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[Toaster]

So it was true.  This time was it.  Raw, barely-contained power... his life's dream.  And all he had to do was reach out and take it.  YES!

"C'mon, man, give us the power!"

[lawastooshort]

Halesey looks behind him at the door he just came through, shrugs, takes his face out from under his hoodie, and crosses his arms.

"Uh... Yeah. Born ready, and stuff."

Listening to the fat bloke talk shit for half an hour's better than deportation, I suppose... Haha. Wait, if he's not mental praps he can hear me think this? Shit... Uh... the handsome bloke... uh... Dude. Seriously. He can't hear me think this.

He darts his eyes to the other three in the room and finally back to the man in charge.

Can you?

[Harry Baldman]

The unusual individuals in the room all assent with varying degrees of enthusiasm that they're really all quite ready.

"Ah, sure. Why not?"

"Eh? Wait, seriously? That can't possibly be true... but if you can prove me otherwise... bring it."

"C'mon, man, give us the power!"

"Uh... Yeah. Born ready, and stuff."

After a short moment of a dramatic silence and what Halesey presumes to be conclusive proof that this guy can't, in fact, hear what he's thinking at any given moment, the fat man leans sideways and begins fishing something out of a nearby duffel bag.

"Right, now, where did I put 'em... ah, here we go."

The guy pulls out a set of ring binders, four in total. They are not very visually impressive, aside from stickers on their spines that have the word "MAGIC" written on them with a marker. They are in a variety of pretty colors, though. The man, slightly out of breath from the intense effort required for him to half-bend over, leans forward, giving a binder to each of the new club members. He then takes a moment to relax.

"Okay, right, now, you see those books in those hands o' yours? Those're magic. They do magic. You put your mind to it, and then you get magic that you can use. Spells."

He sighs.

"Excuse me, I'll be right back - need a quick bathroom break. Experiment with your books in the meantime - they should work fine."

He gets up from his chair with difficulty, then walks over to the door, disappearing through it in a moment. The lucky binder recipients all look at their newest treasures.

So. Uh. That's a thing, they guess.

[Toaster]

Not the most impressive spellbook, but I'm sure there's some vellum and parchment and onion leaf paging that it can be done up with once he can turn people to gold and spit fire and all that.

"And here it is!  Power!"

Read that book!  Say any spells of unimaginable wealth or power that are listed.

[Dwarmin]

Kat opened it, half expecting she had stumbled onto a hidden camera show.

She cast a weary eye at the man named Larry. "Power, sure. And we're just getting it for free."

Action: Peruse my binder with skepticism!

[Toaster]

Larry jerks a bit, as if he just now realized there were others in the room.  "Well, I certainly deserve it.  Don't you?"

[Dwarmin]

"Generally, those who most deserve power tend to do the worst things with it when they actually get it...so I couldn't say if I do or not.

Anyway, my name is Kathryn Jones. I'm a professional photographer, or was. Came here to burn some time, maybe get a laugh or two. What about you?"

[lawastooshort]

Halesey examines the folder, running his finger down the spine inside and out, half expecting to find... something. He flicks through the pages cautiously, half mumbling to himself and seemingly deaf to the rest of the room, although he looks up briefly when the others speak. He fingers the watch he'd stuffed into his hoodie's pouch minutes before and licks the tip of his forefinger when he turns the page. The action's more thoughtful than the nonchalance he tries to give off.

Look through the folder. Try to figure out if anything in it makes sense. See if there's anything that looks like it could turn something invisible. If so get the gold watch out my pocket and try to... Disappear it.

[Toaster]

Larry scoffed a bit at the power remark, but didn't respond.

"Larry Malone.  I work... well, certainly won't keep that pointless job once I have this mastered.  Waste of damn time is what it was.  This... this looks to be the real thing."

[Dwarmin]

"I guess we're about to see, right?" She remarks, turning back to the folder.

[Errol]

Elizabeth, as carefully as she would handle a ticking bomb, examines the binder she had been handed.

She was quite sure that this was the cheapest binder money could possibly buy. This... man... certainly had absolutely no flair for presentation and she would need to procure a more presentable book of her own once she got home and... wait, Betty. You're assuming that this isn't bogus.

She flipped the binder over twice.

Certainly, nobody would suspect this to be a spell book. This left two conclusions - either their great and powerful wizard here was smarter than he looked, or he was totally off his rocker.

It was time to examine these hypotheses.

Open the binder, skimming through its contents and then starting to read the theory part carefully, if one is part of the contents.

[Harry Baldman]

The wizards-in-the making all open up their books with rather visibly different attitudes. There's the megalomaniacal, childlike glee of Larry, Kat's guarded skepticism, Halesey's immediate practicality, Elizabeth's scholarly curiosity and dedication...

Ultimately, one might suppose it's Kat who feels the most vindicated - each binder appears to be filled with the very same things, and that's a whole lot of crap none of them can rightly say they understand. There's no text that any of them can see - there's only rather spotty photocopies (goddamn, that fat guy must have spent, like, several afternoons Xeroxing all this crap) of all sorts of lines, swirls and squiggly things that may be arcane letters just as much as they can be copying noise. Each of the readers has a feeling that they're looking at some kind of abstractionist exhibit - sure, there's lines and shapes and whatnot, but you'd need, like, a PhD in both art history and lying to explain all this.

All in all, it doesn't look very magical. However, they're all pretty sure that there's something about it. For some reason, the drawings or diagrams or acts of vandalism within the binders seem to evoke some sort of feeling within all of them - it's difficult to identify. It's like fear, one might say, but not fear of the unknown as one might suppose, at least not entirely. This is very much the fear one feels when one hears the stumbling footsteps of a drunken, abusive parent outside their room in their childhood. The fear you feel when you notice a man with shaking hands and blackened teeth staring at you during your long evening commute home.

It's a tad unsettling, one might say.

[Toaster]

Larry squints at the book.  He can... feel something here, but it's not understandable.  It didn't feel like power, at least not like he would expect it.

"Um... anyone getting this?  Where's fatty, anyway?  Maybe it's one of those osmosis things they ramble on about in those GED classes."

Look deeper- put my head physically on the book and try to absorb it into my head.

[Dwarmin]

Kat frowned deeper.

She didn't know why these bizarre, seemingly meaningless shapes filled her with such dread. She had been in places before, feeling the same things-her jeep riding past cold men with loaded guns, the seemingly benign stares of a resentful population resting on her back, heavier than the heat of the desert. Wondering if there would be another bomb, or an ambush. And she only had a camera, not a rifle.

She felt this way now, and couldn't place it.

"...they are a trifle unsettling, though I can't say why. Perhaps it's psychologically meant to make us uneasy. Like, some sort of subliminal messages." She offers.

Action: Kat peruses the binder for things she can recognize, shapes or potential words and such. Seek order in chaos.

[lawastooshort]

Halesey look up again across the three strangers, unable to stop a mumble escaping.

”What the…”

He looks round the room, half expecting someone to jump out, shouting “Surprise!” He doesn’t really believe in fate. This is just chance that he’s ended up in this room but he feels he should play along a little longer. The other man in the room seems to be taking it more seriously, so why not.

He skips through a few pages until one seems to stick on his finger tip, and he contemplates it. It’s kinda like the half scrubbed out tags in the underpasses back home, or anywhere, for that matter – except these somehow feel familiar, but not right. A bit like the half scrubbed out tags in a piss-stinking underpass back home at closing time and you’re on your own and as you turn the corner a pair of kids you know aren’t from your estate also turn the corner into the other end, and you’ve got to walk like you don’t take any shit and you got something in your back pocket and – wait…

There’s one page that feels familiar, and doesn’t knot his stomach so much.

Halesey closes his eyes and tries to picture it himself.

Stop on the first page that seems to catch my attention, and try to split it into units of meaning. Try to visualise it.