21:02 <Crion> It's a mystery! A mystery that involves a weird church, a website, a tech company doing government makework, and three disappearances at least. 21:03 <Crion> But it's also a mystery that Santander hasn't precisely insisted you solve, and certainly hasn't insisted you do anything about. He just wants to know what's going on at UMBC's campus, and the Wherehouse has a pretty good idea. Or a pretty good start of one. 21:03 <Crion> That said...not like it's anyone else's jurisdiction... 21:04 <VoxPVoxD> It's either this or streaming a first run of Dark Souls. 21:04 <Crion> Meanwhile, Steve is getting like, really into carbs. It's good that he doesn't actually seem to be gaining weight, but someone left pork fried rice in the fridge once and now he is all about the staple food of over half the world's population. 21:06 <banana> Help out Nels, get away from thesis research, work on a problem that's low-stakes for once. People might be kidnapped and murdered, but not by rune-things or machine-things so it's low stakes, okay. Melanie's happy to be here. 21:08 <trenchfoot> Honestly it's extremely lucky that Nels has friends to help her out here because, well, she'd be doing this anyway but without backup. 21:09 <Crion> If the narrator recalls correctly, Ravens was in the middle of pirating the software necessary to read the .brn file for Stewart; you may assume that piracy has been completed, and there's an .iso with a crack folder on the Autumn Court shared drive. 21:10 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's installing now. Anything weird happen or can he just set it up? 21:11 <Crion> Nope, easy install. 21:11 <Crion> It'll ask you for an enterprise license; since they're lazy chumps, the "crack" is just a code, since it follows an algorithm and doesn't check with a central server. 21:12 <trenchfoot> Nels will just blink dazedly at all of this. 21:13 <VoxPVoxD> Three equally important questions: did Ravens generate a list of codes or a keygen; if it's a keygen, does it have music; what's the .srn file look like when it opens up? 21:14 <Crion> Sadly it's literally a .txt with a XXX-XXX-XXXXXX code in it. No music. 21:14 <banana> Melanie watches the computing with disinterest, but interested disinterest. "If the sun center people aren't behind this - if the disappearances are still related to each other, I guess our next step is to look into the pro-life guy. There would surely have to be a connection between him and the vanished students, even if it's, like, geographic proximity." 21:14 <Crion> As for the .brn file... 21:15 <dammitwho> It would be really easy to overfeed Steve, since he can directly ask for food and watching him eat is hilarious. Seriously, set out a bowl of peas for him sometime, he just goes nuts. 21:16 <VoxPVoxD> That's how you make foie gras. 21:19 <dammitwho> No!!! 21:22 <Crion> Technically Maggie is correct; making foie gras involves a lot more direct abuse-- 21:26 <Crion> So the file is interesting. This software is...well, Stewart, do you want to explain what scrums and project management are to the group? Because this is basically software for that, with a bit more intuitive design and better modules for presentation, especially for workflows. It's mostly designed for processes (and the procedures that feed into those processes) and quality management, but 21:26 <Crion> if you wanted, you could assemble a big ol' digitial conspiracy board here, with pixelated pins and twine. 21:30 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart doesn't fully understand it either. "So this all seems like a very elaborate way of letting office managers take notes..." 21:31 <banana> Melanie: "What does Continous Lean Portfolio mean?" 21:31 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I don't know. Maybe you have to be Lean to be Agile?" 21:32 <banana> Melanie: "Necessary but insufficient." 21:32 <Crion> Either way, this file seems to have been created in duplicate. You've got two tracks running parallel. The first seems like pamphleteering and religious invocation, telling about rejoicing in the Cinders of the Sun -- which sounds ominous -- but then going on to explain that basically they're some kind of environmental group with a focus on triage and then sustainability in the face of global 21:32 <Crion> climate catastrophy, just with a veneer of that Old Time Religion. Sort of like Sunrise Movement meets a tent revival. It becomes a bit obvious why the actual tent revivalist, who didn't seem good enough to get his own tent, didn't take kindly to it. 21:33 <Crion> Each essential argument or pitch is its own "project" -- and then there's the second track, which are associated notes attached TO that project. And these are not written in a whimsical clerical style at all; this is business shorthand, and it has to do with demographic responsiveness to various lines of argumentation and what the group testing says about how "proctors" should react to various 21:33 <Crion> responses from subjects. 21:34 <Crion> If you go to print, however, you can only print the basic argumentation, the pamphlet stuff; the clinical notes about how to deliver it and how well everything tests are locked in as suggestion notation. 21:35 <Crion> There's even a section explaining that yes, the name might sound ominous, but ominous -- with a tinge of the apocalypse -- tests well with key demos. 21:35 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Is this some kind of astroturf thing?" 21:35 <trenchfoot> Nels: "What?" 21:36 <trenchfoot> "I know astro, kind of, but what does that even mean." 21:36 <dammitwho> Maggie: "You mean like from space?" 21:36 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart looks up: "Astroturf is like, fake grass that you sometimes get in football stadiums where the weather's bad for grass or there's a roof. In the context of political organizing it means rich people or organizations are pumping money into what looks like bottom-up organizing or issue advocacy. Astroturf, cause the grassroots is fake." 21:37 <trenchfoot> Dizzily: "Oh." 21:38 <banana> Melanie did not remember that word at all, but it's hardly as bad as some of the things she'd forgotten. Maybe she never knew it in the first place. "Yeah it looks like the spiritual element is designed, created for a business purpose. But.. it's not the kind of thing you associate with people disappearing?" 21:39 <VoxPVoxD> What is the business purpose? Was there even a Donate link on the website? 21:39 <banana> "I'd expect more like... you express interest and your signature mysteriously ends up on a petition delivered by lobbyists to the Dean to deliver tax relief for international student tuition. That's real grit." 21:39 <Crion> All in all, you can conclude that the purpose of this file, specifically, is not for converts but for organizers. Uh, "proctors." If they lose their field notes or need a refresher. 21:40 <Crion> There was a donation link, though it looked like part of a Wordpress template install. 21:40 <Crion> Paypal. 21:41 <banana> As long as it's not capital P proctor. 21:42 <Crion> That guy didn't seem very interested in either demographic breakdowns or religion. 21:42 <VoxPVoxD> So what we have here is a set of processes and methodologies, which are either done with corporate motives or using the tools and ideas of corporate logic, to build a cult, for...??? 21:42 <VoxPVoxD> Is that where we're at so far? 21:43 <Crion> Seems like a fair assessment. 21:45 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Alright, so... we don't know what they want, yet. We have some idea of how they're doing it, or part of it, but not what 'it' is, or why it involves kidnapping." 21:45 <VoxPVoxD> "Test subjects? Recruits? Silence of the Lambs stuff?" 21:45 <banana> Melanie's skeptical that this is going to lead anywhere. We should probably not all sit around the computer at least.. even if the concept of an 'enterprise backlog' is oddly fascinating.. When we were on campus, did we manage to get the names or contact details of either Damian or Nicky? 21:46 <banana> wait, scratch those names lol 21:46 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart worked so hard not to! 21:47 <banana> of Michael and Rhonda, Melanie means to think. 21:48 <trenchfoot> Nels didn't ask after them, despite steering the conversation towards the weird religious cult. 21:50 <banana> Maybe we are not good at being detectives. 21:50 <VoxPVoxD> It just takes practice. 21:52 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I'm gonna keep trying to turn up a paper trail. What are you guys thinking?" 21:53 <banana> Melanie: "I'm thinking 'why or whether'. These earthburner guys just might not be related at all, and the preacher they had a conflict with.. was he even a student? Santander had three students missing." 21:53 <VoxPVoxD> "How many students did you find?" 21:53 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Two." 21:53 <trenchfoot> "There wasn't even a third reported missing yet, so I don't know how Santander knew that." 21:54 <VoxPVoxD> "Somebody knows somebody, is my guess." 21:54 <VoxPVoxD> "UMBC students disappearing's gotta make the news, right? Let me dig around..." 21:56 <banana> "I'm not saying it's not worth looking at the sun cult, just not as the only thing. Actually, I should call- should contact some people from this club I was in, to see whether anyone knew Michael or Rhonda." 21:56 <banana> Knows! Not knew. But let's not drawattention to the slip. 21:56 <Crion> Stewart gets Michael and Rhonda easily enough, and can probably track down their parents for the effort. But you widen the search a little bit and...ah, of course that's what it is. 21:58 <Crion> Sometime in the first week of January, a Towson University student went missing after attending a party at UMBC and staying over the weekend with some friends. The Walker apartments are open through the winter break and the students don't get turned out of them (one of the many reasons they're the prestige semi-campus private-public partnership housing), and that's where she was. Girl named 21:58 <Crion> Jina Torres. 22:00 <Crion> Sometime in the first week of January, a Towson University student went missing after attending a party at UMBC and staying over the weekend with some friends. The Walker apartments are open through the winter break and the students don't get turned out of them (one of the many reasons they're the prestige semi-campus private-public partnership housing), and that's where she was. Girl named 22:00 <Crion> Jina Torres. 22:02 <VoxPVoxD> How close together are the disappearances? 22:02 <banana> Of course, it is possible that the astro-turfers kidnapped three kids AND, separately, a manic street preacher. 22:04 <Crion> You're looking at Row at New Year's, then Barkeley and Torres the same weekend. 22:04 <VoxPVoxD> And nothing since? It's, what, mid-February now? 22:05 <Crion> Nothing in the news, at least. 22:05 <trenchfoot> That's reassuring. 22:06 <Crion> If it helps, no John or Jane Does have started mysterious turning up unidentifiably mauled either. 22:06 <Crion> *mysteriously 22:06 <Crion> Not near campus, at least. Go a bit closer towards where those Rangers were operating... 22:08 <VoxPVoxD> Do any of these kids have still-extant public-facing Facebooks or Twitters or anything? 22:08 <dammitwho> Maggie nods. "The sun people could just be business jerks who want money and are pretending to be a religion to get it." 22:10 <banana> Melanie's been going through her phone, but none of the academics she knows are even around at this time of year- she looks up abruptly. "Well hang on, is that really 'pretence'?" 22:10 <Crion> Sure do. And...they're active? Well, Row doesn't seem to have much of an online presence at all except a Facebook (that might be his) that hasn't been updated in years. But Torres and Barkeley are both on line...and posting about the climate. Strangely, or not, they're not posting about the Church of the Sun's Cinders. But they both logged back on about a week ago, really passionate about 22:10 <Crion> climate change. 22:10 <Crion> Or someone did. 22:11 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Take a look at this." 22:11 <VoxPVoxD> "This is Jina and Rhonda's social media. Look at the dates of these most recent posts about climate change." 22:12 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "If they wanted money, I really don't think they'd be so sneaky. A fake religion gets money by pushing its logo and its beliefs in front of everyone. These posts don't even have hashtags." 22:12 <Crion> Or geotags. 22:12 <VoxPVoxD> Are pre-kidnapping posts tagged? 22:13 <Crion> Some are, some aren't. Torres seemed to have geotagging set as a default before, now she doesn't. 22:13 <banana> "Oh my god you're doing it too. Look, calling it 'fake' doesn't make sense- assume for the sake of argument that you're making a claim of deceit, that the CSC are falsely stating themselves to be a religion. What 'is' religiosity then? Like, why are we making this assumption that if you're seeking money, or kidnapping children, that this is somehow qualitatively distinct from genuine 'religious' 22:13 <banana> practice?" 22:14 <trenchfoot> Nels takes a look at that. Then: "...so I think this technically qualifies as fulfilling the favor, but now I'm just more... confused? Alarmed? Both?" 22:14 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I don't think a real cult or a real-fake cult would be so obscure and, like low-tech-but-only-from-the-public-facing-side." 22:15 <VoxPVoxD> "The feel is all wrong. This isn't what proselytizing OR hustling looks like." 22:16 <VoxPVoxD> "Like they spent five figures on enterprise note-taking software and then use a wordpress template for their webpage? No social media presence at all?" 22:17 <banana> It is extremely obvious from Melanie's facial expression that she wants to argue with this, but. Maybe it wouldn't be.. helpful, right now, to press a philosophical point about the nature of religion, 'legitimacy' in popular culture, and the question of why 'mainstream' churches, et al, are given a pass on- now she's just arguing with herself. None of it is audible, but a wooden dish on 22:17 <banana> the sideboard is doing a sort of agitated dance. 22:18 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart looks up. "Melanie?" 22:18 <banana> "...............Right, if they aren't on social media then they're not trying to attract a lot of attention. So it makes the pamphletting look more targetted." 22:23 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart checks the friends and follows - can he use those to see which students who know Jina or Rhonda are/were around, and maybe produce a list of leads of people to go out and question? 22:24 <Crion> Sure. They actually have a bunch of the same accounts. Lots of women's sport jocks, and the guys who chase them. 22:25 <banana> Melanie: "Familiar, if not the actual names and faces. It's like looking through an ozone haze." 22:25 <VoxPVoxD> Streamer brain is kicking in, so Stewart is still narrating everything he's doing. "Now I want to put together an approach that doesn't go through the cult, in case they're just creepy but not directly involved, like Melanie hypothesized. So I'm looking at what accounts they follow and follow them - lot of women's basketball players and women's basketball orbiters..." 22:26 <trenchfoot> Nels does an admirable job of not looking at Melanie. 22:27 <Crion> WBB is big at UMBC so both have a lot of connections there, but the biggest section of overlap is actually women's lacrosse -- Barkeley is a UMBC player and it looks like Torres is a walk-on on Towson's team. 22:27 <Crion> Oh, hey. Barkeley and Torres went to the same high school. 22:27 <VoxPVoxD> "And checking their accounts to try and tell if they're in the area, when they got back for the spring semester. That-- hey. They went to the same high school! And they're both lacrosse players." 22:27 <VoxPVoxD> "That's the... one with a stick...?" 22:27 <Crion> Was a bit harder to find because Barkeley actually doesn't list her's on her social media for whatever reason. 22:28 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I thought that was hockey." 22:29 <banana> Melanie: "There are numerous ballsports played on American campuses." At some point, the dancing bowl settled down and then put itself away in a cupboard. 22:29 <banana> Melanie: "There are numerous ballsports played on American campuses." At some point, the dancing bowl settled down and then put itself away in a cupboard. 22:29 <Crion> If that's what the kids are calling it these days. 22:29 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart scrolls down rapidly, to a picture of someone in pads and mask holding a tiny net with a long handle. "Right, this is lacrosse." 22:30 <VoxPVoxD> "Anyway, that's a connection. I wonder if this high school has their graduating classes online..." Can Stewart find pictures of graduation photos on the high school website's archives, and scan them for the third guy? 22:32 <trenchfoot> Nels: "...that still looks like hockey, kind of." 22:32 <trenchfoot> "Whatever. Not important." 22:33 <banana> Black and Gold, Breaking the Mold. "If they were all connected earlier this could be something catching up with them. The sun-cult's weirdness.. expressing itself, by fighting with the pro-life guy and by associates of the group disappearing.. not really a college-centric phenomenon except that that's where they've been operating?" 22:35 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "The reason they came into conflict with the preacher might be the same reason they set up like a cult - every college campus in the country has those guys out in the public commons." 22:35 <VoxPVoxD> "Assuming it's a front," he concedes. 22:35 <VoxPVoxD> "Man there is a really upsetting amount of information about teenagers online, even before you get to the stuff they voluntarily share." 22:36 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Is it weird I'm glad that wasn't a problem for me?" 22:36 <Crion> Michael Row doesn't post a lot, but his posting doesn't have much to do with it here: the third predatory yearbook site confirms that Torres and Barkeley are from the Loch Raven High School Class of 2019, and yep, back in the Class of 2017, there's Michael Row. 22:37 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Ha." 22:37 <VoxPVoxD> "Loch Raven." 22:38 <banana> "Nels, you have more search results than any of us." 22:39 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "That's not her." 22:39 <dammitwho> Maggie: "I don't know enough about colleges to know if this is a coincidence. School is pricey - do most kids just go to the nearest one?" 22:39 <trenchfoot> Nels: "She's - yeah." 22:39 <banana> "Sorry, you're right." 22:40 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It depends. State schools are cheaper than private schools, schools where you can live at or close to home are cheaper than far away ones... it all comes down to how much money you have, how many loans you're willing to take out, and how far you want to get away. I grew up in the suburbs here and going to school in Baltimore was far enough for me, but my parents could pay for 22:40 <VoxPVoxD> it." 22:42 <dammitwho> Maggie, appalled: "Loans? Good gravy." 22:42 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Oh, dude." 22:42 <VoxPVoxD> "Fifty grand a year." 22:43 <banana> "And because of that the distance isn't necessarily something you see as a cost immediately. It just goes on a spreadsheet somewhere, think about it when you get a 'good job'.. what's ten thousand more for residential on top of tuition?" 22:43 <Crion> HONK! Something falls over in the kitchen. 22:43 <Crion> Steve is trying to make rice again! 22:44 <VoxPVoxD> "Oh no. Steve??" 22:44 <banana> Anything he sets on fire he's paying for. 22:44 <Crion> He's fine; it's not too much of a mess. Doesn't look like he put enough water in the pot, though. 22:45 <Crion> He was trying to more, when. 22:45 <dammitwho> Maggie coughs and wheezes at the figure Stewart quotes. 22:45 <banana> If Stewart's getting up, re: his laptop- "May I look at that for a sec?" 22:45 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Sure." 22:45 <VoxPVoxD> He's gonna go help Steve clean up. 22:45 <trenchfoot> Nels does some mental math, and then tries to recontextualize, and then just puts her head in her hands. 22:46 <Crion> Steve appreciates it, honkingly. Birds aren't great at cleaning. 22:46 <banana> Melanie will read over the materials on Row, Barkeley and Torres. Lacrosse kids.. way more common out in the county than basketball! They'd all have been from churchgoing families. Why join this cinder thing? Because you can't just ignore the threat of climate change, so you might as well get sucked into some predatory religious take on it? 22:46 <Crion> Hobs are even worse. 22:47 <dammitwho> Looking to Nels for support: "Didn't colleges out California way used to cost about seventy bucks a year?" 22:48 <Crion> Point of order: Row doesn't actually seem to be connected to lacrosse. Not any sport, really, despite jokes about rowing as a sport. He's in Torres and Barkeley's social media networks though. 22:50 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I didn't bother looking." 22:52 <banana> Melanie: "You can still get in for free if, for example, you're a good enough athlete to contribute to the Retrievers. The problem with that is that the colleges now make so much money from sport that some of them are basically franchises with a seminar program attached..." 22:53 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart shows Steve the one cooking trick he remembers Maura trying to teach him - if you toast the uncooked rice in butter for a bit before you add the water, the grains stay separate, cook evenly, and the water doesn't boil over. He hangs out by the stove, waiting for the water to boil so he can back it down, cover it, and let it gently steam. 22:53 <banana> So, who in these mutuals looks like the best cold-call? 22:54 <Crion> Melanie has license here to tell the story about how Freeman Hrabowski III, civil rights leader and president of UMBC, has banned football from campus -- even turning down a huge influx of cash from the Baltimore Ravens to be their pre-season complex -- to avoid having a football team, because he is morally opposed to the short. 22:54 <Crion> *sport 22:54 <Crion> She doesn't have to. But it's generally what UMBC students do here. 22:55 <banana> She did say some of them. 22:55 <Crion> Steve watches intently, and respectfully, and actually...seems to learn? 22:55 <Crion> It's a bit hard to do all of Stewart's tricks without hands, especially in a timely manner, but for this it mostly involves beak manipulation. 22:55 <banana> That was Claire's job though. It's not like Melanie actually has a UMBC degree yet - the postgrad will be her first, if it actually works out. 22:56 <Crion> Oh the other thing UMBC students do is brag about beating UVA as a 16 seed in March Madness last year. 22:56 <Crion> Anyway! 22:57 <VoxPVoxD> Could the cult be a wing of the Cheiron Group that held the kids in thrall? It fits but feels too pat -- the Machine's appetite for multiplying entities is greater than that. He thinks about their too-hot apartment, about how hot it was in the suite where she was trying to teach him how to cook for himself. The glint of Steve's black eye puts Stewart in mind, very briefly, of a camera 22:57 <VoxPVoxD> lens, and fiercely startles him. 23:05 <Crion> Steve honks and flaps, because when his people freak out he likes to freak out too, but he quickly recovers and studies the rice intently again. 23:05 <Crion> As for the social media analysis: Michael Row himself would be the most intriguing inflection point if you didn't already know about him, because if you use the BrainStorm software to create a relationship pinboard that sorts based on interconnection, he's actually the guy connected to both Torres and Barkeley with the fewest possible connections to everyone else. 23:07 <Crion> However, you manage to find, basically, the former runner-ups at state, the Loch Raven Girl's Lacrosse team of 2019 -- and a number of those girls who went to UMBC live with older UMBC upperclassmen who also were on that team in previous years in the Walker apartments, where Torres and now, presumably, Barkeley went to party. 23:11 <VoxPVoxD> Once the rice is off the heat, Stewart returns fully to the investigation. "Find anything good?" 23:13 <banana> "A cluster of roommates, maybe friends, people we could talk to. People who might be in danger?" 23:13 <banana> Melanie relinquishes the hot seat. 23:14 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Nice. This is good, you put together a workable set of leads." 23:14 <banana> "It's all lacrosse-girls stuff, that's the kind of thing that becomes your identity for a while... except Mike Row. It'll be interesting to see if anyone else at the Walker building knows him." 23:16 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Um. Can someone check on - Sarah?" 23:16 <VoxPVoxD> "Sarah who?" 23:18 <trenchfoot> Does Nels's fetch's granddaughter still have the family name? 23:18 <Crion> Yes. 23:18 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Foulke." 23:18 <banana> Melanie smiles at Nels. 23:19 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart looks back at the screen, lips pressed together. After a pause he runs a search. 23:20 <Crion> Sarah's easily identifiable -- looks like class of 2023, UMBC -- and she's spent the weekend...partying with a blonde girl named Claire. Her last post was earlier this evening. She seems fine, if college. 23:21 <VoxPVoxD> Any connections to our missing persons? 23:21 <banana> "That's not me"- but isn't it? She's not so sure, herself, and she's not sure how sure the others are either. Somewhere in Chicago there's a woman for whom being a lacrosse girl type was only a few years ago instead of lifetimes - who wouldn't say 'whom', but frankly Melanie typically feels like she's the changeling. Which she is, but you know what she means. 23:22 <Crion> Nope. She's Insta friends with some of their friends, but it's two and three times removed. Normal social distancing. 23:23 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Doesn't fit the pattern, and no red flags." 23:23 <trenchfoot> Nels exhales. "Okay. So. Probably not fetch-related stuff." 23:24 <trenchfoot> And she's safe, but that's a separate thing to confront later. 23:27 <VoxPVoxD> "So how do you want to do this?" 23:29 <banana> Melanie: "bleehhhhrn." 23:30 <banana> "Would've been really easy once but also people would ask questions.. like 'why are you named after a player from three years ago, why do you look like her but weird and lumpy'.." 23:30 <banana> "But still it would be easiest, right, to approach them socially somehow.. like we aren't going to turn up and be all oh, we're the undercover inspectors. Here to check your water meter and ask where your friends went." 23:31 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I could - the campus preachers. Maybe." 23:31 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah. Especially since you both are and were actually a student there, trying to fabricate a cover just raises more questions than it sidesteps." 23:34 <banana> "I suspect.. we could put together enough information from this public stuff and my old accounts that we could, basically, crash the next party. Looking like people who were meant to be there because friends of friends. That's one option." 23:34 <banana> "What's the campus-preachers-maybe option?" 23:34 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I mean, they've been showing up on campus. Maybe I could fake being interested enough that... I don't even know." 23:35 <VoxPVoxD> "Try to get recruited, you mean?" 23:35 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Yeah." 23:36 <VoxPVoxD> "It's interesting, if risky... but we'd have to stake the campus out or something." 23:36 <banana> Melanie: "Oh, yeah it's worth doing that at the same time. You're good at looking credulous while actually being extremely not." 23:36 <trenchfoot> Nels: "There's a bunch of places there with alarmingly good sight lines, if that helps." 23:37 <trenchfoot> To Melanie: "Thank you." 23:37 <dammitwho> Maggie: "I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to crash a college campus party, even if I bring the good stuff. Maybe especially then." 23:38 <Crion> So what's everyone gonna do? 23:39 <banana> Try and think of a refutation to what Maggie said, hesitating long enough that anything she came up with would now be awkward. 23:40 <VoxPVoxD> If Nels is going to try and get pulled into the cult, then Stewart is definitely going to be trying to figure out companies and addresses. 23:41 <banana> We don't have to do these things all at the same time, and someone else has to come to the students' next party. You can't actually successfully crash with one. 23:42 <trenchfoot> Maybe you can't. 23:42 <Crion> For your reference, it is literally early Saturday night. The witching hour for beginning to get drunk on college campuses. 23:42 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart didn't like college parties when he was the appropriate age to attend. He might not *look* too old, but man. Man. 23:43 <VoxPVoxD> Still, if that's where he's needed, that's where he goes. 23:44 <trenchfoot> Was the cult around at this hour, usually? Nels will at least sweep their regular setup before... party. 23:44 <Crion> Nah, Claire was pretty explicit that the cult kept the preacher's hours -- basically doing outreach on the quad. 23:45 <Crion> So like, 11 AM - 2 PM weekdays. 23:51 <Crion> It occurs to Stewart, at some point, that Santander knows exactly who everyone in the Wherehouse is and has at least some idea of how they're motivated. To wit, that perhaps they're not ones to just report back in when they've met the baseline expectations of an asked question. That they're not ones to stop pulling a string when someone one of them cares about is in the possible field of 23:51 <Crion> fire. That they're a 'they,' even though this task was only given to Nels. 23:51 <Crion> Normally, you secure task commitment like the one the Wherehouse is display through a sealed oath. But the Wherehouse does it for free...because they care. 23:51 <Crion> If Santander knows that, who else does? 23:51 <Crion> Food for thought. 23:52 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "...did Santander ever tell you why he was looking into this?" 23:52 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I think it was payment for looking into the fact that my fetch had a child." 23:53 <trenchfoot> "Which, um. I'm still not confronting that fact." 23:54 <banana> Melanie: "Would you wanna ask her about her? In a teleological vacuum." 23:55 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart flinches, but continues as if he hadn't: "That's why he asked you, but it's not why he asked you, if that makes sense. What's his motivation here? And he had to know asking you meant asking us. And what that implies about the kind of effort we put in and what our priorities are." 23:55 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Um." 23:58 <trenchfoot> To Melanie: "Yes. I'm not going to, but yes." To Stewart: "I only have Lauren's word to go on for why, but... yeah, he'd have to know I'm not the type to do this alone, and I'm not the type to leave well enough alone." 23:59 <banana> Well, we don't live in the vacuum. Opportunities have causes. 23:59 <banana> That is, Melanie nods sympathetically. 00:01 <VoxPVoxD> "Yeah, it's weird..." 00:02 <dammitwho> Maggie: "It's not really weird to want to know why kids in your community are disappearing, especially if your *immediate* community is made up of formerly-disappeared kids." 00:02 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Part of the point for, um, us, is that we didn't. Quite. Disappear." 00:04 <banana> Melanie: "You can still feel sympathy, right? I agree that this isn't that. But we weren't so busy that we couldn't do something useful, this is useful." 00:08 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I just mean -- I don't think this is the same thing. Which. I still want to figure this out! But golly." 00:08 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It's weird to ask in such a roundabout way, though, and especially to deliberately under-ask knowing we'll over-deliver." 00:09 <banana> Melanie: "Orrr maybe he just asked in the hope of getting something, without being totally sure of how it would turn out." 00:10 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart makes another uncertain noise. 00:10 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Maybe he didn't want us to feel bad if we couldn't crack this one?" 00:11 <VoxPVoxD> "He could've been making a blind bet, or trying not to put pressure on... neither of those really sound like Santander, though. But it's not immediately important either way." 00:11 <banana> Melanie: "You know the guy better than the rest of us. BUT SOME THINGS-" her voice changes and she leans back, air crackling with little leaf patterns that burst into nothingness around her - "REMAIN UNKNOWABLE - EVEN TO THE WISE!" 00:13 <VoxPVoxD> That makes Stewart laugh. "You really got the burr in his voice down." 00:15 <banana> "Years of smoking magic wands will do that to your throat." 00:16 <VoxPVoxD> Gravely: "Tom Waits for no man." 00:16 <banana> Melanie: "Ahaha" 00:18 <trenchfoot> Nels hums a startlingly accurate version of Burma-Shave. Singing it would be... damaging. 00:21 <Crion> Steve sticks his head around the door and gives an incredibly low, hoooonnnkkkk 00:21 <Crion> Then he returns to rice. 00:27 <Crion> When he returns, he has perfectly egg-fried rice. 00:27 <Crion> Enough for everyone. 00:27 <banana> Oh dear. 00:28 <trenchfoot> Thank you, Steve. 00:28 <Crion> It is absolutely delicious, with just a bit of smokiness from the wok...which is interesting, because that is now how the kitchen is set up. 00:28 <Crion> Either way! The scooby squad will descend on the UMBC campus, very well fed...next week!