Play@YSDC

Glendale is a quiet Cumbrian village that relies on tourism as its main industry. The visitors are mainly ramblers. The village and immediate surroundings have, at intermittent periods in recent history, been renowned for fairy sightings.

In Victorian times it was famous for a short time in fairyhunter circles for its population of "little people." Arthur Conan Doyle is alleged to have stayed over as part of his quest to prove that fairies really do exist.

There are a number of Bed-and-Breakfasts in Glendale; the investigators have been set up with accomodations at "Molly's Bed and Breakfast", courtesy of Martin Richardson, a college of four of the investigators (Laurence, Petronella, Stephen, and Nicholas) and former member of the secretive occult group Club Nyctopia (Due to past experiences with the Mythos, Martin Richardson had experienced severe damage to his health. He is, to all practical purposes, house bound.)

It is Friday 06 July 2001. You all arrived in the Cumbrian village of Glendale earlier in the afternoon. You are all tired and hungry after your respective journeys. It is now early evening and you have had time to freshen up. You are staying in "Molly's B&B." Molly Brindle is in her forties, has a portly build but seems energetic and full of the joys of life.

Molly sees those who enter, obviously brought to the dining room by the lingering scent of dinner drifting throughout the house. "Oh, hi again. Go ahead and take yourself a seat. I'm just finishing up the preparations and we're about ready to eat."

ooc,At this point, go ahead and introduce your character and give the others a description of how he or she looks. Please double-check your private message sent to you to see what you know of the others prior to starting.

Nicholas walks in and smiles and nods at Molly and then takes up a seat on the side of the table. After he's sat, he puts his camera on the table, flips it on and starts looking at the pictures he'd taken through the day.

Molly sneaks a peek at what Nicholas is doing and spots the images he's sifting through. "Oh, hobby of yours?" she asks as she moves a pot off the burner of the stove top. "There's some wonderful scenery around here. Don't blame you for taking pictures."

There is sound of other people moving about the house as they make their way to the dining room.

"Hobby? No my dear Molly, it's what I do for a living." Nicholas states and then added, "Why whatever it is you are preparing smells divine. My wife isn't a cook so we have takeout more often that I or my waistline care to admit." He stated with a small laugh.

"Oh really?" Molly said with a sly look. "Pity. I've always found the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach." She takes a wooden cooking spoon full of her stew and carries it over to where Nicholas sits, her other hand cupped beneath to catch any falling stew droplets. "Have a taste, tell me... enough salt?"

Molly wasn't an unattractive sort. She had dark red hair that hung down to the middle of her back - it was currently pulled back in a pony tail. Her eyes were green as grass. And this close, Nicholas could tell that beneath the musky scent of a woman cooking over a hot stove, she wore a hint of vanilla like perfume. She was a little heavier than average, but not so much that one might call her fat... just well rounded. She wore it well.

Samantha enters the room, and sits down beside her husband. "Any good pictures?" she asks him. She looks towards Molly, and smiles briefly, wondering what is on the menu tonight.

Molly recognized Samantha from when the two checked in... and like a mouse caught playing with cheese, she quickly put the spoon of scalding hot stew into Nicholas' mouth and turned away back towards her stove and the food cooking there. "Salad will be ready in just a moment."

The clock on the wall says 5:56 PM.

Samantha raises her eyebrow, but says nothing directly about what she has just seen. "I'm tempted by salad, but what is the stew tonight Molly?"

"Lava!" Nicholas stated as he spit it out into a napkin. "Oh by the Gods of old, that is scalding! Sorry Molly, I couldn't taste anything but pain." He then turned to his wife and smiled, "Good pictures? Why they're always good." Nicholas chuckled and added, "Anything great... No."

"Oh!" Molly exclaims as she rushes back over to the table and grabs the glass in front of Nicholas with one hand, and a pitcher of ice water in the other to pour Nicholas a tall glass of liquid relief. "How careless of me. I'm so sorry," she says as she sets the glass in front of him. Placing the pitcher back in the center of the table, she then answers Samantha's question, "It's beef vegetable, nothing too fancy. But we're following it up with steak and potato."

Laurence Hickman strides into the room, sniffing the air. "Something smells good," he says. "Good evening, Molly. Did you just say steak and potato? Sounds smashing!" He nods to Nicholas and Samanatha as he joins them at the table. "Evening, Mr. and Mrs. Hollis."

"Evening Professor," says Samantha, looking up as he sits down at the table. "I think I'll try the steak and potato too, for a change, though I will pass on the stew. Are you okay dear?" she asks her husband, turning to him with some concern.

After taking a drink of water, Nicholas smiles at his wife, "Yeah I'm fine dear, it was more a shock than actual damage." He laughed, took Samantha's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Good evening to you Professor Hickman. I can tell you from experience that the stew is very good... Hot but very good." He laughed again and turned towards his camera which he had left on during the stew incident. "Suppose I should put this away for now."

Molly has prepared several bowls of salad and places them about the table, filling up six places. Laurence knows Paul is still upstairs, and on his way down... he's not known to miss a meal. Molly would certainly take one of the spots, but the last spot remained a mystery. There was no ring on Molly's finger, so no husband presumably. He hadn't heard or seen any children in the bed and breakfast house.

Once the salads were all in place, Molly asked, "What brings you all to Glendale?" The salads are a delightful mix of vegetables with some parmesan cheese and a homemade dressing blended in. She set a few other pitchers around the table, providing milk, coffee, and tea to go with the ice water, but allowing everyone to pour themselves.

Petronella enters the dining room, and glances about for an empty seat. Finding one, she nods to the others present and sits down. Looking at Molly, she smiles. "Hello again. What you got for us tonight?" She smiles a little at the others at the table, her blue eyes seem distant through her gangly black hair. She combs her strands away from her face with her fingers, then looks at Nicholas' camera. "Photographer? I'm Petronella...Waters...Journalist. Sort of."

"I shall have to try the stew as well, then," says Laurence. He smiles at Molly as he helps himself to a cup of tea. "I've come to look into all these stories of fair folk and supernatural happenings in the area. Are they genuine, or is there a more rational explanation? I hope to settle the question definitively."

"Surely it's nonsense," says Samantha, pouring herself a glass of water. "Isn't it far more likely that there is some sort of rational explanation, or that people are just making up the stories? I doubt that there is anything in it."

Petronella turns her gaze to Samantha. "How can you be sure? We can't just dismiss all of these accounts as lies or crazytalk. That would be...arrogant."

"I can't be sure," replies Samantha, taking a sip from her water, "though I have firm religious beliefs, and would have great difficulty squaring those alongside the presence of faeries and such like. Perhaps I am arrogant. Maybe I'm wrong. But I'm incredibly sceptical about these claims. Sorry."

Molly regarded the conversation as she finished setting the table and asked, "Where is that other fellow off to? He does know it is dinner time, right?"

Shrugging, she sits down at one of the two empty places and says "The whole area has been riddled with folklore and 'sightings' of these strange fairy folk. But if you ask me, they're nothing more than spirits..." she says this as she makes a drinking motion with her hand and rolls her eyes. "I haven't seen anything of the like, personally. Them who've had a few too many of an evenin' talk about certain places being 'aunted. Don't believe it myself. But it does make for good stories for the tourists."

ooc,Ha, just found out you're supposed to be eating steak & kidney pie with boiled & roast potatos, carrots, spring cabbage, and broccoli. I gave you the cheap meal version. Sorry. Beats McDonalds, though. Molly is a source of information for you ... she will lead you to other parts of the investigation, so feel free to delve deeper into local folklore.