of B2.  
+>It has lost one pair of eyes and quietly picked up three new ones.  
+>Oversight is gone.  
+>For now, the tree is watching _you_.
+
+
+