2025-10-29 - Cryptid Club Monster Mash

Carmine, for his part is bustling around playing host. Or he was, until he saw the state of the snacks. "Really, Joyce? These sugar cookies are awful. Just awful. I mean, these..." he picks up a handful of individually-wrapped chocolate bars, "...I understand, for the theming. But grocery store sugar cookies? I would have supplied proper ones if you told me you wanted them."

The conference rooms at the resort are often used for such gatherings since they are conveniently multi-purpose and easily accessible to the employees. Michael is off-duty, having done his shift earlier in the day then headed home for a nap before throwing on some casual clothes and heading over to Fable Island. He is wearing a dark rust-orange light knit sweater with some jeans and brown hiking boots, a headband sporting many fluttering bats. Festive!

He is also carrying a large plastic pumpkin filled with a mixture of cranberry orange, pumpkin, and apple spice muffins which are deposited among the other snacks for those gathered. At least they're homemade!

Aside for maybe when he was interviewed for his job here, Cedric's never been to the administrative building. In fact he rarely strays from his little corner of the park, so he'd purposefully set out early just in case he got lost.

Which, uh, he did. Thankfully the extra time he'd alloted himself had been enough of a buffer for him to still make it fashionably early. Or at least early enough to score a top-up of his to-go mug, only to pause and say, "Dammit, I've just poured coffee into my tea." Yes, he's drinking tea, because he's absolutely a transplant from the UK, judging by that accent.

Well, now he's drinking some sort of coffee-tea abomination. He's having A Moment.

After a brief scrub of his face with one hand, Cedric resigns himself to dumping out his mug later. Just wait, he's absolutely going to forget and drink out of it at some point.

Quinn is not very festive....usually. But she makes an exception for Halloween, so she arrives to the meeting sporting a burnt orange sweater with black cats and skeletons dancing across it, jeans, and a box full of buttons that jingle with a metallic sound each step of her heeled boots.

She brought no snacks.

Unless buttons are snacks. Which as soon as she's through the door she lifts up the box, announcing, "I brought buttons!" This probably means nothing to anyone other than Carmine and Michael.

"I am sorry!" says Joyce, a rather matronly older woman. "I forgot you were a chef."

"You forgot...?" Carmine rubs his face. "You forgot I was a chef?"

"Well, I don't go in for all that fancy food so I've never been to your restaurant. I just see you at these meetings!" Joyce replies.

Carmine's years of customer service kicks in and he puts on a smile that is only twitching a little. "Well, that's fair enough, I suppose. Why don't you go and see if there are some more cups over there, hmm? No one's got anything for the coffee."

Given something to do, Joyce happily bustles off towards the kitchenette at the rear of the room.

Carmine takes a deep breath, then spots Michael and his muffins. "Hello there. You're looking festive." For his part, he's dressed in his usual off-duty uniform of slacks and a subtly patterned button-up. He usually favours the short sleeve variety, but with the cooler weather they're long, albeit pushed up at the moment.

He overhears Cedric mumbling to himself. "Coffee in your tea. Somehow I don't think that's going to be your next culinary innovation."

When Quinn arrives, he nods upwards. "Well. I see you've got follow-through. I'm impressed."

"Buttons!" Michael grins when Quinn arrives with the buttons and goes over to take a look at what she's brought. There's a faint wince in sympathy as Cedric contaminates his tea. But then he's back to perusing Quinn's box of buttons. "I'd forgotten about them." Until now, anyway.

"Yeah, I figured a little Halloween cheer and all, you know?" he says with a bit of a chuckle. "Get into the spirit of the season." He reaches up and gives one of the bats on his head a little bobble with one finger.

Cedric has not brought any kind of Halloween cheer, unfortunately. Though his clothes are all dark colors. Maybe... that's something? (It's not, he just doesn't have a very bright wardrobe).

His mug still clutched in one hand, Cedric just shakes his head at Carmine and says, "Probably not, no," with a beleagured sigh.

As he surveys the offerings on order, he zeroes in on the muffins as being the tastiest treat. Don't ask him his opinion on American chocolate, okay? "If I'd realized, I would have brought something too," he admits. "We made mini pavlovas this week, would've been mint."

"I never promise something I don't plan to deliver." Quinn points out with a quick shake of her head, moving to set the box down amongst all the snacks that Joyce so kindly laid out for everyone. However, when Michael comes to look through the box she pauses, then starts to sort through them in search of one very specific button, which takes a moment before she picks it up and offers it to him. "Your first cryptid button."

Then there's a glance towards Carmine and Cedric, seeing if either of them are wanting to check out what buttons there might be for the steal....errr....taking.

"We were just supposed to have our usual coffee, tea and juice but Joyce decided it was too close to Halloween and the club is too..." Carmine air quotes, "....'spooky' to not theme it for Halloween. So no one feel bad they didn't bring something. This wasn't planned."

A few more people enter. Joe, a friendly guy who works in transport enters in a pumpkin-printed button-up with bat dealy boppers on his head and a tray full of candy apples.

Carmine eyes him, "I've half a mind to skip the meeting part of this and just play Monster Mash over the audio system," he drawls. Then he looks over to have a look at what Quinn brought.

"I just made an inappropriately large number of muffins and after bringing a pumpkin full of them in to Security, I still had more. So you guys get some too," Michael says. They weren't really specifically made for this event but they were made for Halloween, so it seemed fitting enough.

He pauses when Quinn goes shuffling through the buttons. He hadn't taken anything. He was just looking at the designs. So when she presents him with one, he grins and immediately affixes it to his sweater. "Thanks!"

"Why not both?" Michael asks Carmine.

"Oh it's proper spooky," Cedric agrees, with a wry grin. He looks up at the decorations, his eyes bright, seemingly charmed by them even as he snags himself a muffin with a quick, "Thank you," and he pries off a piece of the muffin top to sample.

Then there's the talk of buttons, and while Cedric doesn't count himself amongst the club's numbers (yet), he does crane his neck to have a look. If there's ones of the Boo'edwalk critters, he might just have to have snag it.

Though as he does that, as an aside he asks, "Monster Mash?" as if he somehow doesn't know the majesty of said song.

There are buttons of all kinds, all the same size though, all on the small to mid size. Some with black backgrounds, some white, various other random colors. But on each one is the a cryptid....no Boo'edwalk critters though. More like Nessie and Bigfoot style things, and some more obscure ones for those that are highly interested in cryptozoology.

Quinn's very patient with everyone looking, letting them take their time, "I vote for both....we can absolutely do both."

It's a blink-and-you-miss-it thing but despite not being a button guy by his own admission, Carmine palms a small Jersey Devil one before he makes his way to the podium. "Best get things officially going," he says as he clears his throat.

Once he's up at the podium, he has to stoop over to get close enough to the mic. "Hello..." the mic isn't on. He fiddles with it. "Hello everyone." Ah, that's better. "Tonight was supposed to be about our latest cryptid sightings. But I can tell people are more in the mood to socialize. Which is totally fine. But why don't we get a little bit of business out of the way first. Specifically..." he picks up a remote and it clicks to a blurry picture someone caught of an imp attack, "...these little bastards. I know a number of us have encountered them already. Does anyone have anything new to share about them?"

Michael grabs a couple of snacks and a cup and some coffee before sliding into a seat comfortably to listen to the beginning of the meeting. He tears the wrapper off one of the candy bars and pops a piece into his mouth. He glances up toward the image on the screen and grimaces a little. He's had more than enough of those imps over the past couple of weeks. "Don't think I know anything new, specifically." He shakes his head slightly. "Oh.. You can stop them from coming out of the portals if you put up a ward around it when it first opens."

Muffin and (unfortunately doctored) tea-coffee mug in hand, Cedric also finds himself a seat for the actual meeting part of this mixer. He's also swiped a Loch Ness Monster button, because that seemed appropriate.

So he affixes it to his shirt and flashes a grin at Quinn before Carmine gets started.

As for imps? Well, he doesn't have anything to add, so he just relaxes back in his seat to listen... and then takes a sip from his mug.

Oh. Ew.

Left with no other choice, Cedric swallows the mouthful of that truly awful concoction with a grimace, and then pointedly sets his mug down.

The box is placed down on the table when Cedric picks out Nessie for his button, flashing a quick smile, and then Quinn gets herself a cup of coffee before she moves in the direction of the chairs as well, settling herself down to turn her attention towards Carmine, and what what comes up when he clicks the remote.

There's a quick shake of her at the question, "Afraid I haven't encountered them at all."

Carmine snap-points at Michael. "Good intel. Now, this group..." he looks out at especially the older members of the club, "...is not meant to fight cryptids. But we are good at is analyzing and documenting their behaviour. That's useful to those of us who can and do want to fight them. So I'm proposing we as a group..." he motions to them all, "...seek out people who have had experience with them. Gather photos and testimonials. Then we can compile it and present it to Magical Studies. And if there is a group of us who want to go seeking them out and have powers to do so safely, we can do that as well."

He takes a moment to look around the room. "But I'm not the leader of this group. I'm just the guy who herds the cats. So let's put it to a vote. All in favour?"

"Sure. I can bring in what we've gathered from Security. We already share it with Magical Studies but I can also share it with this group. The more people know about them, the better they can react to them when they show up," Michael says. "I wouldn't say I'm particularly adept at fighting them, but since I can put up a ward, if I'm there when the portal opens I carry around stuff to cast a quick circle and seal them out. It's a band aid. They'll turn up somewhere else. But it delays them a bit."

Does Cedric get a vote? He's not sure, but he nods several times in rapid succession when it comes time to do so, because that sounds pretty damn cool.

Otherwise he's got nothing to add except a, "I'll ask around," which sounds like he's volunteering to help to some degree. He's even wearing the button! That must count for something, right?

There's just the faintest of amused smiles that quirks up the corner of Quinn's mouth, "I'd be happy to take what you all find and brief the rest of Magical Studies on it, or act as liaison if needed on any matter that Security is unable to assist with." But then there's a suggestion of a vote and she lifts her hand.

Much like Cedric, she's not sure if she gets one, but by golly, she's going to vote anyways!

A few other people chime in to say they'll ask around or they know someone who had a run-in. Most of the room has their hands up. "Good. That's the plan, then. This is the bit where we ask if anyone has seen any new cryptids or had any notable encounters." He gestures and steps away from the podium to make room for someone else to step up to the microphone.

"I haven't met any new cryptids per se but I have had a notable encounter, which isn't strictly related to the club but maybe adjacent. We've got a new guy staying at the park who comes from the world we call Dusk. He's sticking around a bit to learn about our world, and we can learn about his. There might be some interesting critters there. Not sure, but figure it bore mentioning. His name's Nicholas. He's staying over at the resort with the other two.. Lord Darien and Lady Celestine who are also from other worlds. Might have some interesting cryptid facts," Michael shares.

The mention of new people from other worlds causes Quinn to sit up straighter, clearly curious about that, "Indeed? Is this Nicholas friendly and open to conversation? I suspect there is quite a lot more to learn from him about this world, Dusk, than just cryptids. Can you imagine?" She can! She sits back in her seat, pulling out a small notebook with a half-pencil tucked into it from one pocket to start making notes.

"Noted, noted," says Carmine. "That's interesting about the new otherworldly visitor. Thank you."

Then, there's a short line-up of people who detail (mercifully succinct) anecdotes about encounters with known cryptids. Carmine definitely sat there with a stopwatch and a scowl the first few meetings to make sure no one rambled on too long.

After the third person talks about their encounter with a laurel deer stealing a persimmon (a new fruit they like!) to many oooohs from the nerds in the audience, someone does indeed cue up Monster Mash. The meeting officially transitions to a low-key Halloween party akin to an office party.