Who: Anyone who works for the Agency & their plus one's (subthread style) What: Halloween party! Where: London HQ When: Saturday evening, October 28th, 2017 Warnings: Put any appropriate warnings in the subject line
Halloween may not be as big of a thing across the pond, but considering how many Americans worked for the Agency these days, it was inevitable that some of their more charming traditions started to rub off on the place. The Agency's annual Halloween party had become something you could count on in the last handful of years, a night to dress up and let loose, and a lot of people did. When you worked for an organization that was as loved as it was hated in the reincarnate community, the stress tended to build up fast. They needed this, once in awhile. A night where you could push aside the day-to-day weariness and spend a few hours in the company of your colleagues and friends, with food and alcohol to dull the senses, perhaps even spending the night as someone other than yourself. That was the whole appeal of Halloween, wasn't it? To come as you weren't? Maybe some would decide not to risk it, considering how that's come around to backfire on people in past years. If there was one thing that you could always count on as a reincarnate, it was that Halloween night always seemed to have something sinister in mind for you.
It was entirely possible that they'd figured out how to beat the system, though. After all, it wasn't actually Halloween night, as much as it might look like it in here. This many people with nine to five jobs, Monday through Friday, would not be out celebrating on a Tuesday, so this year, the Agency was holding their annual All Hallow's Eve bash on the Saturday before Halloween. Practical, and potentially very beneficial. So far no costume hijackings, no urban legends coming to life, no haunted houses trying to kill you or spirits of dead loved ones rising from the grave. Knock on wood, but it really did seem like maybe at least for the Agency, this year they might just have something that resembled a normal Halloween. In a world and existence completely lacking in normal, that sort of thing was hard to come by. Agency Security still kept an eye on things of course, just in case, but by the time the party was in full swing, no one was worried about things going awry anymore. For once, Halloween was going to actually be about silly costumes, eating candy until you gave yourself a stomach ache, and having a good time.
Offices were all locked by the time the festivities officially started, the main hall decorated and roped off to be officially deemed 'party central'. The previously empty walls and ceilings were now covered in decorative lights of orange and black, there were tables upon tables filled with all the Halloween themed food and desserts that you could possibly think of and more, as well as huge cauldron shaped bowls of spiked punch that never seemed to empty (they'd been enchanted by the Magics department to automatically keep refilling). Strategically placed cobwebs were hanging from corners of the ceiling and broomsticks lay propped just outside the entrance to the main hall like umbrellas, with a handmade sign that read ‘Please leave all broomsticks and other flying contraptions by the door’. Spiders hung down from doorways, skeletons were stuck to the walls and pumpkins practically littered the room. The place also might look like a total fire hazard, with the countless candelabras and seemingly floating candles strategically placed all around the room, but not to worry, the Magics department had enchanted the flames too. Not real fire.
By eight o’clock the place is already packed, nearly everyone in the London Agency and many from other field offices turned up and most of them had brought along some friends. There was a barrel full of apples for bobbing, cauldrons of dry ice, and fake tomb stones sticking up out of the floor, though mostly out of the way of the dance floor so no one actually tripped over them by accident. The whole thing was definitely cheesy, but aimed towards fun, which is what people seemed to be having. There is a DJ spinning catchy, spooky songs you can dance to toward the back of the room, everyone is already drinking (everything being drunk that night was out of skull shaped goblets) and dancing in their costumes, which were obviously mandatory. Without some rules, it would just be chaos. Besides, who came to a Halloween party without a costume?