Hunting 101 Class 1 (Tuesday period 5)

[demons-death.livejournal.com]

When the students come in, they find a sign in sheet and a pile of handouts just inside the door with a sign that said "Sign in and take one."

Once everyone had done so and was settled, John leaned against the desk at the front of the room and regarded his students.

"Welcome to Hunting 101. Hopefully by the end of this course, you should not only be able to spot supernatural threats, but know how to identify them and deal with them as safely as possible. You students here at Fandom already have an advantage in that you deal with the weird and the supernatural on a fairly regular basis and so are much more likely to recognise it when you see it." He smiled faintly. "You're not going to be the ones dismissing things as a trick of the light or a freak but completely mundane accident. You won't be able to -- once you see through the veneer of normal to the real world underneath, you're never going to be able to not see it.

"And that's a good thing. You can't deal with a threat until you acknowledge its existence." He let his gaze rove over the class. "And before anyone brings it up, yes there are harmless and even helpful paranormal things and entities too, but they're not the focus of this class. This class is about hunting and eliminating threats, and the supernatural equivalent of fluffy happy bunnies and puppies aren't usually a threat so we won't be dealing with them here.

"The syllabus you picked up when you signed in explains how this class is structured and lays out the topics we will be studying. Please come see me if you have any questions or concerns.

"Before we get started on today's lesson, I'd like to get an idea of what kind of knowledge base you already have so I'd like to go around the room and have everyone introduce themselves and give a brief summary of their experience with the supernatural.

"I'll go first." John took a deep breath and said, "My name is John Winchester. My first brush with the supernatural was sixteen years ago when a demon killed my wife. Since then I've hunted some version of pretty much everything we're covering in this class and more besides." He looked around. "Next?"

When everyone had gone, John nodded. "Thank you. For those with little to no real experience, I will see if maybe I can arrange a field trip to help with that." His mouth quirked up into a smile. "Always assuming the experience doesn't come to you here, which is very possible.

"So," he said, moving away from his desk, "today's subject is ghosts. Of all supernatural entities and phenomena out there, ghosts are probably the most plentiful and so are the thing you're most likely to encounter.

"Ghosts are people who died with some kind of unfinished business. Most if not all ghosts are born out of a violent death -- be it murder, accident or suicide." He smiled slightly. "You'd be hard pressed to find a ghost who died peacefully in bed.

"Every ghost has some kind of purpose, something they're still hanging around to do. Because of the whole violent death thing, there's a damn good chance that that purpose is going to be vengeance -- either against a specific person or family line or something more broad -- for example, the ghost of a woman who committed suicide because her lover was unfaithful may go after and kill unfaithful men. Or they could be protecting a particular place or item or person, or they're trying to finish some task they didn't in life, or some other reason that will only make sense when you know who they were. That's why research is important -- not only of the ghost but of the person it was. There's always a certain logic to a ghost's action; if you find out who they were when they were alive and what happened to them, you generally can predict how a ghost is going to act.

"So how do you find a ghost?" John walked back over to his desk where there were several devices laid out. "There are some instruments that can help you track and confirm that you're really dealing with a ghost and not, say, a teenage prank. The most useful would probably be an EMF Meter." He picked the item in question up and handed it to a nearby student to be passed around. "It can be used to detect not only ghosts, but demons and a number of other supernatural creatures and activities. Just be aware of nearby powerlines; sometimes they can give you a false positive."

"There's also the Infrared Thermal Scanner." He picked up a slightly larger device and turned it on before handing it off to a student as well. "This can measure any temperature fluctiuations -- cold spots can mean ghosts."

John leaned back on his desk again as he continued. "But you don't need fancy gadgets to find a ghost -- they just make it a little easier. If you're psychic, or know one, you have a ready made inbuilt ghost detector. Animals too, are usually extremely sensitive to any kind of paranormal energies. If you only have your five senses to rely on, there's still clues and signs. Cold spots, as mentioned before; when a ghost is about to manifest the drop in temperature will be noticeable even without a scanner. Strange noises and flickering lights and power are also signs. These can vary depending on the strength of the spirit in question but are always more noticible when the ghost is active.

"Now, once you've found your ghost, how do you get rid of it?" John slid his hands into his pockets. "There are any number of ways that may work on an individual ghost, and we'll go over some of those next class, but the single, surest way is to find the body and salt and burn it. And yes," he shot the class a smile, "that is often as disgusting as it sounds. But a ghost needs something to hold it to this plane and most times that is its body. No body, the ghost no longer has a link to this reality and its energy dissipates. Considering the damage some ghosts can do, enduring the unpleasantness of burning a dead body is a good bargain."

At the end of the class, John collected the devices he'd shown the class and said, "Next week will be our first practical class and we will be meeting in the Danger Room. You'll get your first chance to track and dispose of a ghost. Everything you will need to know to do so was covered in this class," he grinned wolfishly, "so I hope you were paying attention."


[ooc: wait for the OCD's up!]

Comments

Sign in

[demons-death.livejournal.com]

Collapsing format...

Re: Sign in

[kestrelswolf.livejournal.com]

A small sketch of a human hand with a wolf's paw beside it (Blysse Norwood and Blind Seer)

Introduce yourself

[demons-death.livejournal.com]

and share your supernatural experiences.

Re: Introduce yourself

[iruinenglish.livejournal.com]

Hm. How to do this without outing herself to an entire class full of people... She didn't care if it ended up being a futile gesture, she was going for normalcy for once. Childhood trauma? No, that wasn't good either...

"Hi, my name is Buffy Summers, and I'm from Sunnydale."

There, covered. Go, team Buffy!

Re: Introduce yourself

[kestrelswolf.livejournal.com]

"I is called Blysse," Firekeeper introduced herself. "This is Blind Seer. First time I seed anything... supernatural... was when Lady Melina put spell on Sapphire and Elise and I help break it."

Re: Introduce yourself

[notahostage]

Wendy wanted to rather gleefully state that she'd staked Vlad Tepes, or talk about the trout zombies, but since she had the feeling the boss would frown at that if he ever found out. "I think I saw a ghost once. Sorority girl."

Re: Introduce yourself

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"Hannibal King," he started, "and...I once ended up in the same mall during a Richard Simmons autograph sessions. That was pretty supernatural. Other than that, never really seen anything, just studied. I've got an open mind."

Re: Introduce yourself

[elephantgadget.livejournal.com]

"My name is Helen Haras-Uquara. I helped destroy a group of demons who were using our worlds to play games with," Helen said. "And I have this."

She turned her arm into the bar of light. "It's the Hand of Uquara and can kill any demon of any size or strength."

Re: Introduce yourself

[heromaniac]

"A demon killed your..." The idea that possibly someone hadn't survived an encounter with an enemy... and that maybe she wouldn't, next time... was not pleasant. Momoko was going to pay very, very good attention in Mr Winchester's class.

"My name is Momoko Akatsutsumi. I'm from Tokyo City, Japan, but not this world's Tokyo City, at least I don't think so. I haven't looked it up and I should, but I keep forgetting. So I don't know. And uhm. In my world we have lots of monsters because of, uhm, well, I guess Him's a demon since he isn't really a monster and he has powers over fire and volcanoes and stuff? Oh! And sometimes I can see auras, but not always. And I've seen ghosts!"

Re: Introduce yourself

[withoutverona]

"My name is Romeo Montague, and I'm a senior," Romeo said, with a glance at Dojima from the corner of one eye. Her job to come was his main reason for taking the class, but even he knew she probably didn't want the entire class to know that. "I'm from a world without the supernatural, so all I've experienced is that little that's happened since I came Fandom."

Re: Introduce yourself

[armybrat-lois.livejournal.com]

"Hi, I'm Lois Lane and I'm from...everywhere. The first time I've ever encountered anything was here, when I tried to beat up a god," Lois said. That didn't go too well. "My cousin though, whoa, she says weird stuff happens in her town all the time so I've always tended to believe in that sort of stuff."

Re: Introduce yourself

[rebelheartalien.livejournal.com]

"I'm Michael", he said, glancing around the class. "I'm not quite human, but that's as close as it got before I came here."

Re: Introduce yourself

[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

"I'm Johnny Storm, a senior, and from New York City," he began. "The first supernatural experience I've had actually had happened in space, when our aircraft was struck by a cosmic storm, altering our DNA and giving me and my team various powers. This was some three years ago now and we all have the same powers still, to this day. Except for one." He paused respectfully. "I'm not sure if that's really supernatural or not, but it was definitely beyond the norm."

Re: Introduce yourself

[lordofthecats.livejournal.com]

"I'm Lion-o and I'm from a planet called Thundera," he said. "I've never really dealt with anything supernatural yet before, but I thought a class on hunting sounded really cool so I signed up."

Re: Introduce yourself

[dojima-hime.livejournal.com]

"Ano, I'm Dōjima Yurika, and we've got Witches at home, but I've never encountered anything supernatural outside of Fandom." Which was totally true, at least for now.

Re: Introduce yourself

[spiritandsword]

"I'm Annja Creed. I was raised in New Orleans, moved to New York and traveled around a lot. I've only recently came into contact with any real supernatural events, but my guardian has a feeling that will change, and thus, signed me up for this class."

Talk amongst yourselves

[demons-death.livejournal.com]

Take notes from the lecture, try out the equipment, talk to your neighbour.

(If you're paranormal, it's up to you if you set off the EMF, if your body temperature is different than normal the ITS will pick it up)

Re: Talk amongst yourselves

[kestrelswolf.livejournal.com]

Firekeeper and Blind Seer breezed right by the handouts and signin sheets to take a seat, with the wolf lying on the floor by her feet. It was only after she saw what the others in the class did that Firekeeper remembered there had been a similar thing in her earlier class, so she wandered back up there and added her "signature" before taking one of the sheets of paper. Yes, even if she had no idea how to read it.

The equipment got a few tentative pokes, but it was so far beyond her realm of experience that she didn't do much with it.

[ooc: omg sorry for so many edits, i am a dork who keeps thinking of new things to add.]

Re: Talk amongst yourselves

[iruinenglish.livejournal.com]

Okay, the salting and burning was new, and nothing she'd done so she wasn't sure what was up with that.

However, by the time the EMF meter made its way over to her, she was checking it out, muttering, "This could've come in handy." She was really going to have to talk to Giles about maybe going more high-tech.

Re: Talk amongst yourselves

[notahostage]

Wendy looked over the notes and syllabus, her expression taking on a slightly too enthusiastic cast when it got to the bits about zombies and vampires.

She poked at the meters, wondering if she could use her BTRS scanner for the same purpose.

Re: Talk amongst yourselves

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

Hannibal hadn't ever seen any of these instruments up close before so he took his time looking them over, actually studying them. Some things might come in handy in the future.

Re: Talk amongst yourselves

[withoutverona]

Romeo listened closely. He didn't know any of this, and it seemed like it could be useful.

He played with the EMF, not setting it off, for a good two minutes before passing it on.

Re: Talk amongst yourselves

[armybrat-lois.livejournal.com]

Lois, given her habit to break anything electronic, was trying not to touch the EMF meter or ITS too much. They did look cool.

Talk to John

[demons-death.livejournal.com]

Question for the teacher?

OOC

[demons-death.livejournal.com]

I won't be around in the afternoon or early evening due to work but should be for a few hours in the morning and of course when I get home. Also tonight until radio is done at least. :)

Re: OOC

[inthereflexes.livejournal.com]

Too late to sign into class?