Play@YSDC

After getting some directions from random people who look like they're locals (which is nearly everybody but yourselves), the group make their way to a copse of trees just outside the village (rumored to be inhabited by fairies). It is a perfectly normal looking section of trees, excluding the 'foot and mouth' warning signs.

Indeed, there does not appear to be anything unusual about the copse of trees. The only thing that is out of the ordinary is the person fast asleep snoring on the ground next to a camera on a tripod. The person is a young man in scruffy jeans and a Happy Monday T-shirt. Next to him, on the ground are several empty cans of lager. Covering his face is a copy of Loaded magazine. He has a one-man tent set up and he has built himself a small campfire. There is a charred tin on the smouldering remains of the fire.

The young man wakes up as you approach. The magazine falls to the ground and he rubs his eyes. "Uh, hello. Erm, hi! What are you doing out here? You on the lookout as well?"

You can now see that he has long unkempt hair that has not seen a bottle of shampoo for some time and a fuzzy beard that is showing signs of growing out of control and quite possibly its own ecosystem.

Nicholas ignores the kid on the ground and makes a beeline for the camera sitting on the tripod. He clasps his hands behind his back and looks at the various things are there to look at on a camera. Make, model, lens, digital or film, automatic or manual, what the shutter is set to, where the f-stop is at, what the ampureture is set to and so on.

Nicholas,Roll photography.

The young man seems a bit confused at Nicholas' behavior... "Looks like the camera police have shown up."

"Don't mind Nicholas," says Laurence. "He's a professional photographer, and he's just checking out your gear. Hello, I'm Laurence Hickman, and yes, we are on the lookout too. Have you seen anything interesting yet?"

While checking out the camera, Nicholas doesn't respond to the kid's statement. He's perturbed enough that the camera was left like this overnight but so help him if the settings are wrong...

Looking away from Nicholas, the student says "No, unfortunately not." He looks rather disappointed about it. "Not for a lack of trying, I assure you." He shook his head, "I'm sure I'd have better luck over at the ring of stones, if only Mr. Tennison hadn't run me off with that shotgun."

Nicholas,You can tell that this lad is an amateur photographer. Many of the configuration settings for the camera are 'adequate', but not the best for this setting, the light source, capturing quick movement, etc. You could give him some pointers if you wanted.

"We actually visited Mr. Tennison and took a look at the stone ring earlier," says Laurence. "We had to let him show us his gardens and talk about them for a while first, but he did eventually let us take a look. I think Nicholas took some pictures there. Not much to see there, worse luck. There had apparently been runes on the stones before, but they had been defaced."

Nicholas stepped away from the tripod with the same disgust as a vampire would to someone with overwhelming garlic breath. "Well of course you haven't had any luck. These settings are all wrong. You're close on a few things but I think it's mostly lucky guess work."

"Could you suggest alternative settings that might work better?" asks Samantha gently, recognising her husband's frustration at a wasted photographic opportunity.

The college kid nodded, "Oh yeah, please. I never claimed to be an expert... at anything. I just got that camera for this task." He waved his arms about, "Did you know this is the very spot where Sir Arthur Doyle saw fairies? That's why I'm here."

He looked back to Lawrence, "Wait a second, did you just say Tennison let you visit the stone circle? I tell you... I just can't catch a break." He put his hands on his hips. "What did you guys do to win him over?"

"It's just like I said," says Laurence. "We let him show us his gardens and go on about them for a while, and then he finally let us see the stone circle. If you ask him to show you his gardens, I'm sure he'll be more than happy. Of course, the stone circle wasn't very interesting. Do you know anything more about sightings of fairies in the Glendale area? Has anyone seen any in town before, or only in the woods?"

Nicholas' ire was up seeing a camera misuse. "Well no shit you aren't a fucking expert! Leaving a camera out like this! Your settings are tolerable at best, your leaving it exposed to the elements..." He looked through the view finder and groaned, "Plus what the hell are you expecting to shoot? The ground? Oh people like you... Just because you have a camera." He spun on the kid and looked at him directly, "Did you even read the fucking manual that came with it? Just because it's not a Nikon doesn't mean you can treat it like shit. If it was a Nikon, I'd beat you to death with the tripod."

Petronella raises an eyebrow when Nicholas goes crazy over the camera. "Calm down, he's a kid. We can't all be master photographers, you know." She looks to the student, asking:"How long have you been out here? You haven't seen or heard anything at all?"

He instinctively stepped back from the frothing-at-the-mouth Nicholas, hands up, "Easy, easy... if it makes you happy, I'll give it a nice blanket and a bottle and lay it down for a nap."

To Lawrence, he responded, "Oh, there are a ton of stories in town... probably half of them are legit. The other half are products of a drunken stupor, or just wanting to make a tall tale to compare against everyone else's story."

The man scratches the back of his head, "Going on 5... no, 6 days. It's been pretty dead, and not like 'ghosts' dead either. I'd settle for ghosts." Folding his arms across his chest, he asks, "Did you have any luck seeing anything?"

"Perhaps a bit too much luck," says Laurence. "After we left Mr. Tennison's place, we were run down on the road. We were struck from behind, but I didn't even see what did it. Most of us didn't, but those who did saw a horse-drawn carriage that promptly disappeared after it hit us. Then, while we were at the doctor's, a couple of us briefly saw two of the little people in the waiting room."

The man was in awe... "A ghost carriage? Unbelievable. And fairies as well? You're so luck..." his eyes drifted to Pet, who was looking a bit worse for wear, and he grimaced "...y. Well, some of you were lucky anyway. Gosh, are you all right, ma'am? Do you want to sit down or something?"

Pet smiles a little. "I'll be all right....in a while a least. Thanks, I'll have a seat. I was double unlucky, cause I didn't even see the thing." She eases down on a log.

Nicholas grumbles under his breath and moves over to the camera putting in the proper settings and adjustments. He pats the camera and says, "Sorry your owner is a nit-wit but at least you are now ready to do your job." That said Nicholas wanders off into the woods looking around to see if he might find anything that's not supernatural. Looking in trees for equipment that might create a fairy sighting or something.

"Sorry... I ... being out in the woods has all but ruined my manners. My name is Andrew Porter. And it's nice to meet fellow investigators into the paranormal. Believe me, I've had my share of ridicule, so this is quite a refreshing change... even if your friend is forming the Camera's Rights union," he shot Nicholas a glance, but only for a moment because he didn't want to seem confrontational to someone who was obviously emotionally unstable. "Is there anything else I can do for you all?"

ooc,This encounter really doesn't have anything more for you. So if you're waiting for something to happen... I wouldn't.

Paul had been walking around the group watching, hearing and trying to spot anything unusual, unfortunately all seemed in complete calm and normality.
'So people' 'seems not much happening here is it?' 'shall we return to town? this time with our eyes open and i watching our six?'

ooc,sorry my sudden absence, im now living out of my new department :)