Sandra gets recognised and some meet a rock star, DRYH c3s4c

Sandra is satisfied that her work were used in almost exactly the form she delivered it. So much for her boss thinking that he knew better than her. She knew that she had understood Vincent. When the show is over Vincent disappears behind the stage and Sandra goes to look for some way to get behind the stage and talk to him. She is almost immediately stopped by a beefy guy that says ''No visitors'' and folds his arms tighter over his chest.

Meanwhile Maurice is walking further and further into the corridor. It seems to be slightly longer than the last time but then suddenly he arrives to a big hall but this time it's not a exhibition but some noisy party where they play loud rock music and young people misbahve and jump around. Maurice frowns as his looks around him. As Maurice arrives the show seems to end with a ''I see them. Don't see them?!? That's odd, d, d, d, d'' and people in spider comstumes crawl away in the darkness that rises as the stage light dimnishes. As he looks around him he sees Sandra walk by. He walks over to her as the youngsters shout for one more and Sandra gets stopped by some personel. As Sandra explains more another guy acknowledge and disappears through a door as Maurice appears.

Maurice asks Sandra what she does here and learn that she designed the stage act and then goes straight to the important things. The door is still open. The door in The cathedral and They can still come out there. Sandra isn't interested and doesn't understand what's so important with it and why it would stop whatever it is that Maurice is so worried about. As they stand there Erik appears as well. Sandra and Erik talks shortly on what can be done to the hotel lobby to make it harder for unwanted people to show up.

Yurev talks to the student that shall help him with his 20's outfit and notice that he has a competitor. He memorizes the guy's look and goes looking for a bar as he leaves. Yurev finds a newly opened bar in the stage hall and orders eight vodka shots on a tray since he has noticed the other hanging around looking bored. He walks over to them and gives them one shot each. As Maurices bites his shot in two pieces a short argument arrises between him and Yurev on how to drink vodka shots adn yurev ends it with ''I buy drinks. I decide how to drink.'' and finishes the last shot by himself since that french guy doesn't seem to know how to drink.

A guy from the personell appears and says that they can come in and meet Vincent and leads them into a corridor. Yurev and Erik follows Sandra. Yurev wants to tell him that his maths sucks. Erik is hesitant to meet one of his customers like this but Yurev pushes him after Sandra. Maurice at first wants to leave but there's a mob of drunken people in his way and before he knows it he on the inside of the door to the corridor that leads to Vincent Warmer the Rock Star. As they walk down the corridor they see a door with a star on it and then suddenly two doors with stars on them. A moment ago it was only one door. Sandra decides she can talk to Vincent some other day and that she has had enough of these weird things. erik that was hesitant from the beginning feels the same way and floolws Sandra back while Maurice and Yurev enters one of the doors. Yurev wants to see what the drop-out is like these days and Maurice finds this as a way away from the loudness and unruly mob in the hall.

Maurice and Yurev gets showed into a room with loads of rock parafernalia and in the middle of it Vincent ready to sign some stuff. Yurev reminds Vincent of the course in discrete mathematics but Vincent disagrees on it being ''discrete''. As Maurice looks disoriented and like he wants to leave Vincent tells him to not be so shy, grabs a poster and signs it for him. Vincent states that the students will find it very cool if Yurev has a signed poster on his office and signs one of the small posters for him as well.

Yurev looks at the poster that consists of several smaller pictures. Among the things there are black widow spiders with their characteristic hour glass markings in red on the bellies, a strange man that bears uncomfortable resemblence to The Curator at the exhibit in Mad City holding Vincent (in stage outfit) in a lead, toys, something looking like a old times asylum. The tour is named ''The Nightmare Returns''. The itenary holds several places, Linköping among them. ''Rock On'' Yurev says, Vincent laughs and they leave.

Maurice leaves and takes the bus back to the city centrum to find the door again. He walks to the cathedral and enters the door again and walks down the corridor. Sandra returns to the office to try to catch up with the rest of the stage design now that her computer lost the last two months of work for her. As a collegue arrives later on the saturday he finds a letter for Sandra in the mail box although there's no post delivery on saturdays. Surprised he hand Sandra a hand written letter. It's a note from Vincent that he really liked her design work and is looking forward to the rest. Later when her boss arrives and of course is upset about Sandra doing the design in the wrong way and maybe making the whole firm be ashamed she just holds up the note in front of his nose and watch him fall silent. He suggests that they shall have a meeting about the rest of the design but Sandra desperately states that she has no time for that since she has so much to catch up with. Her boss is busy as well and walks away as Sandra dives into her work and outs on some aggressive hard rock in her headphones.

The Rock Show, DRYH c3s4b

Erik ponders whether that person he met, Sandra, could help him and his father to make the necessary changes to the hotel lobby to keep unwanted people out or at least give a good warning. Erik's father is most worried about the more unruly elements of the city like drunken students while Erik feels that the police is a bigger problem. That Sandra worked with design as far as he understood it.

Yurev works until some time around midnight where he realise that he doesn't have that much stimulantia that he really feels safe from sleep. He avoids the culverts and walks across the area between the buildings of the university. The university has some kind of arts budget they have to spend every year wich renders some new more or less nice looking things in a park in the other end of the university. There's everything from a distorted girl to iron beams to a weird chtulhuiod yellow something. As Yurev walks over the edge of the slope from the lower end of the university to the upper end he suddenly, between A building and C building, sees that weird yellow statue. The first thought is of another stupid freshman prank but it moves and not like it it was sitting on some kind of cart but rather as if it was moving by itself in an as unearthly way as it's unearthly looks. As Yurev tries to understand what he sees it enters a door at approximately the same spot as where Yurev entered Mad City but it's not the same door. Yureev decides that he doesn't need his bike to get to town tonight and instead walks all the way down through the university area to a bus stop and takes one of the last night buses into town, to Travel Center close to Park Hotel where Erik works.

In the meantime Maurice has decided that he has to solve this door business on his own. When he arrives at the cathedral he takes three memorial candles and leave some money, fetches some matches and then he heads for the door and enters it.

Yurev crosses the road to Park Hotel and immediately finds Erik in the lobby. They greet each other and Yurev buys some speed. As they chit-chat Yurev warns Erik for the university area. It seems to have some connections to Mad City. They also mention Maurice and his door and agree that a plan is a good thing. Erik isn't that hot on returning to Mad City but Yurev is more neutral as he sees having monsters at the university area is a problem. Besides eating students or maybe non-students lured there by false university applications the monsters are slowly eating Fermat's Great Theorem. As Yurev mentions this Erik becomes slightly reserved though and they end their conversation. Yurev leaves a ticket to Late Summer-X for Erik and leaves. To Erik's surprise the main attraction at Late Summer-X is Vincent Warmer, one of his customers, the rock star. Erik then returns to watching the TV.

Yurev looks up where White is located and finds out that it's at Trädgårdstorget and that it's on the way to the bus that goes to his home in Ryd. He decides to pay her a visit. She seems to be the kind of person that works and stays up and probably is found at work when it's not later than some time after midnight.

Sandra has had several hours of work without being disturbed when the door bell rings a gain and she walks over to the office door to answer the intercom at the outer door at street level. Yurev answers with a straight on ''Hi, it's me Yurev. Do you want to go to a party tomorrow?''. Sandra asks him if he is sure that he has come to the right person. As he seems quite sure on that she asks him what party it is and then tells him that she already has a ticket to Late Sumer-X (after all, she is a student) and hangs up. ''See you there!'' Yurev says and leaves. Sandra returns to work. It seems like she actaully is gonna make it and mange to do all the design for the small part of the set Vincent Warmer is gonna use tomorrow night. It's gonna be way harder though to manage to finish the rest of the stage set before the tour starts after that mysterious file disappearance though. Later the next day she is finished. She feels like she has understood the rock star who ordered the whole thing and noone of her bosses will have the time to inspect or criticise her work. Something good in all the stress. Sandra sees to that the drawings and instructions are fetched by the rock star's people and then goes home to have a shower and food. She had decided to go to Late Summer-X already before Yurev came around and for amoment she thinks of relaxing a while until it's time to get to the university but instead she decides to go back to work for a few hours. Then she's definitely gonna see what the rock star's personel has done with her design.

During the day Erik has decided to go to Late Summer-X. The students are good customers for some stimulantia and it would be a good opportunity to uphold and broaden his network at the same time as there's a party to participate in. He's not gonna sell anything though, only work his network.

Yurev is going to Late Summer-X as well but he's there for the party. Out of a hunch he also checks Sandra's grades and finds out that they're good.

    It is only Sandra who actively watches the whole show and she finds out that they have almost to 100% followed her design. There are some slight changes made and something that couldn't be done the right way on short notice but still, it semms her design was appreciated. The show is centered around a young adult's room in his apartment. Vincent Warmer plays the role of the man through the songs and his actions on the stage. The stage show, which is a part of the coming full stage show, begins with a song about a boy or a man or a boy or a man or a lunatic. It seems that the man is longing back to some point in his youth where everything was simplier and also before some traumatic accident of some kind. The man is having terrifying nightmares, among other things there live monsters under his bed that apparently ate his cat (and only left an ear, a paw and a tail). It's almost like it could have been for real or maybe it's only the man's nightmares. It's hard to tell and kind of creepy. Erik can't avoid noticing that the phrase about the monsters eating the cat is the same phrase as Vincent were humming when he waited to buy some stuff the night when the police arrived and they both fled to Mad City. To Yurev it's kind of creepy that the monsters living under the bed are spider-like, maybe some kind of black widows bent on world dominion or the like. It do associate to the strange partly spider-like monsters Yurev met in the university culverts. The show ends with the man becoming crazy and placed in an old-fashioned asylum where the last song takes place. The song tells about how his parents don't want to take care of him, how the doctors wanna examine him, electro shocks and other things. The crazy young man sits in his cell with his favourite harmless toys (as a rubber bat and ball) and during night strange things come crawling under the door and the toys come alive. The whole concert ends with spooky ''I see them! Don't you see them?!? Hm, that's odd, d, d, d''. Sandra is satisfied that her work was used and that she als realises where the food for the latest bad trip came from. Apparently from working with this crazy stage show too much.

Appearing in the news, DRYH c3s1i

As they stand there alone, just the three of them, at the large open square clearly visible to anyone they, especially Yurev, start to get nervous about the wind-up policemen or the pin heads finding them. They don't know where to go to find some information though and before it really starts to be a discussion they are interupted by a very annoying bike bell and an paper boy (straight out of the early 20th centuary) that appears on one of the streets throwing papers into the gardens and entrances. As Yurev and Sandra start to leave the large open square Maurice snaps his fingers and calls to the paper boy ''Please bestow and old man with a paper.'' The paper boy steers over and calls back ''You have a new's value'' and throws a paper straight at Maurice forehead. Maurice tries to catch the paper.

Not appearing in the news (which is bad news) is 10 Pain Dice hard. Maurice's player gathers 3 Discipline dice, 1 dice Exhaustion, 2 dice Exhaustion talent (moving fast, ending up with 3 in Exhaustion), 6 Madness; in total 12 dice. After rolls Pain wins and Madness is dominant. Maurice player chooses flight and checks one out of two flight boxes. Game master decides that out of the two possible outcomes Exhaustion increases by one for Maurice (in total, Exhaustion 4).

Maurice realises that he won't catch the paper and turns around and runs with the paper flying after him and after both comes the paper boy wildly plinging the bell. Maurice runs and runs around the square but the paper closes in and finally hits him in the back of the head and he falls to the ground. The paper boy is right behind him and catches the paper as it bounces off from Maurice. As he runs over Maurice with his bike he joyfully shouts ''You're gonna read about you in the paper tomorrow!''. The paper boy disappears throwing papers at the different houses along the street. The other stare in astonishment and then help Maurice to get on his feet, he doesn't seem physically hurt besides a scratch, and fetches one of the papers. Maurice brushes his clothes and Yurev insists on them leaving the square. It's no good this place.

Erik sees the paper boy incident when he leaves the boarding house and confirms to himself that the pill apparently is kicking in and meet up with the others at the outskirt of the square. They now decide to go to ''the museum'' and The Curator since he seemed to have a grip on things and were talkable. As they go there they look in the paper and today's big news are that Tacks Man is searching for newcomers in The Mad City and asks for the common man to help him. ''Will they be found?'' the headline screams to them. They don't know who he is but it seems that one is supposed to know who he is. There is a picture though of an reporter interviewing Tacks Man and he looks almost like a regular man besides having a tack for a head. The paper promises to follow up the story. The museum is closed and locked though.

The streets are almost empty but they do see an open pub and they go there if not for anything else it might be possible to get hold of a chalk in case someone, Yurev, would get in the need of writing something (formulas). The pub is packed with people and not even the four 21st centuary dressed characters get any attention. Maurice goes to the bar and tries to see what a beer might cost. Most people hand over a couple of coins but one customer buys a beer for a tear. Maurice is still confused. How the fuck does one pay with tears? Maurice asks if he can start a tab. That's OK with the bartender but he won't give much credit since Maurice behaviour clearly shows that he's new in town. Maurice orders a glas of wine and three mugs of beer. They try to get a grip on things. Are the paper writing about them? Yes it must be. They are agreeing on getting captured by Tacks Man is bad as well as appearing in the news. It would be good if they could change clothes but they're not sure how this thing about money works. How to get coins and will they keep accepting swedish money in the form of notes as bond paper? How do one pay in for example ''childhood memory'' or a ''slice of lovefulness''? Could they get coins by getting a job?

''Is that you again?'' somebody says. It's The Curator but in more ''normal'' clothes. ''So it is a nightmare?!?'' Sandra asks. The Curator simply asks whether it's satisfactory and Yurev bursts out ''The nightmare might be satisfied but we aren't. We want to get back. You seem to know. How do we do?''. Still being annoyingly calm and cryptic The Curator answers ''Either you survive through the nightmare and get out at the other end or you take control over the nightmare''. ''Oh and I heard you're in the paper'' he continues. Sandra asks whether it's bad to be in the paper and he continues his cryptic answering by saying that that, of course, depends on whether it's good or bad news they write about. Sandra changes the subject of the frustrating and annoying conversation and asks The Curator if there's any job opening for her at the museum. He looks slightly surprised but when she says that she's educated in architecture and architectural history he seems interested. ''The design of the museum, as you call it, is rather special though. Do you understand special architecture and design?'' he asks. Sandra fetches a chalk from the dart board. She starts to sketch a basilica on the table and designs her own kind of basilica and as she draws her sketch it starts to appear in the thin air.

The Curator is slightly skeptical that she can add something to the museum, 2 Pain dice. Sandra's player gathers her 3 Discipline dice, 1 Exhaustion dice (Exhaustion = 1), 3 Madness talent dice (design) and uses her Exhaustion talent (convincing) in a lesser way, minimum 1 success. Sandra's player wins and Pain is in dominance. One marker to Bowl of despair and Sandra pays a price by once more adhere to what she has learned about how buildings should be done rather than the softer designs she longs for.

Sandra concentrates hard and as she sketches on the table a basilica takes formm on the table. It kind of weird because it has the expected windows for light in the roof but the inside of the big hall doesn't have any ways for the light into it but it's still not completely dark inside it. The design is also very modern and clean. Although Sandra is longing for softer designs she this time, again, forces herself to do as one should. The Curator looks on and then expresses a good amount of skepticism about her design but with more joy in the voice states that she apparently understands special design. She's hired (since she shall show rather than create). ''Show up at 10 AM tomorrow'' he tells her. ''Ehm, what about pay?'' Sandra asks. ''But of course'' he answers. ''I meant what pay?'' Sandra continues and get the answer ''Happiness, good value at The Bizarre Bazaar''. When Sandra asks how one gets coins he says ''well I could pay you in coins if you whish, if you're as strict and stiff as your clothes implies then that might be a better choice''.

He turns to the other and asks if they're satisfied with the nightmare so far. i chorus they tell that they aren't and they have already told him that. He concludes that he probably wouldn't have been either if he got in the news. He gives them the tip to stop that. he gives them the directions to the paper's headquarters though. He agrees on the regulations of District 25 being confusing but one thing you always know, the regulations are in effect - always. When they ask about Tacks Man they don't really get anything clearer than that Tacks man is Tacks Man and probably he wants to document them. Whatever that means. They think they're well documented as it is in their normal world in Linköping and Sweden. The Curator says that it usually is a loss to be documented. You lose what is documented. Apparently Tacks Man nail the story with his finger nails and that they lose what's documented. He can't help with what is worse, getting in the news or getting documented. When they thank him for the information he says ''You're welcome, after all I'm here to guide you through the nightmare''. To the question on why he says ''Because I'm The Curator'' and that ''He's in charge of the nightmare and as a good guide he wants to give them a good experience. ''Who decided that we should have this nightmare?'' Maurice asks. ''And that asks the one having the nightmare'' The Curator replies and smiles. ''I din't decide that'' he continues ''It's you who have created this''. ''This was the last time I enter the A building'' Yurev states. ''It comes from in'' here The Curator says and taps on Maurice's head. He says good night and leaves. 

Maurice walks after him but don't find him until he taps Maurice's shoulder and asks if he's looking for him. ''How do I pay?'' Maurice asks. ''You can pay with either The Wax King's coins or something else valuable''. When Maurice asks about The Wax king and who he is The Curator  says that he's The Wax King and he rules The Burrows as it was the most self-explationary thing in the world. He do recommend that Maurice doesn't work for The Wax King to get his money. Maurice watch on the other hand seems to interest The Curator since it doesn't have any 25th hour among other things. The Curator examines Maurice watch. ''Give me 10 000'' Maurice says grabbing a number out of the air. ''Deal'' The Curator says and wirtes a bond paper on 10 000 coins. Maurice shows the bartender the bond paper and asks if he has any change. The bartender suddenly becomes very service minded and asks if he wants something more, a glass of wine maybe. Maurice says no but promises to come back and arrange the pay of the tab. They leave to walk to Crazy News, the paper writing about them.

The spider exhibition, DRYH c3s1e

Sandra jumps into the taxi. ''Drive for Devil's sake!'' she shouts. The driver says nothing, he just put the pedal to the metal and the taxi rushes off towards Hejdegården, away from Trädgårdstorget. As the taxi speeds off, faster than men or dog can run, Sandra actually starts to think of a destination. Home, home is good. She gives the address to the taxi driver but something feels weird and her well-controlled designer world starts to crackle again. The taxi car is one of those classic slightly rounded yellow New York taxis. Sandra refuses to accept that, there are no such taxis in Linköping. But she's sitting in one. She turns to the taxi driver, somewhat prepared to find something weird and yes, weird, he looks like Robert de Niro steering the car with a small rally wheel and it goes fast as hell through the crossroads. For a moment Sandra thinks of opening the door and jumping out of the car but gives up that idea. This is weird but still, it's better than people with board pins for heads so she tries with the address again, insists on the address even. It's not clear wether he hears her or not. The driver is quite focused on taking the car through the crossroads and around other cars in something like 200+ km/h. ''Stop the car!'' she screams. ''Stop the caaar!''. The driver stands on the brake and Sandra who didn't think of seat belts is thrown out through the front window. As she flies she comes to think of that the taxi tour in Red Hot Chili Pepper's ''By the Way'' seems quite normal after all. She falls into a great hall.

Maurice walks in the corridor wondering why he hasn't noticed it before, maybe it's sloping slowly so he doesn't notice now but it's actually going under the park but no, it would have to steep down like a cliff wall to manage that. He should be in the middle of the park around the cathedral by now. Suddenly it opens up into a wide hall and the tunnel behind him disappears.

As Yurev runs through the door into the renovation area of A building at the university he realises that the renovation has done big things to the A house. They have built a big hall at the end of A building, like some exhibit hall or the like. Yurev's scientific training tells him that he is in A bulding but he would like to talk to some of his physicist colleguages about how it can fit in A bulding. Or maybe not. He probably don't want to talk to anyone about what happened lately.

Relieved that he and the rock star didn't run into a dead end like some storage or the like Erik looks around and sees a great hall. ''Ooops'' the rock star says and taking a step or a few away and disappears before Erik sees where.

As they look around they see a great hall lit upp dimly by lots of candeliers and a bit further into the hall is something that looks like a lot of pedestals with some objects on them and it gives much the impression of an exhibit area. Then they see that they aren't alone here, three other people are here (since the rock star disappeared).

Maurice turns to the one closest, Sandra, points the sweeper in her face and fimrly asks if she's the one who has The Key?! Sandra waves the sweeper away while Yurev turns to Erik and asks what worse bad tripping stuff he has sold to him. ''What are you doing here?'' Sandra asks looking at Yurev who held some of the math lessons she had to attend earlier at the university. ''You?!?'' he says with miscontent in his voice (she wasn't one of the best in his class. ''This is Linköping Cathedral property'' Maurice declares. ''Be gone, all of you, out!''. ''Cathedral??'' Yurev says ''This is the A building at the university''. ''Can't be'' Sandra interupts and continues ''I was in a taxi speeding towards Ekholmen''. The ''conversation'' falls silent as they look around and wonder if it's for real and if not why are they then in the same bad trip? They look for a door out and Maurice points at whre there earlier was a tunnel from the cathedral. Slightly scared and slightly curious they walk towards the pedestals with objects on them. The pedestals, according to Yurev, are standing in Perfect Lines. Erik has a disgusting taste of flies in his mouth and looks for a tap to get some water from or anything drinkable. On the pedestals are spiders and a few scorpions. Big models to clearly show details. It is like a part of Museum of Natural History or something like that. On the pedestals are small plaques with the common and latin names of the spiders (and presumably the scorpions and also insects).

''Oh, oh, don't touch the displays'' somebody suddenly says. A tall man in frill shirt, old kind of trousers and a cape (black with satin red lining) has appeared from somewhere. Kind of like some vampire from a Christopher Lee movie in perfect Vincent Price style. ''I'm The Curator'' he presents himself. At the question of how they get away from here he almost looks a little hurt and asks if they aren't here for the exhibition. At the answer ''No'' he deducts that they are there for a small nightmare ''Thats the only option left'' he says. ''No thanks'' Sandra says firmly ''I have already had mine''. ''Oh no'' he answers ''It has just begun...''. ''I can't be here. I have haven't payed the fee'' Maurice tries. ''But you have all payed'' The Curator answers. ''Then i have payed to much'' Maurice says, trying to get shown to the door. The Curator hands him some change in strange coins looking like they're from another time. ''Is it possible to get something to drink?'' Erik asks. ''Seems you're here for the exhibit then'' The Curator answers and follows up with ''Of course we shall then get some refreshments'' and hands Erik a glass of water.

They all decide that although they want to leave they rather take the exhibition tour than a nightmare. Since it seems like they might get away from here if they take the tour they take the tour. As they focus on the objects and The Curator speaks to them they feel almost comfortable but as soon as they lose focus the creeping feeling is there again. Erik tries to ''read'' The Curator as he do with people and gets a very sterotype impression of The Curator, like a very, even too, ordinary older man responsible for an exhibition he cares much for. The Curator shows them around and talks about the objects with great affection knowing all their latin names by heart. Yurev anxiously looks at them, afraid that some of them shall have tentacles.

As he arrives to a model of a black widow he gets clearly enthusiastic as he describes how toxic her venom is and that it attacks the central nervous system and how it causes cramps, breathing problems, pain and finally - Death. He goes on about her inborn need to dominate and possess and how she eats the male after getting what she needs and how she's unhampered by sentiment. He asks if he may put forward a slice of personal philosophy and without waiting for an answer explain that he thinks man has ruled the earth too long and that man's successor will be his beloved Black Widow. He then stops himself and excuses him for diverging and shows at the the black widow and explain that that's the prize of the exhibition. Thankful that it's all over they all are eager to get away from here. At the question if they will get back to where they came from he answers that he doesn't know where they came from and doesn't snoop around in his guests whereabouts. He expalins that they will, of course, come out to the street outside. They go out through the door and walk out on the street outside.

Erik's intro, c3s1d

Another boring night for Erik working as a night portier at his father's hotel ''Park Hotel i Linköping''. The silence is broken by the first wave of happy or drunk or both people swarming down to the city's traveling centrum to either get a bus or a train to return home. The loud people outside is joined by two miscontent customers inside. The first of them starts to complain about the noise and Erik listens with half an ear as he studies a fly circling around the ceiling lamp. Both the fly and the guest buzz in his ears. One of Erik's regular customer's in his side business of selling stimulantia (to get money for his own amphetamine and other stuff to keep him awake) enters the door with his body guard hanging around. This regular are a quite known rock star named Vincent Warmer. Used as he is to the business he simple takes a place at the end of the line fo two customers and wait. The body guard gives Erik a glance, something like I-know-you're-OK-but-know-that-I-know-how-to-handle-trouble.

The guest falls silent for a moment as he inhales to sharpley ask Erik if he's listening and thereby recalls Erik's attention to him. ''Yes, yes, of course I'm listening'' Erik says. ''But what do you want me to do about it?'' he asks the customer. The customer stops surprised as he gets by this ignorent answer. Erik can hear the rock star, in his outfit of black clothes and silver studs, hum along some rhyme. A broken away phrase reaches Erik ''Can't sleep, the clowns will eat me'', something about how they come there again with their floppy shoes and funny hair. Guest number two, standing close to the rock star squirms and looks uncomforatable with this obvious high flying drug user standing behind her. Since the first customer don't take command of the conversation again Erik leans to the side and ask customer number two if he can help her with something. ''Yes!'' says the customer, satisfied to focus on Erik instead of the drug addict behind her. ''It's a damn noise outside'' she says continuing customer number one's complaints. ''Ah, yes it is'' answers Erik ''It's students during the first freshman period, nolle-P. This how it is like in a University city'' he says laconically like Leonidas himself. Customer number two almost shuts up but then follows up by requiring Erik to not charge full payment for the room. ''You can't have me pay full for this room'' she says. ''As a matter of fact, i can'' Erik answers. The customer start to look like she needs to kill someone but falls silent.

As the customers again are silent new phrases from the humming rock star reach Erik ''Can't go to sleep ... caffeine, caffeine ... a little speed is what I need''. ''OK'', Erik says, ''You can have a pair of ear plugs both of you. It's on the house.'' He gives them a pair each with ''Park Hotel'' printed on the plastic wrapping. He sits down and look down on his desk trying to signal that the conversation is over and that they can either take the ear plugs or leave them. The guests on their hand first of all must haul back their jaws from where they dropped them on the floor. The rock star still hums on weird songs. Now it's something about something that lives under his bed and that ate his cat. Apparently only a paw, the tail and a ear was left. Erik thinks of the monster being under the bed of one of the customers. One of the customers stomps away like only certain very discontent induviduals can do while the other one leans over Erik's desk and shouts at him ''Shape up!''

Slightly flying on his own drugs Erik looks up with a face like if-you-don't-behave-I'm-gonna-have-to-call-someone. The customer slows down a little. ''OK'' Erik says again ''You can have two packages''. As Erik reach for a second package the customer grabs the ear plugs and tells Erik that this was the last time he slept here and everybody's gonna hear about this. The customer stomps up the stairs, probably awakening a few other customers and Erik for a short moment fear that there will be another round of ''It's a damn noise here tonight''.

Erik looks up to his regular customer for which he actually cares some and rolls his eyes. The rock star shrugs his shoulders and gives an expression of you-should-only-know-what-you-can-meet-in-my-business. Vincent hands over an envelope with a fake address as if he were leaving a message for someone at the hotel. Erik takes it and hands over one of the prepared tea bags. As this happens Erik realises that the man in the lobby, Erik can't say when he arrived, is watching him or both of them. He also has some big object under the left side of his suit. He kind of looks like a under cover policeman. Actually, Erik realises, it is an under cover policeman. It's like a million signs are telling him that the man that has been watching them for a while is actually an undercover cop. Erik freezes at the surprise, the rock star looks at him and gets that something's wrong and ask ''Are you sure that there were no message back to me?'', trying to do something normal. Erik mumbles about something and tries to get hold of the tea bag lying in the open between Erik and Vincent.

Vincent's body guard approaches and Erik mysteriously realises that he is very worried. Erik slows down and lets go of the tea bag, finding it quite stupid to give the body guard any reason to think he's trying to fool anyone. The body guard walks towards them so he places him between the tea bag and the undercover cop. As he approces them he whispers ''Pigs. Outside.''. The door to the lobby opens and two policemen in uniform enters and walks over to the desk. Erik's stomach starts to turn around and Vincent and his body guard doesn't look at ease either but they have at least got rid of the manoey and never taken or touched the drugs. Somethings is gonna come up from Erik's stomach, almost like flies, big flies. Vincent and his body guard steps aside as the policemen come up to the desk.

''Good evening'' says the older one of them, ''We're going to do a search at the hotel and hope you don't have any objections''. Erik tries to contain the flies inside him but they press on and his mouth opens and the flies swarm out towards the policeman who sweeps with his hand against the flies. Erik backs away at panic and wants to find somewhere to disappear. The other policeman tap the communication radio and calls a code into it. More flies are swarming inside Erik and he desparately search for the door that's not there to flee through but suddenly there are a door. Erik opens the door and steps in and somebody steps after and bumbs into Erik. Erik, surprised, steps aside to let somebody in, it's the rock star. Erik closes the door and looks around.

Sandra's intro, c3s1a

Sandra only had  a few details left to fix on the big stage decoration work she had gotten the task to do. A rock star, Vincent Warmer, had turned to White architect and design with a quite big work with lots of props and backdrops. To be honest White wasn't that interested but there were a lot of money in it and they had Sandra, their intern and extra worker (by the hour) on which they could dump such a work. Sandra though that it was quite an interesting job although it was the opposite of both the usual works and the fluffy pink things she sometimes wished she could design. When she had read the instructions and even found a set list with lyrics for the show she had realised that there was more depth to this rock show than many other. There were an actually story going on during the show. The show started with the rock star playing the role of his confused father lying on the psychiatrist's couch and talking about his life. This then melds into being about his son, or is it a daught, or son or... A clever play with the rock star's appearance with long hair and gender bending clothes and also a nick name he got long ago that's actaully a woman's name. In the beginning he also got a lot of press about whether he was a boy or girl or homo- or heterosexual. The boy's life played out in certain moments or situations with the help of the songs leads to a nightmarish experience where he almost get caught in a nightmare run by ''The Curator''. He get's out of it but still in grown up years now and then have these nightmare and one finla nightmare leads to his death. This Sandra had got a grip on since she actually read what the rock star wanted to do. Her superiors hadn't though since they when they left today left her ''some notes on bettering the scene work''. The corrections are along the lines of ''I haven't looked at your final drawings but...'' and apparently they haven't showed it to the rock star so it's not even misinterpreted via her boss. They have just made stupid comments on how they think it should be. Sandra knows that if she does this well it might be a big step towards getting known. The rock star is well known and if she could please him he might mention her or his other art people might notice her. Sandra wants to scream in frustration.

Ooops, what happened. That's the stage. In full 1:1 scale in the office, or rather the office have partly moved and expanded to give room for the stage with full scenery. Sandra jumps up on the stage to better see and looks for ways to combine her superiors stupid ideas with what the rock star wants.

''Yes, it was here it happened'' somebody says outside the door. Sandra gets slightly irritated at the abruption but knowing that outside the office is the stairs to several floors of apartments as well as shops at street level she ignores it and studies the stage props further. Something scratches on the door, not really like an animal, more like if somebody scratched with a knife or dagger. Sandra looks in the direction of the door and again turns to her work. Somebody tries the handle at the door. ''Bah'', Sandra thinks, ''Don't they even know which door goes to their apartment?!?''. As she again turns to her work the whole door shakes as somebody pulls it really hard. Sandra stomps to the door, ready to shout at the stupid at the other side of the door. She throws the door open and falls silent.

Outside the door stands two men, or what appears to be some kind of men and something like a dog. The two men have trenchcoats, fedoras and nice shoes and look like they popped out of the early twentieth century but instead of heads they have a board pin with the point pointing at Sandra and the fedoras hovering above the pin. The dog almost looks like a dog but has a needle for head and the needle is attached to a sewing thread, although both needle and thread is much thicker than normal, and the sewing thread goes into the dog and it's spine. It's obviously well aware of her. She slams the door shut and locks it.

Sandra can't believe what she saw, must be a side effect of too much caffeine and some speed to get everything done. Her thesis is in the finishing as well as this big job. She returns to the stage that magically appeared and her brain just forget what she saw and that the stage really shouldn't be there. She gets reminded when the door shakes brutally, like somebody threw themselves on it. Then everything falls silent. Something clicks over by the door. Sandra starts to walk over there but hesitates halfway there. Did that sound like somebody's picking the lock? She runs over to the door and grabs the lock handle. ''Go Away! I know you're out there!'' she shouts. This is getting spooky. Sandra looks for her smartphone and runs to get it. As she gets it she hear somebody run and throw themself at the door. She runs to the door and holds as she calls 112 (911 in Sweden) but misses the numbers as the door shakes again and goes up and hits her. She runs into the middle of the office looking for the doors to other rooms that aren't there in an open office space. The only place to hide is the over-dimensioned toy box at the magic stage. Something comes running on four paws. She jumps up on the stage to hide there. The dog runs past under the stage floor. ''There she is!'' somebody shouts as the dog turns around at the other end of the office and the two men enter the room. Too late to hide in the box. Sandra looks at the stage exits and wonders where they go and decides to try to instead feint the men and run out of the office (Sandra's player collects her dice; discipline, exhaustion, madness talent (redesign) and wins with Discipline). The office slightly changes and the men and the dog is slightly further away and close to Sandra is another door through wich she runs out. She almost falls down the stairs. She throws shut the doors behind her which several times stops the men and the dog (Discipline is dominant) and gives her some extra distance between them and her. She comes out on the street looking desparately for a bus or cab. No bus right now but it is late by Trädgårdstorget so a cab is hanging around looking for people leaving for home. She jumps into the taxi without noticing that the green light for ''free'' turns on after she starts to approach it.

Dont Rest Your Head

We have taken a break in the Mouse Guard SPQM campaign for several reason (yes, there's still sessions to blog about and they will come). In the meantime we will try Don't Rest your Head. DRYH is about protagonists that have lived a life with very little or none sleep and suddenly they start to see things. They realise that many of the things from dreams and nightmares are for real. Normal people, slumberers, just don't see them. A slight problem is that now that they are aware of the mightmares they are suddenly more of a target for the nightmares. Usually the protagonists have some interest in the nightmare part of the world while they still must live their normal lives that probably was leaving being normal before they saw the nightmare world and now's just gonna be more crazy.

The rules are quite simple and center around Discipline wich is the potential a protagonist has to do something "the normal way". Now the characters aren't normal so they can tap into other source to do hard or strange stuff, one is pure madness and one is pushing themselves to the brink of what humans can do by exhausting them more than normal people can do. When pushing them selves they have a certain field where they can excel and when tapping into madness they can sometimes exercise a supernatural talent.

The system uses dice pools which are increased when certain talents are used. Different aspects like discipline, madness and exhaustion har different colours on the dice and when a roll is made on checks which aspect is n dominance by compare the different colour sets of dice.

I will try to blog this campaign as well and will start by presenting the protagonists.