peckishpeople: (qualls 1)
peckishpeople ([personal profile] peckishpeople) wrote in [community profile] peckenpaugh2019-11-07 11:59 am

In the computer lab today...

There’s no lecture today, no immediate calamity from which Mr. Qualls needs to be rescued, and if Lionel checked his star charts, he’d see today is a great day for touching base with your loved ones. Yes, today is the day to ask Mr. Qualls if he has a brother. What could possibly go wrong?

The computer lab is mostly empty, save for a few students studying or browsing the web in the back of the room, when Lionel approaches his ghostly instructor with his question. “Do you have a brother?” is simple enough, but Mr. Qualls doesn’t have an immediate answer. He thinks, and thinks, and the more he thinks the harder his pale blue face screws up.

“Brother?” he asks. “Brothers. Brothers, brothers.” Mr. Qualls stares up at the buzzing fluorescent lights. “There were brothers!”

Realization, recollection, dawns on his features. He opens his mouth to say more, and then stops. Mr. Qualls makes a strange, strained noise and then begins to jitter. “My—” The muggle studies teacher seems to be malfunctioning, again, his very form tearing and hitching. Spliced between trying to speak and, somehow, seeming to be in excruciating pain. Color fills his form in flashes, vibrant and dull, living and dead.

The computer monitors at the front of the room begin to smoke. The lights overhead flicker. Mr. Qualls looks at his TA. Past his TA.

“Lionel?” He says, and there’s a great flash as the lights above blow and the power goes out. For a second, everything is silent and dark. No glitching instructor, no glow from computer monitors. The room fills with the smell of burning plastic.

Then Mr. Qualls blinks, shakes his head, and most of the overhead lights and back rows of computers come back on. “Brother? Hm? No. Always wanted one, but my parents decided I was enough, I guess. Oh! James, it looks like those damn Windows updates have mucked up the computers again. Could you have a look?”

Mr. Qualls returns to his desk as though nothing is wrong. Beneath the spot where he’d been floating, right in the middle of the floor, Lionel finds a shiny black stone, shaped like a cicada’s shell.

For the rest of the day, Peckenpaugh’s already limited internet goes down. It should be back up tomorrow, though! The front row of computers ⁠— four PCs ⁠— appear to have been bricked by an electrical surge and will need to be replaced.

UP TO EIGHT STUDENTS may have been present in the computer lab, to witness this event. One per player max. The power throughout the old victorian flickered and the acrid smell from the burnt out computers filled the building, so students anywhere else in the library would've noticed quickly, too.


circuitree: (Default)

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[personal profile] circuitree 2019-11-07 05:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Lionel nearly kills another teacher. What a menace.
lionellovelace: (Default)

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[personal profile] lionellovelace 2019-11-07 05:16 pm (UTC)(link)
I stg, if the Quackenbushes are like, “I saw him muttering a curse disguised as an innocent question and then Qualls began glitching” Lionel will lose his mind 6 months early.
artistree: (Default)

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[personal profile] artistree 2019-11-07 05:17 pm (UTC)(link)
thank you for the inspo ben
circuitree: (Default)

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[personal profile] circuitree 2019-11-07 05:18 pm (UTC)(link)
they're gonna start asking people if they have a brother to see what happens
sugarnspite: (Default)

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[personal profile] sugarnspite 2019-11-07 05:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Catch Uriah when he's not feeling well and he might faint on them. Rumor CONFIRMED.
circuitree: (Default)

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[personal profile] circuitree 2019-11-07 05:29 pm (UTC)(link)
They have to save the rest of the staff before Lionel's rampage claims another victim
lionellovelace: (Default)

Re: OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

[personal profile] lionellovelace 2019-11-07 05:39 pm (UTC)(link)
i... i only have myself to blame i guess