As you are walking along in Ealdwic, you notice an open door that you had never noticed before. As you pass it, you notice that there seems to be some sort of lounge-like establishment in there. There are candles on coffee tables and comfortable furniture around, along with a bar (no seats at the bar) and some jazz music.

The Nine Stories Lounge is the place where you get served by the stories you tell.

The bar emerged from Didaskalos as an roleplay setting and I thought it could be nice to gather the stories that are told.

Katja take another sip. "Okay, a story it is then... I am half sami and have spent a lot of time in the northen Sweden. It's very beautiful, in the summer, the sun never goes down and in the winter the snow lies deep on the ground and over the mountains. One time when I was around 13 I was up and visiting my grandparents.

It was late autumn and even tough it had not started to snow that m,uch yet it was very cold. My grandparents keeps reindeers and I thought it was great. I loved to sneak out to them and pet them, gave them names and pretended they where mine.

Even though the sun always shines during the summer it's pitch black during the other half of the year. Since I lived much more to the south I was not used to it, even tough I knew it was like that. One morning, or so I thought, I woke up. It was still dark but I just assumed the time was not that much yet. I looked out the window and the ground was covered with snow. I got so happy! Even though I knew I should not do it, I got dressed and went outside. I decided I wanted to pet the reindeer. I did not really think of the fact that no one was awake, even though my grand parents wake up rather early. I was just so excited of the first snow.

You do not keep reindeer in pastures or barns, they walk freely with people looking after them. I could see the trace of them in the snow and started to follow them. Soon I got to the lake not very far from the house. The traces went around it but I thought I should take a short cut. That was -not- very thoughtful of me. Even though it looked like winter it was still autumn. And the ice was not very thick. I had not gotten very far before the ground just cracked open under my feet and I was down in ice cold water.

I panicked, tried to get my head up over the water, grab the ice but it just broke under my weight. I was so scared and I was sure I would die. Everything went pitched black.

When I woke up I floated. I looked up at my mother face. She had woken up when I had closed the door and decided to follow me. Lucky for me. She saw when the ice broke so she had crawled down on the eyes and got a grip in my hair and pulled me up.

Even though I was sick for weeks I soon got better. And I never walked out on ice I was not sure was thick enough ever since. That is my story."

[Kotts]: *nods* photographs, video cameras, even analog and digital sound recorders are used to detect spirits, of all sizes"
[*Antu]: "You speak as though you have done this before?"
[Kotts]: *nods* "yeah, before the shit hit the fan so to speak... I was involved in the more forceful exorcisms"
[Incendia]: *Katja looks curious on Kotts* "Is that so?"
[Kotts]: *nods* Louisiana is a hotbed of paranormal activity
[Lori]: well you're welcome to take a trip to NY if your curiosity is piqued ..
[Kotts]: " generally speaking folks that think they might have a haunting call in ghost hunters, like those dime-a-dozen TV shows. If they find solid evidence they'll offer to bump the case up getting mediums, and priests involved"
[Lori]: but you know what they say about curiosity ..
[Kotts]: "heh, yeah well just might be swinging through there sometime after all"
[Kotts]: "ok I got a story then."
[Lori]: I secretly think that the camera's dig it - it allows them to indulge in some theatrics and scare the heck out of pretty young girls
[Lori]: awesome .. *sits back and listens*
[Kotts]: "well scaring pretty young girls is a good way to get them to cuddle up with ya..." *glances at Izumi* "So I heard"
[Incendia]: *Katja smirks a little*
[Xeeyon]: *just grins*
[*Antu]: "Somehow, senor, I do not think you have found that a problem?"
[Kotts]: "So, any way some of us Templars in the southern states were called in to deal with some heavy paranormal activity on the outskirts of New Orleans"
[Cabal] [Jennet]: wait I'm ahead of you two by 1%? RAWR!?
[Kotts]: "Family of four just bought a two story, and shortly after moving in noises and all that kept them up most nights"
[Kotts]: "they called some ghost hunters, and sure enough they caught whispering, screaming, and object moving on their own on tape"
[Kotts]: "The case got bumped, and they came back with a medium, and priest to put some restless spirits to peace"
[Kotts]: "needless to say after the medium had her arms slashed outta thin air, they didn't stick around"
[Xeeyon]: *sips*
[Kotts]: "Contacts in the church sent word to Eldwic, and we got the phone call."
[Kotts]: "We being my old team... So we showed up, and it was pretty bad.. the family had moved out to a hotel."
[Kotts]: " the house was trashed, and felt like winter in the middle of August."
[Incendia]: *Looks interested**
[Xeeyon]: *frowns*
[Xeeyon]: Yikes...
[Kotts]: "We were pretty sure it was a demon 'cause of the attack on the medium. To be sure we lit some smudging sticks and smoked each room in the house."
[Kotts]: "White sage tends to repel sprits, and pissed of demons enough to manifest, but in this case nothing happened."
[Xeeyon]: *raises an eyebrow*
[Incendia]: *frowns*
[Kotts]: No flying' books, no scratching, shoving, nothing.. just cold air"
[Kotts]: "Jason, had the idea to start searching the house. While digging through the house we found this old doll, which started to turn its head and look between us."
[Lori]: Hmmmm
[Incendia]: *Katja shudders*
[Kotts]: "Yeah go figure, it had to be a porcelain doll, right?"
[Kotts]: So we cracked it open and found that someone went and painted summoning circles on the inside of the doll's head"
[Kotts]: "digging through he little girl's room more we found some scraps of paper with the same summoning circles outlined on 'em"
[Lori]: I take it that's bad right?
[Xeeyon]: *shudders*
[Kotts]: *nods to Lori* " it's like opening the front door to spirits and if left un attended... the rift will get bigger"
[Xeeyon]: *can't help looking at his jacket's pocket*
[Kotts]: "So, we took the doll and sent in our report."
[Kotts]: "we took the summoning instructions too of course... after the inquisitors had a word with the family they discovers the little girl did the circles."
[Xeeyon]: Izumi blinks. "What?..."
[Incendia]: "what?"
[Kotts]: "Yup." *nods and takes a drink*
[Lori]: well they don't teach that stuff on reading rainbow.. where on earth did she learn about that ?
[Xeeyon]: Izumi looks at Lori, a thought visibly dawning on her. "...Oh no."
[Kotts]: "Last I heard the town out in California where they moved from, had an Illuminati necromancer's coven.... the little girl found some of the papers hidden in a bookcase at the school library"
[*Antu]: She sets a coin down in front of Kotts. "Gracias, senor."
[Incendia]: "Oh, no..."
[Kotts]: "She wanted to draw the pretty flowers..."
[Incendia]: "That's awful!"
[Lori]: trust those lumies .. one has to wonder if they do this deliberately
[Xeeyon]: Izumi shakes her head slowly. "What a mess..."
[Kotts]: "They just don't look at the long game of things, play with fire and shrug when they burn down Kingsmouth"
[Incendia]: *Katja take a sip*
[Kotts]: "We got lucky though... Seems the apartment they move out of.... "
[Kotts]: "She refined her 'Flower art' in the basement...."
[Kotts]: "All over the damned walls, dozens of summoning circles"
[Xeeyon]: "The hell?"
[Kotts]: *chuckles* "Kids right? "
[Xeeyon]: "Did nobody told her?!..."
[Kotts]: "She didn't know any better."
[Kotts]: "the whole complex had to be smudged and purged... had a baker's dozen of specters squatting there"
[Lori]: that was a great story
[Incendia]: *Katja slowly shake her head* "It's sounds so awful. And yes, it was a wonderful story Conlan."
[Kotts]: *nods his head and lifts his flask*
[Xeeyon]: "Is this where you say 'True story', mm?"
[Kotts]: "Secret world... can't make this shit up, ya? "

I will continue to speak about the Sami... This story my grandmother told me when I was a child.

This story also happens during the winter. It was a cold, clear day and a bear and a fox met on the frozen lake, near a hole in the ice. The fox was eating a fish he had stole from the Sami settlement. But the bear who not knew asked the fox where he had got the fish from.

The fox, who thought he would be fun to trick the bear smilead and replied: “I catched them from the lake! You see that hole over there? I stuck down my tail and the fish took it as bait.” The dumb bear also wanted some fish so he walked to the whole, sat down and let his tail down in the cold water. The fox told said to him, “ Let it be really long in water so that the fish caught.”

The bear sat like that all night long, to make sure the fish would get stuck really good. He was so busy fantasize about how nice meal he would have that he did not see the fox who kept himself nearby.

When the morning came the fox shouted to the Sami: “See the bear making tricks on the lake!” The bear got so scared when he heard the fox calling for the people that he jumped up as fast as he could. The tail, who had frozen in the ice snatched of. And from that day on is the bear without tail.

(I take the liberty to put down Xeeyon´s story. It´s a good story so it would be sad if it disappeared.)

"A long, long time ago there was a Japanese girl who was loved by a young man. The girl's parents did not know of this love, for they had promised the girl to someone else. Weddings, in those days, were not a matter of love, but of convenience. "Seeing how the day was coming closer where she would have to marry someone while loving another... She fled.

She left in the middle of the night, and went to where her secret love gave her rendez-vous so they would escape together. When she arrived, she found him tied up to a tree. He told her to run, but it was too late: the assaillants had already seen her. They held her while they inflicted punishment to the young lover and forced her to watch. They muffled her screams and held her as she thrashed.

Eventually, the young man stopped moving and no sound was heard from him from the beating. So they lost interest and left him there, and let go of her. Before leaving, they said 'You two should remember your place.' and tossed her to the ground of the forest. She crawled to him and he gave her his last breath in a kiss.

The girl was not seen in the village after that night. Rumors started to spread that the two of them had run away together. Many years later, she came back to the village under a different name. She was practicing arts that were inspiring both fear and respect, arts of the wild and of the invisible. She could speak to spirits gone, and other things she could do. She opened her modest trailer to the villagers for consultations.
The word spread, people were coming in greater numbers. At times, there was a line in front of her trailer.

One day, a wealthy man walked in and asked to know what awaited him. The woman said 'You will be betrayed where you least expect it' and she looked at him. The man was very upset to hear such news, and left without any offering for her. The woman knew who it was, for she had seen her picture long ago. It was to be her husband, had she loved him.

In the next days, the man experienced a streak of bad luck like he never had before. He was almost hit by a carriage, one of his employees was injured severely, he lost his purse... It just didn't seem to stop. So, he decided to come back to see the woman in the trailer.

He was upset. 'Did you put a curse on me, woman?' he asked. The woman said she did no such thing, and added 'If curse there is, you brought it upon yourself years ago'. and she looked at him coldly. The man did not understand right away. So the woman poured water in a large metal bowl and asked him to look in it. She said 'This is the mirror of your soul' and she put the bowl before him. He leaned over it, waited a moment, then his face started to change. He went increasingly pale, then he looked up to her without a word, turned around and left the trailer. Later that day, the woman packed her things and the trailer took to the road.

That evening, the wealthy man was found hanging under the bridge at the edge of the village. He had, in his pocket, the picture of the girl he was to marry. In his office, a letter was marking the location where the young man's bones were buried. In the letter, he asked that his bones were brought to peace and blessed, and confessed how he ordered his beating, which led the young man to death.

The woman returned after a year. She went to where the bones of her beloved had been placed for rest. Then, she went to the house of her family. She told them the story and told them that their daughter's spirit was free at last. She let them think that their daughter was dead and she took the road.

The end of the story can differ. Some say that she opened an orphanage for girls. Others say that she kept going from village to village, offering her talent to help people. Others again say that she died and joined her love in the after life and are happy at last. I think that all of these endings are true, just happened at different moments later in her life.

Love never dies."

((See this comment for explanation of what's going on))

"I look forward to your story, señorita," she said as Lori stepped out of the lounge. Once all her guests were out of sight, the woman closed the door and set the locks. Turning, she tiredly removed the rose-tinted spectacles and scarlet bandana, shaking free her shoulder-length pink hair and relaxing her jaw muscles. Trying to look like someone else was as tiring as it was rewarding.

After she stretched a bit more and rolled her neck and shoulders, she opened her eyes to see a rubber duck sitting atop the bar. She glared at it balefully and said in a generic American accent, "Don't look at me like that!" The duck, of course, said nothing in response. The woman who called herself Antu stepped closer to the bar, adding, "Yes, yes, I know you said they would like Esperanza. I learned more as Arianna and Dolores though. Well...." She paused and peered at the duck. "Don't judge me. How should I have known they would be so...truthy?"

She sighed and took a seat at the recently used table, picking up the remnants of the cigar and sniffing at it. "Well, except the one who tells me her name is Max. For someone who hates liars, she has yet to tell me the truth." She paused once more as though listening and then began snuffing the cigar out madly in the ashtray. "Yes, yes, I know! Stop it." The last words came out with a serious glare of command at the duck, which looked as duly ashamed as a rubber duck could.

Standing, she began to undress as she made for the door behind the bar. "You know the game as well as I do. It is not likely, so why should I even wish for it?" She paused one last time in the doorway, and added one last comment: "Take care of the cleanup, would you?" With that, she disappeared.

~~~End Session One~~~