The Haunting at Kravis School of Fine Arts

Leigh's eyes are fixed on the corner for a moment, then she tears them away. "I always said the scariest thing on this campus is the shoddy maintenance," she mumbles.

"Hear that, my man?" she then asks the professor after Mike's comment. "Your turn to shine. I'm winking again. Hard to tell in these glasses, I assume." She starts filming and lets her camera move across the symbols as Narcissus gets in position, then she focuses the lens on him. "Dazzle us with your expertise." Her voice is dripping with unhealthy amounds of sarcasm.

"And are you going to be doing the research on that, Mike?" says Ricky, "taking back over" for his Dutch spirit guide. "Or should I let Hooligander search from the beyond and report back?" Ricky sees the shadowed corner and thinks he sees something in a shadows, movement maybe, but then it was gone. It still gave him a creep vibe and he looks away. He heads over to the photos tacked to the wall. "Wow, there are some hotties here. This one looks like a chick I banged back in college," he says pointing to a photo of a redhead.

"I am not touching this," Narcissus snaps back at Mike, affronted. "It's a common room of a college, and you want me to touch the floor? No sooner than you start paying our medical bills." He carries his case over to the loveseats, opening it to hand Justin a bag of fake blood. It's a little too thick to be completely identical to real blood and smells somewhat chemical, but at least it's better than ketchup. "Don't use too much, I'm running low on the supplies. College administration probably won't be too happy if they notice either, so exercise moderation."

Narcissus leaves his equipment by the seat - about 60% percent sure that Justin is sensible enough not to mess with it, - straightens his clothes and walks over to stand between the symbols and the board. He waits until Leigh focuses the camera on him, rolls his eyes at her comments, then clears his throat and does what he does best on camera: gives a very dry and short background on the college.

"The Kravis School of Fine Arts was established about thirty-five years ago and operates to this day, although the foundation of this building itself is significantly older - before being restaurated and redesigned, it allegedly used to house a fire department, as odd as it sounds. As you can see," he gestures towards the board, "over the years this college had plenty of exemplary students, one of which is the subject of our episode, Alice Bixby. The public accounts of the incident which resulted in her unfortunate passing are quite lacking in information, but evidently," Narcissus slowly walks around the symbols scribbled on the boards. "it is still fresh in the minds of the students, and perhaps there is more to the story than the college adminstration would like you to believe. Let's take a closer look."

After a moment of hesitation, Professor squats by the symbols with a grimace - it clearly causes him physical pain to be any closer to the dirty floor. "Most of these symbols are etched into the wood with short, uneven cuts, likely done by a knife - a ritual knife, perhaps? The meanings of the signs are hard to determine, with many of them being rather common in occult culture, such as an alchemical symbol for fire right here, or the pentagram behind it... And with the exception of the one on the right." He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. "Leigh, you better cut this dick doodle out in post, I'm pretty sure it is not even remotely occult."

Narcissus stands up. "Is this enough or do you need more, Mike?"

"It could be Satan's dick," Leigh suggests with a snort of laughter when Narcissus points out the symbol. She aims her camera on the crude doodle and zooms in to get a great view of it. "Hey, professor, fifty bucks if you lick it."

"With the way most modern media depicts the devil? Pretty sure his is bigger," Narcissus grimaces. "And please, Leigh, I would expect it from Ricky, but you are better than this. Don't give him ideas."

* Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Now, give the people what they want, Professor: THE FACTS! Failing that, a professional opinion will do fine!

"Clearly, this ritual is the work of… ? *

"I'm not sure Ricky is all that much into guy-on-guy action. Or guy-on-satan action," Leigh replies with a shrug. She focuses the camera on Vonsham again, framing him professionally. They do have a job to do between all their snarking, after all. "If Satan is so well-endowed, maybe that's the reason for this summoning. Do we know if all the participants in the ritual were gays and gals?" She chuckles again, then shakes her head. "Sorry, leaving this to the professionals." She gestures for Vonsham to speak, following Mike's direction.

As soon as the bag of blood is handed to Justin he snaps out of his trance, "Fuck yeah, thanks man."

He sits and listens to Narcissus before replying with, "Shoot, pretty sure Satan can be whatever you want. Maybe he was the redhead Ricky banged? Or maybe it was the antichrist."

Justin looks over to Leigh and quietly says, "Maybe he's got TWO dicks?" before chuckling with her.

"Snakes have two dicks, so it tracks," Narcissus comments distractedly as he listens to the Director. "Mike, my professional opinion is that this was a work of a group of drunk students, let J&J speculate on the reasons you actually want told on camera. But facts, that I can offer."

He crosses his arms and stares into the camera with a look somewhere between thoughtful and extremely bored. "Of course, the symbols here are simply an imitation of what has transpired on a day few years ago, when a group of students led by an art teacher was detained attempting to perform an occult seance in the basement of this very building." He moves along the wall for change of the background. "The teacher, Sigmund Donovan, has claimed afterwards that the ritual was an art installation project, and the investigation was quickly stopped, with only administrative punishments assigned to the participants. Currently this section of the college is closed-off, with the administration citing dangers of asbestos exposure as the reason," Professor abruptly stops as his pacing brings him to the dark corner, considers it for a moment, then turns another way. "Nevertheless, the official statement on the situation is notably lacking in details, and my further research into the matter has uncovered a number of conflicting elements - a certain sign of an attempt to obfuscate the truth."

He stops talking and sighs deeply, rubbing his temple. "Mike, as much as I'm enjoying ruining this place's reputation, I don't want to talk about the janitor."

* Say it with a smile; Professor. You’re on camera! Cheese! *

When Mike mentions the corner, Ricky gets suspicious that maybe what he thought he saw was some planned effect he wasn't informed about. He wouldn't it put it past him to do something like that. But it would have been extra work to set that up before everyone arrived... Probably just coincidence. Nevertheless, Ricky feels pulled to that corner. It is a little darker than it should be with the other lights in the area. Some intuition of knowing how light should work nagged at him that something was wrong, like some CGI in a movie or something. He gets a sudden hunch, an idea for an experiment. While the others are filming he stands near one of the crew flood lights that's aimed closest at the corner and waves his hand in front of it.

Leigh continues filming the professor. She changes something on her camera's settings without comment to anyone, then addresses Vonsham again. "Why don't you want to talk about him? Too personal?" Her lips curl into a grin. "Did you and he have a thing? That's hot. Talk about that."

Justin holds a finger up to his ear as Mike relays the message and opens up the bag of blood. While the focus is still on the Professor, Justin will pour some of the fake blood to fill in the symbols on the floor and put the bag behind the chair he sat on.

He’ll gasp, "Everyone! Come get a look at this! The floor seems to be bleeding…Alice! Is this a sign?! Or am I speaking to an evil entity?"

Narcissus scowls in response to Mike's words, his expression becoming even more sour than before. "I have my reasons. And I absolutely did not have a thing with the janitor!" He points accusingly at Leigh. "We are acquainted, yes, but this is not why I refuse to speculate on his involvement. I am here to state facts, not assumptions made behind people's backs." He huffs indignantly, then takes a breath and adds more calmly: "I'm not his type, I'm pretty sure the only type this man has is plastic. That is, he has a little too much of an obsession with mannequins; the theatre storage had a whole room of the creepy things, and he loved it." Professor frowns. "He is a strange man, but I'm not going to badmouth someone for entertainment on camera. I'm pretty sure he still works here, so if you want juicy stuff, you can get it straight from the source." He pauses, then mutters under his nose: "This was an unfortunate choice of words..."

Luckily for him, Justin then turns the attention towards the blood-filling of the carved symbols, and Narcissus uses it as a chance to leave the frame and retreat to stand near Glickmann - so far he seems the least likely to bother Professor over his connection to the college and its employees, so Narcissus blatantly uses him as a shield. He then narrows his eyes at Ricky, incredulously watching the man wave his hand in the dark corner. "What are you doing?" Professor regrets asking almost immediately because it's Ricky, but well; as they say, if you can't beat them, join them.

"Strange man with a mannequin fetish," Leigh repeats with an amused smile. "Got it on camera from you, prof. I'm sure Mike can edit that into something workable."

She gets the feeling she won't get anything more out of Vonsham for now, as fun as he is to provoke, so she looks around the room. When the professor points out Hooligander, she shrugs and turns the camera towards him to capture whatever he's up to.

* You bet your ass we can! *

* Sounds like this janitor is living in 3023! We’ll all be fucking plastic before long, people! *

* Let it breathe people, let it breathe! We’ve got all night! Alright? Alright! *

* I want shots of that blood! And… is… is he casting a spell? What’s he doing? What are you doing, Ricky? *

"If you misrepresent my words and result in me getting haunted by some creepy dolls or being beaten with a mop, I'm quitting this job. And who is going to do your special effects then? Our local Dutch wizard?" Professor rolls his eyes at Leigh and Mike, crosses his hands and then leans against the wall, watching them with a bored expression. "...I hope you at least add something in post. It's literally just a dark corner of a room that you're filming right now."