Logs:Opening Moves

Opening Moves
Dramatis Personae Celestine, Roscoe
In Absentia	2024-04-15 Oh could you please use your master navigation skill to help a poor peasant such as my self.
Location <XAV> Back Patio - Xs Grounds
This patio is expertly laid out for relaxing singly or in groups. The section nearest the back door is a more or less conventional veranda, the mansion's eaves--supported by elegant white wooden columns joined with matching railings--extending out to shelter the long porch swings, rocking chairs, and a chess table from the elements. Down the stairs or the ramp from this is a fan-shaped expanse of slate flagstones populated by clusters of deck chairs and picnic tables, always changing in number and arrangement, and stone planter boxes bursting with seasonal flowers and ornamentals. The centerpiece is an elegant pavilion with a hot tub open for use year-round, even if the transition in and out may prove chilly in snowy weather. Today has been reasonably sunny and reasonably warm, great weather for outdoor loitering of all stripes. Roscoe has strayed out from the shade of the mansion, slouched regally in a deck chair he's dragged into the late afternoon sun with his feet propped up on another deck chair he's dragged over, scrolling on his phone. In spite of the fact that he seems to have come out here to get some sun, he's covered head-to-toe -- baggy blue hoodie with the hood pulled up and the drawstrings pulled around his face, joggers, socks in Adidas slides, sunglasses. Whatever he's doing on his phone is not relaxing him -- he's jiggling his foot, propped at the edge of the second deck chair, so much that the chair is tapping irritatingly against the flagstone underneath it. Celestine walks out side to explore the back side of the mansion, and despite being here for a few days already she is still surprised by the different level of class and elegance the building and the surrounding grounds emanates. The only thing close she can remember being close where the old homes in North Carolina that were built and the 17 and 1800. After getting over the feeling of shock Celestine walks over to one of the many rocking chairs littered across the patio, she then places her bag next to it on the ground before sitting down. As she sits down in the chair she kicks her feet back and forth to build up momentum in the chair for a few moments before letting it rock until it comes to a slow stop and repeating the possess again. Finally after a few moments of goofing off she finally opens her backpack and pulls out a few pieces of paper stapled together. She flips to a page and while glancing from one page to another runs her finger across the paper glancing back and forth to check id she is correct. It does not take Roscoe long to decide that this newcomer is a potentially more interesting diversion than his phone. He pulls his feet into the chair with him to sit up higher, folding his arms on the back and tilting his head inquisitively at Celestine -- "You're new here," he observes; this has an accusatory but cautiously cheerful tone. After a moment he pushes the hood off his head and the sunglasses up onto his head -- underneath all of that his eyes are in an unimpressed squint. "...whatcha doing?" Celestine looks up from her paper and at the boy before her she stops the chair from rocking, and turns her attention towards Roscoe "oh... yeah I joined like a coupe days ago." She then looks back down at her paper flipping back to the page she was one which was a map of the mansion showing each room. She tilts the paper towards Roscoe shows him the map of the school. "I was looking at each room and planning like a route for all my classes." She then taps on the paper showing some rooms of the school that she circled with a pencil. Roscoe cranes his neck over the back of the chair, raising his eyebrows; after considering these maps for a second he breaks into a broad, buck-toothed grin. "Huh!" he says, in the manner of one who has just been told something very fascinating. "You get lost really easy? I guess when you're new, everything here looks real same-y. Fancy hallways, fancy doors." He shifts to get more comfortable on his knees, drapes his elbows lower over the back of his chair. "I'm Roscoe, I been here six months." Celestine gives a guilty smiles and avoids looking directly at Roscoe. "I wouldn't say that i get lost I just need clear directions that's all. Plus you said it your self every thing looks the same" Celestine then turns to face Roscoe and clasps her hands together after setting the map on her lap, and talks in the most sickly sweet tone of voice so that there is not a doubt in anyone mind that she's joking and being sarcastic. "Oh could you please use your master navigation skill to help a poor peasant such as my self." "Uh-huh, sooo you get lost easy," says Roscoe, a little goadingly. His squinty look narrows even further, so that his eyes hardly seem to be open, but after a moment he decides to proceed with an extremely modest, "I mean, I am an excellent navigator. Really the ideal jungle guide for all you poors attending mutant prep school all of a sudden. I bet you've never even played lacrosse before but I can help with that. What's in it for me?" Celestine pauses for a moment thinking of what would be a good way to repay Roscoe for helping her even if she was just playing around. "How about you get three solids from me, what ever you want within reason. Or Three times I will cover for you what ever it is." Celestine holds both her hands out modeling the two choices that Roscoe can choose from. "Pick one or the other its up to your." Roscoe widens his eyes with vague alarm, then his mouth pulls doubtfully to one side. "Wow," he says. "Very generous. Gonna have to give you a really good tour." He climbs off his deck chair, and replaces his oversized sunglasses carefully on his face -- perhaps they are crucial to his tour guidesona -- before mounting the steps back up to the patio. "This place isn't that big, you'll get the hang of it soon," he reassures her blithely. "Where you from?" Celestine gets up from the rocking chair and grabs her back back slinging it over one shoulder and following Roscoe as he starts the tour. "Oh I grew up in North Carolina lived there for several years before coming here." Celestine glances around trying to find where she is on the map so she can understand where she is in comparison to her classes. "What about you? Were you born in New York" "Naw, I'm from Boston," says Roscoe, swinging open the door to go back inside. "This is the back end of the mansion. The front is on the other side. This is a hallway. First floor is all like... classrooms and labs and offices and stuff. There's a library and a study but the study is where you go to actually work, the library just has books in it. Wait, where were you actually trying to get to?" Celestine smiles after hearing about where Roscoe is from but that smile quickly turn to a face of shock and disbelief at the tour she is getting as all she can think about is if this really a grand tour that's worth three favors. After receiving just obvious locations and tips. She was distracted by this "grand" tour that she almost missed what Roscoe asked. "Hmmm? Oh right" Celestine rummages through her back and pulls out the paper packet and flips to the map with the 5 circled rooms on it and hands it to Rosco. "these are the classes I'm pretty sure I'm taking." Roscoe takes the map -- surely someone who has been here for just six months should not know this place well enough to respond with, "Oof." He rotates it in his hand and points with one finger -- "That's where we are right now, the library and study are that way, the computer lab is that way, so your first class is this way --" he hands it back and sets off down the hallway. "You don't explode people or anything, right?" Celestine looks at the map in her hands looking at it and the doors close to her. She was shocked that Roscoe knew what he was doing she then folds the map and tucks it in her pocket incase she needs it again. "Na nothing like that all I can do is make myself Heat up and that's pretty much it. What about you do you have a find the right room in the mansion power." "Not that there's anything wrong with that," Roscoe hedges at once. He seems reassured that she doesn't, apparently, blow people up, but he does take a very casual half-step away from her. "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies," he says cryptically, but then he immediately follows this with a decisive, "And, yes." Celestine then gets all excited by the idea that she maybe managed to guess Roscoe's Mutant ability first try. "Wait really, did I actually guess it" Celestine knows hes probably messing with her but the idea of her guessing it is too amazing to hide it. "please tell me your not joking, you said yourself that you would tell no lies" "I said ask me no questions and I'd tell you no lies," Roscoe says at once, his nose scrunching with amusement. "I don't know how to play lacrosse, either." But he seems to decide that he has had enough fun with Celestine at least for today -- he sticks his hands in his pockets and adds, "I got x-ray vision. Finding the right room in the mansion is kind of a bonus side effect. It's sorta useless if I don't also know how the hallways work, though, it's not like I can just walk directly there." Celestine thinks about what Roscoe is saying and how he is describing his mutant ability, and he mind is flooded with questions she wants to ask but she holds her tongue. She doesn't want to upset Roscoe as he himself said to not ask questions. It must be personal she she tries to change the topic. "By the way what do you all do around here when your board, I saw a chess board outside." Celestine points behind her gesturing to the patio where they started. "Do you do other things here" Roscoe's face lights up -- "Do you play chess?" he says. "I play a ton of chess, it was my number-one bored activity for years." Then, at a slightly awkward pause, he promises, "We also do other things here," but apparently he doesn't, for he goes right back to, "There's a chess club." "I only played a little bit of chess but I'm not that good. From what people told me chess is played by" Celestine then straightens her back and says in they fanciest voice she can. "Super geniuses." she then drops the accent and continues to talk normally "That's why I don't play it much but hey if I have free time maybe you can mop the floor with me in chess" Roscoe blows a short, rude raspberry -- "Worst I ever got beat at chess was by a gangster with a eighth grade education," he says. "All you gotta be is a good sport, you won't learn anything if you aren't willing to lose face. I'm not that good at chess, I just played enough to pick up some tricks." He stops outside a classroom door and pats it with one hand -- "This is it." Celestine nods her head at the quote Roscoe just said to her "I guess" she says and when she stops in front of the door she pulls out the folded up map looking at the the other doors in the hall and sees that it lines up with the map. "Oh wow your right your really do know your way around this maze huh" "Told you I'd tell you no lies." Is this what Roscoe told her, really? He is grinning, walking backward again -- "Where to, now?" Celestine looked at the paper once more and went down the list of the classes and locations and looks for where the second class would be and points to it on her map "I think I can find it from here if you have to go because the next class is right above us" She takes another look at the map and squints her eyes a bit more unsure "I think" Roscoe, still backing away, squints upward at the ceiling -- "If you're sure," he says, but -- before she can change her mind or, worse, revoke her three unspecified favors -- he books it down the hall, and disappears around the corner.