Play@YSDC

Nik declines the protein bar, and the invitation. He takes another look around the room, and rubs his eyes.

"I think I could use some time at home, thanks. Let's do it another time" he tells Jose.

The agents can leave the apartment and building unmolested. Their first day of the investigation was done,and they had little to show for it. But perhaps that was a good thing? After fighting aliens and haunted houses, maybe a mundane cataloging of a mentally ill woman's belongings was just what they needed to readjust.

Yet the feeling still nagged-- DG had activated them for a reason. Was there something more going on here? At the moment it was impossible to tell. After a quick dinner the agents head home and spends the rest of their night in peace.

September 6th, 2000


The team returns to the Macallistar Building at 8AM sharp, ready if not eager to continue their work.

OOC:   Same plan as before guys, or are any of you planning to do something different? In the interest of making this not quite so tedious, if you want to do more than one search roll you can, one of you should just roll a 1d3 to determine how each collective search takes you to find anything of interest. Everyone who searches can roll search rolls equal to the number they decide to undertake. If anyone goes and does something else rather than search with their time, I'll deal with that and work to keep the timeline aligned. Somehow. Sorry for the slow start on this one btw, but I'm hoping it gets more interesting as we proceed. Of course, your agents may grow to appreciate the tedium.

Nik looks apprehensively around the apartment after he arrives, but so far doesn’t experience the unpleasant sensation from the day before. Taking off his jacket, he gets to work looking through the mess.

Search,Search time [url=https://orokos.com/roll/783310]Search[/url]: [u]1d3[/u] [b]2[/b] Search 44: [url=https://orokos.com/roll/783314]Search[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]2[/b]

Vanessa spends a couple of hours going through the material, but none of it makes any sense to her.

OOC,Search roll (57% skill) going through the stuff again: [dice]0[/dice]

Searching 20%,searchtime [dice]0[/dice] search 20% [dice]1[/dice]

José puts in solid 2 hrs of work, but just minutes into it all can hear he finds it frustrating as he doesn't find much to talk about.

The next two hours pass uneventfully. Of the agents, only Nik finds anything of interest. Behind a pencil sharpener he discovers an elegant page of cream-colored stationary glued to the shrine wall. It is crumpled, but new. The heading reads HOTEL BROADALBIN in an art-deco font. Scribbled in pen is a rudimentary map which shows a large building and various rooms that would be commonly found in a hotel. One elevator is specifically marked marked with
an X on the map, though no reason for the emphasis is given.

Off on the far end of the map, away from the hotel drawing itself, are various tunnels seeming to stretch out into some sort of maze. The path leads to a smaller X which simply reads, “bottle.”

Nik notices one more thing that is interesting. The address of the hotel matches up to that of the Macallistar Building. Despite this, the two buildings look nothing alike.

OOC:   Everyone can make a Forensics roll if they like to examine the paper.

On a success,The paper used and concealed press marks points to the map being printed in the early 1930's.

"More art" Nik says, unmoved by his find. He lays it with the other pieces and photographs it.

Forensics,Forensics 10: [url=https://orokos.com/roll/783526]Forensics[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]86[/b]

Vanessa has no idea what to make of the paper.

OOC,Forensics roll (80% skill) about the paper: [dice]0[/dice]

As the agents examine the paper there comes a knock on the door.

If any open it they find a man standing there. He looks middle aged and is dressed in slacks and a dress shirt that seem badly in need of ironing. He adjusts his crooked glasses and attempts a smile that comes out looking pained.

"Good afternoon. I'm hoping you can keep the sound down. I'm working on something very important, and there's been quite a bit of racket these past few days."

"Oh!" exclaims Nik, surprised by the request. He looks the man over.

"What sounds are you talking about? I wasn't aware we were making so much noise."

"Has there been noise in here for the past few days?" asks Vanessa. "We've only just started yesterday."

The man frowns.

"Well, no. The noise started yesterday. I had tried to ignore it, given Ms. Wright's ...situation, but when it continued today I had no choice but to come over. My work requires peace and quiet, and you are disrupting that."

The agents had spent the last two days pulling things from the walls of the apartment, some of the objects being quite large. It was entirely possible that some of the sounds would be amplified in the mostly empty apartment building.

"Yes, well," the man continues. "I assume this is official police business or some such, and I don't wish to disturb that. But if you could at least let me know how long this will take before you're done I would appreciate it."

Nik

“I’m sorry about the noise, we’re attempting to finish as soon as we can. While you’re here, sir, is there anything you can tell us about Ms. Wright and her situation?”

"I appreciate it," says the man, giving a hint of what might be a smile. If you squint.

"Well truthfully I did not speak to her much," he explains, readjusting his glasses which somehow still remain crooked. "She was quiet mostly, kept to herself. We saw each other from time to time and nodded, that sort of thing. I think in all the time I knew her we had two, maybe three conversations. She annoyed me a bit last Christmas, had a loud party here and I had to come over and get her to turn the music down. Other than that incident we had no issues. Her leaving so abruptly was a surprise, of course. Especially after her debut show apparently did so well some months back. But artists can be flaky people." The except me is unstated but implied.

"Have you ever seen her artwork?" asks Vanessa.

"Hmm," The man stokes his chin. "I believe she showed me a painting she did once. Central Park in Winter, or some such. It was nice. I'm not sure if she specialized in landscapes or if it was a one off piece but she had some degree of talent from what I could recall. She once asked me if I would be willing to take her on as an illustrator for my books, but I told her I had one and she laughed and told me she was joking. But her career seemed to have been taking off, so I suppose it's all a rather strange story." He can see into the apartment and seems to not be shocked by the state of it, perhaps indicating the police had already revealed it to him.

The man seems about to be about to leave, unless the agents have anything else to ask him.

“Actually, sir” says Nik. “We found some of her artwork. It doesn’t mean much to us, so maybe you might be able to give us an insight as to the meaning. Do you mind taking a look?”

Nik regards the man closely to watch his reactions.

"Please, sir," says Vanessa. "Your artistic instincts might give us some clue as to what happened to her. We're no artists, so we're not able to properly interpret her work."

OOC,HUMINT roll (57% skill) about the man: [dice]0[/dice] Persuade roll (73 - 20 = 53% skill) to convince him to look at the art: [dice]1[/dice]

"Well, I suppose if you really require my expertise, a moment cannot hurt. Fair warning however that I may not be able to tell you what she was getting at; paintings and literature are two different fields." It's quite obvious the one he views as superior.

Vanessa gets the feeling the man is slightly annoyed by the request and really wants no part of it, but will support a law enforcement investigation in whatever way he can.

OOC:   Assuming you guys show him everything:

The man looks over the map first. " Seems to be a map of the building. Some of the notes are odd though. 'Roses and Butter?` 'Door on 7/12?' I don't know what any of them mean." He seems genuinely perplexed. "Perhaps it's a type of code."

He looks just as confused by the Hotel Broadalbin map. "Seems to be of a hotel, I suppose? The address matches here, perhaps it used to be here before this became The Macallistar Building? I'm afraid I don't know much of the history of the area before I moved in five years ago. I'm from Virginia, originally."

The agents go to show him the odd diagrams they found that were labeled in Portuguese, but quickly realize that they are gone from wherever they were placed.