video @lightemup

[umbrastaff]

[The camera turns on, and shows these babies -


- before moving to show Lup's face.

She has a bit of flour on her nose.]

I call them 'Lupcakes'. This is prime Flour Up Desserts advertising, obviously.

[She grins and settles the phone at a good angle.]

Frosting's got some spice in it, like those red candies. I'm offering some taste-testing free of charge if you tell me a good story.

...or for any tips on really good napping spots. We elves might not need to sleep like you poor chums, but chagirl's got priorities next month and like half of it is gonna be naps.

[She's so into getting a real body, okay? This vessel was great but undeath is shit for snoozing.]

Comments

[umbrastaff]

Dealer's choice! Nothing like a little gossip, though.

[11calls]

[Gossip. Hmm. Alex doesn't normally like to gossip. It's something she's had metaphorically beat out of her. Sort of anyway.]

I know a man whose wife went missing and he was accused of her murder but the story just begins there.

[Alex.]

[umbrastaff]

[Lup has no idea, gossip is just fun bullshit to her.]

Ooooh, do continue.

[11calls]

They were having a fight because he thought that she was having an affair. The two of them stopped at a gas station, and the wife got out of the car and started walking down the road into the fog. And she disappeared. Then her husband disappeared for five days and went out into the woods looking for her and didn't find her.

[umbrastaff]

Shit, that's wild. Then what?

[Kind of sounds like a ghost story to her, so far.]

[11calls]

He came back. A lot of people thought that he did it. A police psychic accused him of it and he punched him for it. But at the time, a lot of people had been killed in the area, so they just chalked her up to being one more victim of the serial killer.

But the man went home, and his daughter left to live with Coralee's parents. They thought that he'd killed her and helped the girl get emancipated. The man then lost his sister and a lot of his friends and colleagues.

So, in response he set up an institute with a million dollar prize to anyone who could prove that paranormal phenomena was real.

[Alex.]

[umbrastaff]

Geez, poor guy. All this because of an argument?

[Ah, there was the paranormal thing. Ghost story vibes explained.]

I guess he got a lot of people clamoring to get that money?

[11calls]

Thousands of people. Most cases he found easy to disprove through scientific methods. But then there are the harder ones that he can't solve yet. With the nature of his challenge, however, the burden of proof lies in those who try to claim the money rather than in him debunking them.

His black tapes collection has a lot of interesting and terrifying things inside of it though.