Play@YSDC

There's a lovely big iron range to one side, and a large fridge door to the other side, and a central table covered in vegetables ready for chopping. There's even a chopping board to one side, with a knife, as though it were in mid-use before the kitchen staff were called away. A pair of blue-and-white striped aprons hang from hooks to one side of the door with a little pocket in the middle of each one. There's a big steel door to a walk-in freezer that has some symbols drawn on it in dark colours, as though by a soot-stained finger. Naturally there's a stack of leaflets from the Ministry of Food endorsing healthy, if a little tasteless, alternatives which use more home-grown vegetables rather than imported varieties. The posters on the walls and free cupboard space would also do the Ministry of Food proud. There are also rat traps here and there.

One of the rat traps has caught a rat but it hasn't quite killed it yet.

Evidence Collection,The corner of one of the posters have charcoal stains upon them left by fingerprints. One of them has obviously been touched more often than the others.

Occult,These markings don't signify anything of great occult significance. There's the alchemy symbol for Earth, the hermetic symbol for Incense, and the alchemy symbol for fire.

• Station Platform (broken down).
• Restaurant (latched shut).

"Knives," whispers Kate, looking around. "We all need knives. I've got my scalpel, but you two could use some. There's one on the chopping board, but there've got to be others. Maybe everyone left when they heard the air raid siren."

Artemis looked about trying to find some type of knife that would be comfortable for him to have and use if necessary. Artemis looked over and saw the rat struggling in the trap. He looked back at the knives deciding on a larger carving knife.

Jonathan stares for a few seconds at the trapped rat, feeling some sympathy. After all, he thinks, we share a common problem: trapped, without even knowing why, and pointlessly struggling. He smiles bitterly before looking for a knife.

"We could find something to let that thing loose, need to stay away from it," Arty whispered as he nodded towards where the trapped rat was at. "DO you see a broom or mop we could use the handle of to open that trap?"

There's a dustpan and broom over in the corner, and certainly a goodly array of knives here one could choose from.

Since there are enough knives for everyone, Kate helps herself to one of them. That way, her scalpel can remain sterile in case she needs to do some impromptu surgery. "Should we check out the freezer?" she asks. "What do you suppose those symbols mean?"

When he looked about he saw the broom and dust pan. He rolled his eyes, and then walked over to the broom. He lifted and spun it about to where the tip of the handle was aimed at the rat and the trap. He took a moment and then moved it to where he could lever the trap upwards to let the struggling rat run from the trap.

"OK, run as fast as you can rat, you might be the only one who can find a way out of this trip." Arty chuckled as he said it.

The rat struggles free, half tumbles, rights itself and heads through a gap behind the dish cupboard.

"Alright, so we check the cooler? Or do we try to find another way out of this place? " Arty picked up one of the large cleavers and slipped it into his jacket's pocket. He looked about and tried to get a sense where things were located in this room in relationship to the building as a whole.

"I think we'd better take a look inside," says Kate. "We must leave no stone unturned."

Artemis nodded at his colleagues and then turned to the walk in freezer. He looked at the symbols and traced his finger over them from a distance. "Hmm, Fire...Earth and Incense - why would you mark the door with these symbols. Fire burns incense, but how do those relate to Earth, the planet not dirt? They don't seem to be wards... Do either of you see something we could use for a fire, just in case?"

He dropped his hand to the metal latch that held the door in place. Then switched hands to let his left hand pull the latch while he held his walking stick at the ready. Then he pulled the latch upwards and slowly opened the door.

Kate looks around. "Do either of you gentlemen smoke?" asks Kate. "Matches or a lighter would do in a pinch, and the cigarettes themselves could substitute for incense."

Arty shook his head no. "Love the smell of a good pipe tobacco, but no, not a singer."

The walk-in freezer holds empty shelves and a person, dressed in the clothes of a ladies maid, huddled in the corner and quite obviously dead. Her arms are frozen around her knees, as though she had sought to keep herself warm in the cold and the darkness. She has a letter bunched in her icy frozen fingers. There's a stand in front of her but nothing rests upon it.

"Oh, the poor dear!" gasps Kate, lowering her eyes. "I suppose we'd better retrieve the letter and read it. We don't all have to go in, though. Two of us can stay outside and make sure the door stays open."

Artemis looked in shock as he saw the huddled, frozen gray and blue form in the back of the freezer unit. His beam and the light from the kitchen illuminated the frost and ice covered fingers. He looked at Kate and nodded. "Agreed, you hold the door, I can go in and get the letter. "

He leaned his walking stick into the space created between the door and the jam, just in case and took his steps with some care as he walked to the back of the freezer. He tried to see if he could tell more about the woman, and then he carefully worked the paper out of her fingers taking time to not pull too quickly to avoid tearing it. When he got the paper free, he looked down, whispered "Peace be with you, miss. We'll let the authorities know you are here. Rest now."

He turned and walked back. He pushed the door slightly and pulled out his walking stick and stepped back into the light of the kitchen.

Kate makes sure the freezer door stays open while Artemis is inside.

Jonathan shakes his head after seeing the body, then walks away and places himself near the entrance, ready to spot any possible trouble before it hits them.

The letter is cold to the touch and slightly frozen together, as though frozen tears may have melded a few pages. It may be better to let it slowly warm up with body heat before you read it.

Architecture at no cost or Evidence Collection 1-pt,the room is smaller than it should be -- especially on the side with the cupboard that the rat disappeared behind.

Artemis stepped out of the walk in freezer and shivered. He turned to Kate and nodded with his head to indicate that she could let the door close.

"A letter or something, but it's frozen." He shivered again. Then cupped the letter into both of his hands and began blowing on it and the white fingers that cradled it. As he blew on them, the fingers began to slowly show the signs of blood flowing through them again. "Very sad to realize this was something she was keeping to her unfortunate end. He shook his head, sighed and a shiver ran through him. He blew again on his hands and the frozen paper.

Kate releases the freezer door. Warmer than Artemis, having not gone into the freezer herself, she takes the letter and holds it to her chest to warm it. "Maybe you could turn on the stove to warm the room up a bit," she suggests. "We'll just need to remember to shut it off before we leave."

Sure, shhh ahhh rrrreee", his words came out a jumble of long extended partial syllables as he watcher her press the paper to her chest. He looked about and carefully stepped to the stove his cane shaking with his hands as the blood began to push back the cold and the image of the frozen waitress. .""Sad, sad way to go, poor lady"

He approached the stove and tried to get his bearings on how the thing worked. He flipped the nob that would turn on the gas, waited for the pilot light to engage, and to start the expected flame.

It takes a moment but he gets the stove lit and they start warming up the letter. While they stand and wait for it to defrost, they feel a tremor run through the floor of the building as though a train were rumbling into the station. But there's no sound of the other train leaving nor a new train arriving...

"I don't understand how it feels like a train arrived, but nothing has changed here," Arty whispered as he hovered near the lit stove trying to warm his hands. "Surely, there is something that we have missed, something we stumbled in on and didn't realize when we did so?

Kate nods, suppressing a shiver. She checks her watch and the railroad timetable again to see if a train was scheduled to arrive at this time.

"Might very well be a ghost train, considering everything we've seen so far", Jonathan says in a flat voice, with no hint of a joke in it.

The schedule suggests a train should be pulling in right now.

More disturbingly, the schedule has aged somewhat.

"I wonder if the train that's 'pulling in' now is different from the train we boarded," says Kate. "I don't think it's a ghost train, but maybe it's from the past, somehow. Look, the schedule looks older than it did on board. It looked like it was from a different time, and that would explain why there were no blackout curtains."

"But, how do we go back into a different time by just stepping into a train? It's not making sense to me," Artemis asked as he continued to warm his hands. He stretched out his fingers and looked about the kitchen for any type of work schedule. Then he looked back down at the schedule Kate was holding. "How do you think that we get out of all of this?"

Kate shrugs. "I don't know," she says, "but I hope the letter might give some clues. I don't think we're going back in time, but maybe the trains are coming forward to our own time. That doesn't really make sense, and I could easily be wrong. It was just a thought."

Arty looked at her, nodded, and then added, "Miss Kate, things making sense really have not been the order of the day here of late, wouldn't you say?

He winked and had a grin on his face that belied the serious nature that his mind was trying to retain in processing what they had been through so far. Nothing was normal in this place, and the more bizarre it seemed to come. He looked down at the letter that was dethawing and asked, "Why don't we see if you can read that now."

Kate nods and checks to see if the letter has defrosted enough to read.

He looked about as Kate looked down at the letter.

"no new passengers disembarking, right Jonathan?" Arty asked in hushed tones to Jonathan.

Jonathan says: "More passengers... or not... I don't know what we should hope for, honestly", he then walks towards the broken door leading to the platform and takes a look outside.

"Any luck with that letter, Miss Kate?" Arty asked hoping that enough time and heat had helped to thaw the letter.

They finally manage to thaw the letter and unfurl it.

The letter seems to be a telegram that someone has written a copy from,MORALE IS LOW STOP FOUND METHOD TO PERK UP LONDON STOP PSYCHOLOCATIONAL SINK STOP RESPOND STOP

"Does any of that make any sense to either of you? " Arty rubbed his forehead and looked at the other two.

Kate shrugs. "Maybe they think they can cheer up London by funneling all the bad feelings here somehow," she says. "Not that that really makes sense."

"What the hell is a psycholocational sink? Some kind of device? Should we try and find it?", Jonathan scratches his head.

"Well, it's probably not that," says Kate, gesturing at the kitchen sink. "I'm afraid I haven't the foggiest what it is. We can look for it, but would we even know what it was if we found it? We might have seen it already and not recognised it for what it is."

"Would that help? Would that maybe be what is bringing the trains here that we don't really see?" He asked and then looked about. "Is there a date on that telegram? Sender anything else?"

"I haven't the foggiest what's going on or what would help," says Kate, examining the telegram to see if it has any other information on it. "I guess we just have to keep looking. There's a lot of this station we haven't seen yet."

"Alright, alright, I doubt the answer is upstairs. But, where would it be?" Arty asked and there was a tone of frustration laced within his question.

"I've no idea," says Kate. "We'll just have to check everywhere. Let's start with the ground floor, then. We'll make our way back to the main waiting room and go from there. Let's check the rest rooms and lounges first. We haven't seen them yet."

You can hear piano playing in the restaurant. It’s a cheery, yet slow, melody that seems somehow sad in contrast to your experiences. As though someone were playing the very essence of depressed nostalgia … that very feeling that nothing will ever be okay again … by reminding you that the world outside these walls are filled with happy things.

Kate quietly moves to the door leading to the restaurant and peeks through it to see who is playing the piano,

"What in the blue blazes is that?" Arty's whisper was a frustrated hiss as he followed Kate to the door and heard the music.

Jonathan moves close to the other two, shooting one last nervous glance to the platform outside.

The restaurant is warmer now. A fire blazes in the fireplace. You can see the man from the train is sitting at the piano, playing to himself and humming. A glass of whiskey rests on the top of the piano. He doesn't look over at you as you crack open the door.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58GQx4xEdlY

Kate pushes open the door and steps into the restaurant, relieved to be out of the freezing kitchen and to see a familiar face. However strange the man is, at least he isn't trying to kill them.

Jonathan walks into the room and towards the man: "Well, how pleasant to meet you again, Mr. Morgan". He throws in the name he found in the letter inside the train. He's not 100% sure that's the man's name, but it's worth a gambe. As he says the name, Jonathan watches carefully the man's reaction.

Please move to the restaurant.

"Vegetables, hmh," he realized that they hadn't looked into the smaller cooler. He gave a heavy sighed and stepped into the kitchen with his walking stick occasionally thumping hard onto the floor. He walked over to the stove and the neighboring cooler. He looked about and then opened the door, hoping that maybe a chilled bottle of wine or champagne might be inside.

Kate takes a look inside the fridge.

There's a lovely big iron range to one side, and a large fridge door to the other side, and a central table covered in vegetables ready for chopping. There's even a chopping board to one side, with a knife, as though it were in mid-use before the kitchen staff were called away. A pair of blue-and-white striped aprons hang from hooks to one side of the door with a little pocket in the middle of each one. There's a big steel door to a walk-in freezer that has some symbols drawn on it in dark colours, as though by a soot-stained finger. Naturally there's a stack of leaflets from the Ministry of Food endorsing healthy, if a little tasteless, alternatives which use more home-grown vegetables rather than imported varieties. The posters on the walls and free cupboard space would also do the Ministry of Food proud. There are also rat traps here and there.

Evidence Collection,The corner of one of the posters have charcoal stains upon them left by fingerprints. One of them has obviously been touched more often than the others.

Occult,These markings don't signify anything of great occult significance. There's the alchemy symbol for Earth, the hermetic symbol for Incense, and the alchemy symbol for fire.

• Delivery Door to Rear of Platform (broken down).
• Restaurant

Kate returns to the kitchen. "Let's check the cupboards," she says. "That's where we should find the cups and plates."

There's a tall cupboard filled with cups and plates in the top part and empty sacks in the bottom part. The cups and plates seem rather secured, in a manner reminiscent of a ship, so that they wouldn't slide about. But why would they slide about?

"There must be something behind them," says Kate, looking for a way to remove the cups and plates.

There are bands in place that hook them in using wooden pegs for anchors. It's relatively easy to remove the cups and plates. It looks like they're more secured against the whole cupboard moving rather than to prevent individual removal.

Kate removes the cups and plates, placing them carefully on the counter, and sees what's behind them.

She can see the wooden back of the cupboard. It seems solid.

Kate carefully examines the wood at the back of the cupboard for any possible hidden compartments.

The stranger helps her pull the cupboard out and away from the wall, revealing a staircase heading down, ending at a simple door. Along the wall stand four paintings, each with a small vase before them.

The woman holds an ailing man wrapped in blood-soaked bandages, a kindly look upon her face.

The woman stands over the dead woman's corpse, weeping, face covered in her hands.

The woman stands over a grave, surrounded by hundreds of grave markers. A priest can dimly be seen, barely etched out of the shadows, by the gravestone.

The woman kneels by a little girl, while planes are visible in the sky.

The woman stands tall, dressed in the uniform of the Air Raid Precautions warden.

"We need to place one of each type of flower in the appropriate vase," says Kate. "Let's see. The first vase should get the white stargazer lily. The woman is showing sympathy in that one's painting. The second gets the white chrysanthemum, because the painting shows death, lamentation, and grief. The third gets the white gladiolus, because it's used in traditional funerals. I think the white rose should go in the fourth one, because it represents youthfulness. And that leaves the white carnation for the last. Does that sound right to you? I'm not entirely sure. The gladiolus sounds like it might go with the ARP warden, but the carnation doesn't seem to fit with the third one."

"I'm not sure, but it sounds like a reasonable set of choices," said the stranger. "I must admit the temptation to just leave you to it is pretty high but ... in this instance I think I should like to stay."

"Thank you," says Kate. She places the flowers in the vases according to her original idea.

The lights from the above kitchen flickers and something clicks from the door down the stairwell.

"I think that did it?" asked the stranger. "Whatever it did...."

"Then down we go," says Kate, trying the door.

Kate opens the door into the cellar.

viewtopic.php?f=382&t=7431