Rebels & Mutineers is set in modern day New Orleans, Louisiana. R&M is fueled by player's plots and group input.
Supernatural people have always had their place in society, hidden in plain sight or locked away for their own protection. New Orleans, a haven for the strange and mysterious and a magnet for the supernatural.
Established: Oct. 27th, 2018 Recently Updated Posts && Recently Updated Threads
05.11.19
As the community reels from the untimely death of Lucia Lovelle, life has to move on. Primrose readies for the annual Prom celebration! Keep your eye out for a event board and have fun!
02.27.19
It's not too late to vote for February's OTM winners! The winners for January, keep an eye out on your messages for your winner's graphics for your signature. Already voted? Make sure you check out the Mardi Gras event board! Party up, have a good time, and enjoy!
He had been putting this off for awhile. Work had taken it's toll more than usual, wearing him down, but he actually welcomed it since sleep gave him some peace and quiet, at least for a little while, from the spirits that were constantly asking for his attention. Like them, this place had been pulling at him like a small child wanting to go on a carnival ride for days as he passed it on his walk to work, but every time, he would brush it off, going 'tomorrow, tomorrow'. Well now he was rested, he had some energy drinks with him and a giant bottle of extra strength ibuprofen. He also had a flashlight, a couple bottles of water, packages of new batteries, and a couple containers of table salt. He had no intention of ridding the house of spirits that way, but if they got physical or unruly, he used it to get thier attention.
Snapping on the flashlight, he stepped into the house that was eerily quiet. It had been abandoned for some time now due to the paranormal stories and history, but the same could be said for most buildings in the city. Walking into what used to be the foyer, he continued forward into the living room, everything covered in dust but seemingly waiting for it's owners to come home. He felt nothing here at the moment, so he moved towards where he felt energy. He couldn't yet tell if it was living or dead energy, but the closer he got, the stronger it got.. and it was a mixture. He'd never felt this before, so it made him curious. He felt what he thought was a living person, but he knew there were spirits here. There had to be. Otherwise, why was he feeling such a pull for so long?
He moved ever forward towards the energy and stopped when he was where he felt the majority of it was. Feeling rather stupid, he called out to whatever was there. "Hello? Someone here?" He paused for a moment, his Irish heritage coming through clearly in his voice. "I won't tell, believe me.. I just wanna help," he explained, waiting with his heart hammering in his chest at what might answer him.
[attr="class","soda2"]It was a dinner party. The vague sounds of someone washing up in the kitchen, the overwhelming chatter at the dining table, and the tinny sound of a Victrola were all dead giveaways of the life. It was the early 20th century, in the time after one Great War and before the next, when the depression had given way to strange and burgeoning confidence. Women in white evening wear smoked black cigarettes in the hall between rooms, their features shadowed by smoke and dim electric lights. Their laughter was haughty and tittering as they gossiped, and they didn’t see her at all. Eppie moved through them like she was the ghost and the anachronism held down by the lightest of tethers.
Someone swept through the hall from behind her and passed right through, joining the huddled women. It felt like a short, cold puff of air, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up, just for a second. She caught names and snippets of their dialogue, but she was separated from their world by an invisible pane of glass. Her place was an observer, and this was a moment frozen in time, forced to play long after its natural conclusion. The thick of it was spread across her, though, and she felt like she could step slightly to the side and enter their world. She was vastly underdressed for such an occasion, but the opportunity was there.
She passed through the hallway, and the women there, heading for the stairs. In the past, they were carpeted and elegant, but that did not mean that they had kept their strength over the years. She tested with one toe, then one foot, then the other. Something was at the top of the stairs, something that called down to her with the thin voice of a child. But there was another voice, another layer. It slipped under the reverie of the past, but the moment she caught it, the rest of the scene tipped and sputtered, like a film spool that had stopped advancing. The voice belonged to the present, and she couldn’t hear both it and kept her power active at its current level.
Shit.
The last she needed was to be caught trespassing. She was pretty sure that she had lectured a student about that same thing last week. She felt like a deer in the headlights, and the stair beneath her squeaked in her unsure shuffling. Oh no. She really was in for it. Swallowing roughly, she descended the stairs and followed the beam of light she saw, evidently from a flashlight in the hands of the other intruder. She rounded the corner, hands up, but breathed a sigh of relief when she saw he was definitely a civilian. “I’m sorry, sir, if this is your house. I heard something inside and thought someone might need help.” She was lying through her teeth. Her power had pulled her in, and like an idiot, she followed.
Distracted by his own ever-rising anxiety, he didn't hear the stair squeak behind him, but the voice definitely got his attention. He jumped out of his skin, turning about to face her, hand going flat against his chest to hold his hammering heart in his ribcage as he exclaimed. "In ainm Chroim!" His native language slipped past him in his suprise. Thankfully it was only 'God Almighty' instead of cursing, but the girl that had surprised.. nae, scared the ever loving crap out of him.. probably didn't know Irish.
Once his breathing and heart rate had come back down, he started to take in her appearace in the shaft of light he had available. Long brown hair, pale skin, casual clothing.. he couldn't tell her eye color at the moment, but she was actually quite pretty. "I.. I'm sorry, I didn't expect you to be behind me, is all. I.. no, I don't own the place.. nobody's owned the place for quite some time, actually. Doubt the garda.. er, cops, that is.. will come in here looking. There's tons of abandoned houses and other buildings around here.. when they have so many active ones that need patrollin', they won't bother with these."
He paused to breathe a bit better, a passing thought of how much dust and gunk he was breathing in went through his head before he heard a familiar ghostly voice over his shoulder. "Robert! Mind your manners, boy! Tell the cailin your name!"Sorry, gram, was the mental apology he gave before he spoke to the woman in front of him again. "The name's Robert, but you're welcome to call me Rob or Robbie," he offered. "And who might you be, darlin?"
[attr="class","soda2"]The man turned around so fast that Eppie stepped back, her own eyes wide. How could they manage to keep scaring the absolute daylights out of each other? She lowered her hands and took in a deep breath, but her confusion was plain on her face when he spoke. She couldn’t immediately identify the language as anything other than Not-English. “I’m sorry,” she apologized anyway. She was used to doing that.
This was a bit too Scooby Doo for her, she had to admit. Or maybe a bit Nancy Drew. Maybe even Hardy Boys but she never read too many of them. Her hands went from at her side to inside of her jacket pockets; she could already tell that he was the most innocent person she had interacted with that day, her students included. Considering the fact that two of them were probably elbow deep in making a literal bomb at the moment, it wasn’t like he had a big hurdle to jump. She listened to his explanation with the same practiced patience she used at work, just relieved he wasn’t there to put handcuffs on her. “You know a lot about this building and area,” she pointed out.
Oh no. What if he was here to get high and she was disrupting? He didn’t exactly look homeless, but she could never tell anything about anyone in NOLA at first glance. It was always a damn grab bag. She backed a little bit away from the man, but he was blocking the nearest and most available exit. “Oh, it’s nice to meet you, Robbie,” she replied with a wan smile, still not quite sure what he was about. “Uh, you can call me Eppie.” It was easier to fit a mouth around than Euphemia. “If you need me to go, though, I uh totally can.”
"Doan worry ya-self, darlin'. Ya jus' gave me a fright, is all." He smiled warmly at her, trying to ease both thier nerves. "She's a lovely one, Robbie. Be nice to her, hear? He looked over his shoulder at his grams, who has a sweet smile on her face, but her eyebrows are raised, expecting an answer to her question. He grins at her. "Of course, grams. You know I'd never do anythin' to a girl, let alone anyone who hasn't done anythin' to me."
He turned back to her as she asked about his knowledge of the area. "Oh yeah, born maybe fifteen minutes from here. My ancestor actually was the first settler here in the eighteen-hundreds." He shrugged casually. "Tha', an' I work here in NOLA... over at The Irish House, as a waiter. No' the best job in the world, but it pays, ya know?" The smile returned to his face, his olive green eyes sparkling in the low light. He noticed her back away from him, as if she were becoming nervous about his being there.
"Robbie! Move ya skinny arse from in front the door, boy! She's lookin' like a cat wantin' to escape the vet's!""Oh! Sorry!" He replied, half to his grams and half to the girl in front of him. "Dinna realize I was blockin' ya. Ye're welcome ta leave if ya want," he offered warmly, gesturing towards the door. "I'm no' gonna keep ye here. Believe me," he said, looking around the room at the spirits gathered around. "..it's rather crowded in here as it is."
His eyebrows twitched upwards as she finally introduced herself as Eppie. "Eppie, eh? Nice ta meet ya, then." His brows then came back down and knitted together, showing his slight confusion. "Go? Nah, you're fine. No worries. I'm no' gonna report ya or anythin'. If I did, I'd have to report meself as well, and I've been dyin' to get in here for the past couple-a weeks, but work has been really hittin' me lately."
[attr="class","soda2"] “I can understand. You don’t exactly expect to run into anybody in places like this,” she agreed, glad that she seemed to be safe. At least for the moment. Well, if he was a drug addict looking for a place to shoot up, he was the nicest one she had ever met. She tried to ease into one of her usual warm smiles, but then he seemed to talk to the air and that threw another wrench into the entire machine. Oh, she really should have texted Ash before she tried to go Nancy Drewing off by herself. “Oh, well, uh, that’s really nice to know.”
Oh, but then he had her attention by talking about old stuff. She was a little predictable, if nothing else. “That’s amazing. I just moved down here last August, but I’ve got some loose ancestry down here. Being able to say yours was the first is pretty cool, though.” She relaxed into the conversation, just a little bit. “I guess that explains the accent, then. Was that what you were speaking earlier, Irish?” she inquired, searching his face. He didn’t have any of the telltale signs of being a junkie, and he did have really clear green eyes. Her lowlight vision wasn’t the greatest, but he had a handsome cut to his jaw.
Curiosity killed the cat. The old adage was pretty true, and had followed her the entire length of her life. Curiosity always won out in the end with her, and that was what kept her in her place, even as he unblocked the door. “What do you mean it’s crowded?” In the back of her mind, she re-ran the thought of the full dinner party, of the tug that was still calling her upstairs. Maybe he wasn’t a junky at all, at least not in the drug sense. Maybe he was there for the same reason as her, for curiosity’s sake. She was a good old psychometric; what if he was something similar?
But that wasn’t exactly a conversation to breech with random strangers in dark houses. She had to choose her words rather carefully. “Nice to meet you too,” she told him with a bit broader smile. At least he wasn’t going to call the cops on her. She was sure that call to Phalanx would be fun. “Okay, truthfully, I didn’t really hear anything in here. I just like old buildings, and this one has seen a lot of history. Is that what you’re doing here? The whole urban explorer thing?”
He nodded at her first statement, but her second confused him slightly.. until he thought about it. "Oh, sorry! No, I was talking to me grams. She's a spirit, too, but she sticks with me. She's my first line of defense against any other spirits that might have other ideas or want to do harm to someone. She also translates for other spirits that might need help or somet'in in the cases where I can't hear them as clearly or anything like that. She's lit'rally a God-send." He turned to his grams, who was beaming with pride at his words. "Her name's Fiona, but everyone calls her Fi. You're welcome to talk to her or whatever, I'll let ya know what she says. She's a sweetheart.. she's the one who told me to move out of the way when I didn't know I was standing in the door blocking ya." He looked sheepish at the last bit, grinning slightly.
He perked up when she asked about how he spoke Irish earlier, and nodded again. "Yeah. My family spoke it at home and my grams did, too. I still lapse into it ev'ry so often if I'm angry or scared.." He laughed slightly. "..or startled," he added. "I'll usually say not'in too terrible, no cursewords or anythin'. My grams would have me arse, even as a spirit," he admitted. He kept the smile and laughed slightly. "No, not exactly," he said, replying to her question about why he was here. He looked around at the crowd that had gathered from about the house, listening to their conversation. "You.. don't see them, do you?" He shrugged. "S'ok. I do. That's my thing. I see ghosts, talk to them, help them on their way if they let me. My grams had the same ability. Our family thinks we're nuts, so I haven't spoken to them in years. I.. hope you don't, though." His last few words had a bit of uncertainty in them.
As he waited to either be condemned or put at ease, he watched her, watched her body language. Her eyes were clear, holding a great amount of curiosity in them. He loved that.. in anyone, really. One should always question things, provided it didn't get them into further trouble. Her expression held the same open honesty as it did before, maybe even more so now that she felt he wasn't a threat. She was actually kinda cute, really. "Oh, nah, not'in like that. I'm a waiter over at The Irish House.. assistant bartender there, too. Seems like I never leave, honestly.. hence the mention of work keepin' me away from this place. What about you?"
[attr="class","soda2"]Eppie eyed the empty space next to the man and tried to give it an expression that didn’t exactly outline all that she was feeling. It wasn’t that crazy, though she had never met anyone who admitted to having a power so easily. She lived in a house full of children and adults who did insane things. For God’s sake, there were times she went to sleep with a man in her bed and woke up with a wolf beside her. She was used to weird; weird she could deal with. Her own power wasn’t that much different, she guessed. She saw the ghosts of places and objects, and he saw the literal ghosts of people. That must have been overwhelming. “Oh, well, then Ms. Fi must be very kind indeed then,” she informed him. She hooked a piece of hair behind her ear
She had never heard Irish spoken before, but it was obviously important to him, evidenced by how he perked up at the mention of it. His enthusiasm was infectious, and she found herself smiling at him. “It’s a lovely language, and as far as reactions go to being startled, it’s definitely on the healthy side.” As he went on, she narrowed her eyes, trying to sift through his words. She shook her head once she caught his question, her smile supportive. “I can’t think you’re entirely nuts, no. I don’t see ghosts, but I see..moments in time. It’s more like I’m inside of a movie of something that the place remembers.” She had never tried to explain her power in that way before, especially not to a near total stranger, but he had such an open and bald-faced honesty about him. He had obviously trusted her with something personal, and she couldn’t exactly deny him the same.
He reminded her a bit of her students; there was a sort of eagerness about him. It made it hard to believe that he was anything close to a real threat, but she had been to enough self-defense classes not to let her guard completely down. Besides, if she did, the dinner party memory would come sweeping back full force. “Sometimes places kind of call to me, I guess. This place has for a while. Usually, that means that whatever happened here, I’m supposed to know about it. It’s like it just wants someone to listen.” She always felt a bit hokey when she delved into that sort of talk, like of one those dime-a-dozen “psychics” those awful ghost shows her grandmother watched used to employ. The house still tugged at her, her power acknowledging the fact that it didn’t get to follow the feelings until their inevitable end. Whatever it wanted to tell her, it still did. “So, you’re a medium. Do you…see anything significant in the house?”
He watched her expression as she 'looked at' his grams and heard her uncertainty in her reply. "Yeah, she's amazing. I wouldn't know what ta do if she wasn't here and hadn't taught me a few things before she passed," he admitted with a grin. She returned the smile before complimenting his family's native language. "Aw, t'ank ya. Yeah, if I said anyt'in worse, my grams woulda had my arse for a week," he told her, laughing. "Believe it or no', she can give me a wicked headache and rant my ear off if I do somet'in she doesn't like. Most would find it frustratin' or somet'in, but I love that she's so protective and caring. The rest of my family wouldn't do that."
He tilted his head curiously as she described her own ability. So there were others like him. He had felt that.. in New Orleans, it wasn't unheard of at all.. but he hadn't had confirmation until now. "Moments in time," he repeated her words. "Sounds like you see what most ghost hunters call residual hauntings. Moments in time that really happened here at some point that the house or an object in the house remembers and the spirits repeat over and over. They're stuck in a time loop. Most hear footsteps down the stairs or doors opening and closing, somet'in like that."
He listened to how she explained her feelings about a place and nodded. He knew full well how that felt. "I get the same feeling, and Gramma Fi wit' her spirit insight can confirm with some degree that that's where I should go next." Her next question made him hesitate, though. He saw people, varying ages, genders, and eras, but significant? He wasn't really sure. "Um.. honestly? Not sure yet. I haven't really been alerted to anyt'in out of the norm. I mean, with the city's history, there's plenty of suicides, murders, and such with each new generation. Were you looking for anyt'in or anyone in particular?"
