Two Weeks Into Quarantine (Cafeteria)

[sndwurks]

Returning with his coffee refilled form the station, Billy nods.

"I'm much the same," he offers with a chuckle. "Used to be coffee and cigarettes, but now it's just coffee. Seems to work for me."

He takes his seat again, still watching the board, and glances at Vanessa.

"I was aware that the weird ravens were hers," he explains. "I offered one of them a deal, to pass along to her. I was just curious if it had gotten through to her. My gut has some pretty explicit thoughts about her, and what she actually is."

Billy glances at Henry, and lifts a brow.

"Provided you believe in spirits and all that jazz."

[Owle Isohos]

Kelsey wanders into the cafeteria with a yawn, searching for some breakfast. She's been taking their stay in quarantine pretty well, all things considered. Two weeks of enforced boredom may have been just what the doctor ordered after the concentrated weirdness of their two days on the island.

She waves to the table of Billy, Henry, and Vanessa, then goes to grab a cup of coffee for herself.

[Samantha]

"Oh, I wouldn't know about any message." Vanessa says studying the board getting a feel for how the game is going thus far. She looks up when she hears someone coming in. "Morning, Kelsey."

She turns to Henry to answer his question, "Finals week in med school was better." she says, "Sorry, the person in charge is trying to make us as comfortable as possible but I don't know just the idea of being forced to stay is draining."

[Henry Gondorf]

Henry moved his bishop out into the field.

"Sometimes you gotta take the good with the bad...and the bad with a shot of the highest proof you can stomach." Henry said with a small grin. He took a moment to think if he has ever met with the infamous director yet. Seeing how a face was only a fuzzy memory he thought it should stay as such for while longer.

Henry ran his fingers through his hair. He took a moment to think about if there anyone on hand good with pair of barber shears. A thought struck him upon Billy's return. "Hey, Billy? I was wondering about something. You said that Whisper Hills was a bad place. I can see how people tend to go missing in these parts. Have you ever heard about anything else happening? I mean tall tales like people stepping into a fairy circle and meeting their descendants?"

[sndwurks]

Billy gives a nod towards Kelsey, and takes a sip from his coffee. He places a finger on the checker denoting his Queen, and advances it diagonally, taking Henry's foremost pawn.

"It's not just that people go missing," says Billy simply. "It's... a bad place. You know that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when someone is looking at you, and you know they are looking for a way to plant a knife in your guts? The whole place has it. It used to be better, before the Burning Sky happened, but even then..."

Billy leans back, and smiles wryly.

"It has always been the Place of Whispers. It's a soft place, where the curtain between the visible and the invisible can be drawn back, and things can slip through both ways. It's a bad place to live, and the people who choose to live there get changed by it. I suppose, if you want to think about it, it's like radiation, only not a physical kind."

[Owle Isohos]

"Morning, Vanessa." Kelsey grabs an apple and a bowl of cereal, balancing them on a tray. She returns Billy's nod and joins them over at the table. She listens to Billy's words as she finds a spot she can place her tray without intruding on their game.

"Ah, great. So now I'm a weirdness magnet in a place that's a weirdness magnet?" She smiles, finding humor in that somewhere. "Changed how?" she asks softly. "What about people who are born in places like this?"

[Henry Gondorf]

Henry moves his King one space toward King's Rook out of the looming threat of the Queen.

"Ain't that just a wholesome thought." Henry said with regards to Billy's thoughts of a possible spiritual radiation. He rubbed his chin in thought at a possible recovery from his current state on the board. As distracted as he was, Henry tried to keep his mind moving through chatter.

"Has anyone put an earnest venture to get the heart of this place? I mean aside from the white men who thought it a novel idea to capture 'the evil spirits' of the natives? A mystery spot always seems to bring one or two down on their luck professors trying to save face by proving a old standard wrong."

[sndwurks]

Something about Henry's words gets a wordless stare from Billy. He holds it there, blinking twice, for a several solid seconds before simply dropping his gaze and shaking his head slightly.

"We have tried to get answers about Burning Sky, but that's blocked off so thick that it would take sixteen lawyers driving bulldozers to put a dent in it," he answers, tone even. Glancing towards Kelsey, the private investigator shrugs. "You weren't there when we first encountered the Butcher, were you? The man from Whisper Hill, he told us that Whisper Hill didn't want us. It didn't need us. But there were things in the dark that ought not to be seen, and if we were to be on our way, we needed to get the generator going."

Billy reached down to the board, selecting the bishop from his queen's side, advancing it diagonally along the red squares from the back of the board across to the side, where it rested directly in front of Henry's right most pawn.

"Some of the people in Whisper Hill are alright, perfectly friendly and normal, like Sheriff Winters," he explains. "But most? It's like something's gone bad in their hearts. They just... don't like anybody who isn't them. They don't like 'outsiders'. Doesn't matter if you're government, corporate, or Aquinaki on reservation land. You aren't one of them. They don't talk to outsiders if they don't have to, and they mostly just want to be left alone. Some leave, surely, but I've talked to them. If they don't come back after a year or two? It's like you're talking to a completely different person. And they can't rightly describe what living in Whisper Hill is like... they just don't want to ever go back. Same goes for folks from Island Pond and Derry."

Billy turns his attention towards Henry after that.

"And, by the way, check," he announces, pointing to the bishop he moved which is now threatening Henry's king.

[Henry Gondorf]

Henry moved his king back to its original position with no foreseeable improvement in his standing.

"Oh yes. The wonderful gent with the long knives. If I see that bastard again I would like to introduce him to Miss Sveta. I think the two of them would have a hell of a time." There was no hiding the anger he felt for whatever that thing in the dark was.

[Owle Isohos]

"I was there. The first and second time," Kelsey says, putting down her cereal spoon to answer. "I didn't talk to the man from Whisper Hill much, though. Didn't seem too sociable."

She shakes her head. "You think he meant the people of Whisper Hill, or Whisper Hill itself? I don't exactly like the idea of some sort of...malevolent hive mind in the place, but it wouldn't be the weirdest thing we encountered around here." She shrugs. "I thought the doc was hinting that we should get the hell out of the Whisper Hill area and go back to wherever we came from, but I wasn't sure. Now I guess she was."

The former paramedic raises an eyebrow at Henry. "Miss Sveta?"