Issue 1 Downtime

Gemma was curled on the couch in the common room dressed in sweat pants and a hospital scrub top. They'd tried to get her to give up the tops when she'd left Muir, but they were like a security blanket for her. Maybe one day she would get rid of them, maybe not. She leafed through a textbook, English by the looks of it.

((Open))

Trev seemed intrigued by the new arrival as he was walking through the room with a backpack slung from his shoulder.

oh wow she looks cu--

His train of thought was derailed as he walked directly into the doorframe, swearing loudly and ruining any chance of being unnoticed by the girl.

Gemma looked up just in time to see him collide with the door frame. "Are you okay?"

Trev was bright red and grimacing. "Yeah. Hi." he said trying to pass it off as no big deal.

ow ow ow FUCK

"You must be new. I'm Trev," he flashed her a friendly though slightly pained smile.

"Gemma," she said, "And yeah, I just transferred from... somewhere else."

"Nice to meet you," he smiled.

"So, you work in the infirmary?" he asked indicating her scrub top.

"No," she said. "I just... it was a uniform." She seemed flustered.

"Oh?" Trev asked, a bit confused by her answer (and her reaction).

Awkward pause.

"Uh. So what's your thing? You know. Your gift, your power...seems to be more common question here than 'what's your major?'"

"Did you see the magma dragon during the orientation thing?"

"...there was a dragon at orientation? Damnit. I miss all the cool shit."

"Well, that was me. I kind of sort of change into that."

"...That is AWESOME" he said, perhaps a bit too excitedly.

"If you say so. I find it kind of irritating. My other half is... well... kind of a bitch."

"My friend says it gets better the longer you 'live' together. She's a shifter too."

"Do you like it here so far?"

"I've been living with her for... three years or so now. You should see what she did to my sister's motorcycle. It's pretty nice here though. I like it better than Muir." As soon as she realized what she'd said, her face froze.

"...hey, don't worry...Muir's a place that helps a lot of people. No judgement here," he tried to smile reassuringly.

"There are some... not good people there." Then she quickly added, "I wasn't one of those. My other half just had... anger management issues. And when you can start fires or spew lava..."

"The bad ones wouldn't be sitting here getting pestered by a dork like me. I know all about property destruction too."

"What do you do?"

"I can scream loud enough to shatter plate glass and crack concrete. And now that I've got more control, I can scream at frequencies that can break apart damn near anything given enough time. When I first got my powers I broke a lot of things just by talking near them."

"I could see how that would cause issues," she said with a nod.

"Just like anything, it eventually got a lot easier to control, but the first few years at school were rough. Were you studying? I didn't mean to interrupt with my klutziness.

"No. Just trying to decide what I want to major in."

"I'm a history major. Sackville is a pretty cool guy. Professor Weaver can be a bit intimidating but she's awesome." he said indicating her English book.

"Yeah, I was considering history, but Professor Sackville weirds me out a little too much. And Professor Weaver is really intimidating."

"She's not as bad once you get to know her," he lied--a little. "But ultimately gotta do what you're going to have fun with."

"I'm still not sure what that is. Though I do like maps," she said. "I have a lot of maps."

"I love maps. I actually make some in my spare time."

and now you get to have the I play dungeons and dragons talk already...God damnit.

Gemma's eyes lit up, "Oh really? May I see?"

"Sure," he smiled a bit nervously. "Most of my stuff is in my room. I can go grab it or we can head there--up to you."

She seemed to think about that for a moment. "Whichever makes you more comfortable?"

"Well. Probably easier to show them to you there. Some are only on my computer at the moment. And you'll witness a rare clean room since I just unpacked and moved in." He chuckled

"Okay," she said, closing her book and getting up. "Lead the way."

He led them a short ways to his new room, opening the door to the common room, and then heading to his own tiny bedroom. He'd made relatively good use of the space in the room--his bed was actually lofted, and underneath it sat his desk. A big monitor and a laptop sat side by side on it, along with an external gaming keyboard and mouse. The walls and even the ceiling were covered with posters: several for sports teams from Chicago, but the overwhelming majority were fantasy artwork. His bookshelf was filled with a ton of books--far more RPG books and fantasy and sci-fi novels than school books--and on the wall opposite his desk/bed a corkboard/dry-erase board/mirror installed by the school hung, festooned with hastily scribbled reminders about class and a number of pictures.

"You've reached the point where most girls run away screaming from all of the nerdy shit I have," he chuckled, moving towards the bookshelf and pulling out a large three-ring binder.

Gemma was quiet as she looked around the room, but she showed keen interest when Trev pulled out the binder. "Are those the maps?"

Trev opened up the binder, letting it lay across his left arm and flipping through pages in document protectors, looking for some of his better work.
“Yeah,” he smiled nervously. “So uh…they’re sort of made-up maps for a game I play, but I try to keep the maps as realistic as possible.” He moved closer to her and offered her the binder. Trev did good work—it was a map of a huge kingdom with names right out of a bad Tolkien-clone fantasy novelist’s masterpiece.

Gemma was entranced by the map, tracing different things with her fingers. "Maps don't always have to be of real places. I have a nice map of Middle Earth."

"There are some great ones out there," he said, sounding a bit relieved.

"I made a few in the same kind of style actually..." He said flipping the pages of the book as he stood next to her trying to find his middle earth rip offs. He did find them and they were nicely done, though the font was a bit off, these were also actually hand-drawn.

"Those are nice too," she said, studying the maps carefully. "You said you use these for a game?"

"Yeah..." he said hesitantly. "Dungeons and Dragons...not sure if you've ever heard of it..."

Annnnd this is where she runs screaming...