CH3-01 Albania

[Papa Gateau]

Albert dials Clay's number

What's up man? Am I missing a party? You've been up there a hella long time, everything cool?

[BenTheRat]

Spot Hidden,[dice]0[/dice]

Clay looks around, but is quickly interrupted by his phone. "Hey there, Albert. Yea, it is a mess up here. And a lot to go through. We could use another pair of eyes if you want to join us."

[Mr. Handy]

"We need to find the external drive that was hooked up to the laptop," says Liz. "It's prolly a USB thumb drive, which makes it tiny and harder to find, though they don't have enough capacity to hold something as big as this file. I'm sure I can recover it. If you haven't found it by the time I'm done computering, I'll have a butcher's myself." She quickly and expertly recovers the document.

[Papa Gateau]

Albert get's the apartment number and from floor from Clay and heads up.

He hit's Maria's buzzer at the building entrance, waiting for one of the others to let him through and heads up to her apartment.

He glances at the chaos Holy shit man! Right, I can see why it's taking so long! Where shall I start, what we looking for? I take that stink isn't Maria's decomposing body?

[ghill]

The document is a description of photos, all Two hundred and forty three of them. The descriptions make for both interesting and disturbing reading it is quite clear that Maria Demachi was becoming increasingly irrational. As the document progresses it becomes more and more off topic including strange poetry, descriptions of familiar dreams (such as those after the events at Heathrow) and observations on the futility of life. The very last bit seems total gibberish.

A typical description

Photo no 32: The mural depicts a young man surrounded by intense light or fire from above. Wounds are seen along the back of his arms and legs his back and torso is heavily tattooed. He is surrounded by other people they are either bowed in prayer

Then using the marker function additional notes: it’s not prayer, its fear, they fear him, fear what he’s going to let through.

There are rugged rocks to the left and right and some indication of the sea to the rear of the young man It looks as though there is some kind of tomb behind the man’s right shoulder, is this symbolic?
The mural is painted in very vivid colours but there is clear indication of ageing due to atmospheric change.

The end of the

Make a Successful Idea roll,Clearly the photos she is describing are not those on the memory card in the camera, which would seem to indicate there is a second memory card.

Liz,Can I have an [b]Own Language[/b] skill check please. If you make it I'll need a [b]SAN[/b] check there is something horrifically familiar about the gibberish at the end. [b]SAN 0/D2[/b]

[Mr. Handy]

"These aren't the pics on the camera," says Liz. "That means there must be another memory card here somewhere. It won't be easy to find, those things are tiny. We also need that external drive to get the final draft of Gosshamm's paper. That may have specifics about where she's gone." She glosses over the gibberish at the end completely; to her it doesn't bear any resemblance to English (or anything else) whatsoever.

OOC,Idea roll (75% stat) about the document: [dice]0[/dice] Own Language: English roll (60% base skill) reading the document: [dice]1[/dice] Well, that was a good roll to get a 100 on! ;)

[ghill]

OOC:   Not sure If you're waiting for me guys? Anyone who wishes to continue searching needs to tell me where they are searching and what for and then make a Spot Hidden Otherwise, whats next?

Downstairs Jacob starts knocking on doors his efforts are largely fruitless, as it appears most of the residents are out at work. Its not until he reaches the ground floor that an old woman answers her door. Alex and the woman have a short conversation. "She says she has not seen the woman in the top floor apartment for over a week days."

[Papa Gateau]

Albert starts' searching in the bedroom.

Roll,Spot Hidden[60] - [dice]0[/dice]

[ghill]

Unsuccessful Searches,If you make an unsuccessful search in the bedroom or the lounge I need an [b]Own Language[/b] skill check please. If you make it I'll need a [b]SAN[/b] check there is something horrifically familiar about the gibberish on the piece of paper your perusing. SAN 0/D2

Albert,The smell of dog shit is strongest from the bedroom. Someone has already searched room before Albert (Liz and Jacob), papers have been largely piled on one side of the room. After a 15 minutes of looking in all the most obvious hiding places, Albert still hasn't found anything of interest.

[Papa Gateau]

Albert rejoins the others in the front room

Couldn't find anything there - stayed as long as I could but the stink of dog shit almost had me heaving at the end.

Has anyone checked the kitchen - looked in the freezer? That's normally a place to hide stuff he heads towards the kitchen, using the old nurses trick of breathing through his mouth to avoid smelling the stench.

Keeper,Spot Hidden[60] - [dice]0[/dice]

[ghill]

OOC:   If Albert wants to search the kitchen with any degree of thoroughness he'll need a CONx5 to stop himself hurling.

Albert squeezes past a green looking Andy gingerly stepping over the pool of vomit on the floor and starts to search among the accumulated filth of the kitchen while trying not to breath in the stink of rotting food.

[Papa Gateau]

Champion hurler?,CON x 5[65] - [dice]0[/dice]

[ghill]

Managing to keep his breakfast down Albert starts sifting through the collected debris.

OOC:   Spot Hidden please.

[Mr. Handy]

"I don't know what this gibberish is at the end of the file," says Liz. "It doesn't look like anything at all. Maybe it's encrypted." She searches the lounge carefully for the external drive and second memory card.

OOC,Spot Hidden roll (61% skill) searching the lounge: [dice]0[/dice]

[ghill]

Albert is in full swing searching the Kitchen as Liz finally stands up from where she's been kneeling to look under a sofa and decides she can see no sign of either the drive or the memory card.

[Papa Gateau]

I spy with my little eye,Spot Hidden[60] - [dice]0[/dice]

[ghill]

Albert pulls out an oil soaked couriers delivery note and a equally soiled padded envelope from the bin. The delivery note is marked From Adrian Gossham contents One manuscript value £0, one data card camera, the time date seem to correspond to a similar dispatch reciept Liz and Jacob saw in the proffs office in Brichester U.

[carnage_lee]

OOC:   I think we need to agree more of a plan on how to proceed; as I see it we have two or three options to follow (or variations thereof).... Keep on as we are... making random searches for titbits of information (which we're doing OK on so far, I think) - or take the papers, camera etc etc away with us or try and clear the apartment up, use it as a kind of 'base' till we find Maria. So.. we have information.. as usual it's the interpretation of it that we need help with. Maria appears to be incapacitated... probably a bit 'SAN deficient' and probably hurt (self inflicted?) We need to work out if Maria left voluntarily or not, Alex ought to be an asset in getting hold of the local hospitals etc. to see if she's been/being treated there. Maria may be able to help us... assuming she's a) alive b) coherent Any other ideas?

[royya]

Jacob nods to the old woman and smiles
Alex please ask the nice lady if she saw anyone visiting Maria, if anyone suspicious arrived to the building and if so, was he covered with tattoos ? Can she recognize Maria's car outside and if the last time she saw MAria, Maria seems agitated and nervous ?

[Mr. Handy]

"We've got to find the external drive, and the memory card," says Liz. "They have to be around here somewhere, but they're not in the lounge. I'll check the bedroom next. That's where I found the camera." She heads into the bedroom, searching obsessively for the drive and the card.

OOC,I think we need to find the thesis (on the external drive) and preferably the memory card before we leave. The thesis will take some time to study, and it may have some vital clues that weren't in the previous drafts. I don't know this in character yet, but I think that gibberish at the end of the reference file is related to the protolanguage and is what set [b]Maria[/b] off and caused her to write everything she knew. Spot Hidden roll (61% skill) searching the bedroom: [dice]0[/dice]