The Haunting at Kravis School of Fine Arts

Justin quickly fixes his beanie before Leigh gives the two the go-ahead, "Welcome back everyone to season 5 of Specter Sleuths. I’m your host Justin Blakely, and I’m joined by the one and only Joe Glickmann. Tonight, we’re at the Kravis School of Fine Arts where the tragic death of Alice Bigsby took place. What will we find here today? Remains of satanic rituals used by students to gain fame and riches? Perhaps Alice Bigsby’s spirit will show itself to us and she will leave us clues to the truth?"

He’ll slightly turn to Joe to give him his turn to speak.

"If we're lucky, Alice'll come back to kick your collective ass for consistently getting her fucking name wrong," Leigh comments. Then she remembers they're currently filming, so she says, "Sorry, ignore me. We'll do a fancy cut or some shit. Joe, you have the floor. Pretend you weren't just interrupted by the hottest member of the crew."

Just as Joe begins speaking, Leigh interrupts again, "You think I should have mentioned to Mike that I knew Alice? She was my tutor in first year screenwriting, back when I was an adorable little bright-eyed freshman."

* Names and qualifications, people! Names and qualifications! We’ll put it up on-screen, but polling shows that half of our viewers can’t fucking read. Remind them who you are. *

Clearly having received some private information from the director in just her earpiece, but not caring enough to keep her response secret, Leigh replies to Mike, "Which one's the nut? Far as I can tell, that applies to all of those geeks."

Joe took a half-step in front of Justin, the host, as the larger man finished his introduction and turned dramatically to give the camera a striking, if artificial, profile. I'm Joe Glickmann, star of stage and screen, here as your humble guide into the dark secrets and hidden mysteries of The Beyond. he theaterically fanned his hands out beside his face as he loudly whispered Beyond . Bringing a hushing finger up to his lips, he took a couple of rapid steps up the stairs to the entrance, his eyes never leaving the camera. Join us, won't you? he delivered breathlessly. Join us in exploring the lurid tales of death and secret rituals on this episode of... He gave a Tim Curry worthy dramatic pause, ...Spectre Sleuths.

Ricky had to hand it to Joe, he was overly dramatic but it did lend the show a certain amount of gravitas that most other shows lacked. Not that he'd ever tell that to Joe though!
"Pretty good intro show far. Good idea to save me for later when its more dramatic and raises the stakes. Get the boring background info dump out of the way first. So what's next, Mike? I ain't getting many vibes in this room; too many people in and out of here, like Leigh's bed." He gives Justin a conspiratorial smirk that says yeah, you know what I mean, right?

Narcissus watches the intro, skeptically wondering what exactly it is that draws people to this show and desperately wishing for a cigarette. He hopes that Mike doesn't get a genius idea to get him on camera aside from the usual pseudo-science segment, which probably wouldn't happen before they get down to the basement - a useful perk of having specialized knowledge is that it is rarely called upon. His skin is crawling already just from being in the same room as some people, he can't imagine having to tolerate it while being filmed.

Kimberly's comment attracts Professor's attention then, and he scoffs loudly. "Excuse me, is our esteemed Director badmouthing us behind our backs? Unprofessional, Mike."

While Joe completes his end of the introduction, Justin nodded his head and gave Joe a small, quiet clap while the camera was focused on him - impressive as always. Joe definitely had more experience and talent than Justin and he knew that, but Justin had lived his entire life in the shadow of others and he was done letting others take up the spotlight.

Justin smirked and shook his head at Ricky’s comment and makes his way up the stairs to stand close to Joe, placing an arm around him to emphasize the physical difference between the two. Justin gives the camera a grin giving the people at home a picture perfect smile, "With that, it’s time to begin the adventure. Joe, what do you say we give Alice and any other spirits here a warning that the dynamic duo is here to stir up some trouble?"

Justin will look down at the smaller man and point at himself, "Just like Batman…" and then to Joe, "and Robin."

He’ll let go of Joe and place one foot on one step further up the staircase. Justin will scan the main area and shout, "Alice…if you’re listening…we’re here for you!"

* Not everyone, Professor. Just you. I’m kidding! Relax! *

Leigh wraps up filming the two hosts for the room, frowning at herself. How the fuck did I end up in this kind of shit production?

She steps closer to the prof when Mike teams them up through his instructions. As stuck-up as he is, at least he's also too good for this shitshow. Not that she's likely to tell him that. "You want to make up some shit or go with the truth?" she asks him, digging through her pockets and putting another piece of nicotine gum in her mouth. As she starts chewing, she sighs and offers one to him as well.

"I will never understand why it can't be all voice-over," Narcissus sighs, eyes Leigh's nicotine gum with a mixture of derision and approval and then shrugs and takes it. "It is a background on a college, no lies are going to make it interesting without also sounding tacky. Ugh." He stands up and picks up his case. "Let's do it in the next room. The most notable thing about this place is the people it spit out, and a common room would make more sense for a background. Remember how they used to have this board with all the golden star students there? Think it's still on the wall? Never seen your face on that thing, if I recall correctly." Professor chuckles slightly, giving Leigh an amused look.

"I would have killed myself before allowing anyone to call me a gold star student," Leigh replies with a playful grin. "My only concern would be that you idiots would do an episode about me." She puts on an exaggerated parody of Joe's showman voice. "And this is the bedroom of Leigh Adler, the beautiful and promising student who's life was so tragically cut short when she dunked herself in acid right before her body count hit quadruple digits." She pretends to wipe a tear from her eyes, touched by the tragedy of her own death. "Body count refers to sex here, not murders. I'm still in single digits for those."

She puts the gum away again and stretches. "But yeah, you may be right about us moving on. This room fucking stinks. Let's hope the common room will be better."

As Leigh expounds on her own death exposé, Ricky cuts amends her statement with, "Beautiful and promising and flat-chested student," he emphasizes. Then he puts his hands up innocently, "Those were your words not mine," he adds. "I also don't believe you about your body count. No one would mention it unless they were trying to hide something."

As he continues up the stairs, he gets a chill down his back. He stops and asks, "Does anyone feel that cold?" And as he speaks, he sees his breath fog indicating that it really was as cold as he suddenly felt. But a moment later it was gone and the fog has evaporated. "Did you see that?! Did you get it on camera?!"

Leigh's getting pretty tired of Hooligander by now, so all she does is just sigh and say, "Can you just shut up for two minutes, man?"

When he seems to get far too excited about some patch of cold air, she says, "I try to avoid pointing a camera at you. I'm scared your face is going to break the lense. But if you think some viisble breath is so exciting, I bet prof here can fake it. Put some dry ice in your mouth or whatever."

Ricky slips into his Hooligander persona and adopts a stereotyped but flawless Dutch accent. "Ha dat joke is older dan me! And I've been conscious for over a touzand years! Ricky can indeed be quiet for two minutes, but ya didn't say anyting about Hooligander!" he cackles.

Leigh sighs in exasperation. "Fuck me," she mutters. "This is so much worse."

"Fook you? And here I thought you were worried about your body count!" he ripostes.

Joe had a retort in mind for Justin's Dynamic Duo quip but kept it to himself and force a smile for the parting camera shot. He strolled around the foyer a bit before following the others intj the adjacent Common Room. The furniture, now slightly damp and mouldy, spoke of a once well travelled room home to cliques and conversations now silenced by time.
He traced a finger over the weird symbols scratched into the exposed wood surfaces of the room, ignoring the cast squabbles going on around him. Tuning the others out a bit, he scratched around in his head for a presentation line or some kind of audience hook to hang his performance on. Cold? In here? Joe scoffed a bit at the Dutchman's assertion. The only thing cold in here is your chances of renewing your SAG-AFTRA Card with a performance that tepid... You have to sell it harder than that... Funny robes and a accent you found in a Cracker Jack box aren't going to cut it in 21st century media.

Justin walked up to the board that listed the gold-star students and raised an eyebrow, "Would you look at that? Alice is on here. It’s always the good kids getting into some shit, huh?"

He plopped down onto one of the leather loveseats and says, "Hey, Professor, think we could use some of that fake blood we got to add some splashes onto those weird symbols on the floor? Give some of those Conjuring vibes."

For a moment, Justin looks into the dark corner where the light went out and a memory of him being locked in one of the school closets replays in his mind. He starts to feel a level of anxiety he hasn’t felt in a long time.

You climb the stairs up into the second floor common room. Standing at the bannister, you can look down into the Foyer from here.

Moving into the space proper, it immediately feels less sterile; more lived in. It’s full of places to sit and shoot the shit with your buddies between classes. Time has taken its toll on the place, but it’s been spared much of the moisture damage of downstairs at least.

Your eyes go to the walls, adorned in doodles and artwork of bored students just hanging out. Then you reach the board - Faded photos of smiling faces held on to the board with thumb tacks. You wonder where are those people now…

Brent, Alexander, Mary-Anne, Joy, Alice…

The floor: You feel the grooves cut into the wood as you walk across the floor. Symbols… But of what origin? Enochian? Or devil worship? Were they always here; the students way of holding a middle finger up to ‘the Man’, or where they put here after?

The room does feel more lived in.
So much so, that you get an eerie feeling of something just out of your peripheral vision. Something you can almost glimpse, like a stray hair hanging off your eyelash…

The dark corner: All eyes turn to it. All the furniture is arranged with their backs facing the corner, ignoring it, keeping it out of sight as best as possible…
* Fucking jackpot, people! Get a close up of those pictures on the board! We can do a ‘Where are they now?’ segment.

What are those symbols? Professor, run your finger across them. Look pensive, alright? Alright! *