Music From a Darkened Room

[Anatomist]

Pow 50,[dice]0[/dice]

[Mr. Handy]

OOC,[b]Yarrow[/b] got a critical success on his POW roll (44 out of 50). Shouldn't that beat the house's normal success (apparently the 20 in the earlier post)? Initiative roll: [dice]0[/dice] [b]Nik[/b] got a 36, so he goes first.

[Silver Priest]

OOC:   Ack, right again Mr.Handy! I am so sorry I'm making so many mistakes recently guys, bit scatterbrained apparently. But yes, Yarrow actually beats the house roll, so he is not possessed. Which means he gets the axe, so i need to retcon.

The intrusive alien intelligence enters into Yarrow's head again, and he feels his consciousness being submerged under the malevolence of the Spooner entity. But he resists. He recalls nearly killing Vanessa under the influence of the house before, and is unwilling to lose control again. Summoning his entire willpower, he forces the manifestation out of his head and picks up the axe. Then he throws himself at the mirror. Vanessa cries out in a voice that is not her own and lunges for the professor, but it is too late. The last mirror shatters.

A terrible shriek rises throughout the house, and the air grows suffocating. But just as the agents feel they have made a terrible mistake the sound stops, and the atmosphere seems to grow lighter. The heavy gloom that they had barely been aware of previously dissipates, and the house grows quiet. Vanessa too comes to her senses, blinking rapidly as she looks around.

Finally, things seemed normal. And improbably the agents had apparently succeeded at vanquishing the force so many others had fallen prey to.

ooc,Congrats everyone. You all survived with your sanity intact. Well done. Vanessa can make one last san roll for being possessed, 1/1d4. Then everyone can make a san roll to regain san, 1d10.

[Mr. Handy]

Vanessa comes to her senses, relieved that their plan has worked and that the house has finally been defeated. "Well done!" she cheers. "Who says the house always wins?"

OOC,Sanity roll (current level 62): [dice]0[/dice] Sanity gain: [dice]1[/dice] Sanity increases to 68.

[HoneyDog]

Nik is relieved not to have to fight Vanessa.

"Thank god" he says. "Let's get the hell out of this place".

SAN,[url=http://orokos.com/roll/754563]SAN gain[/url]: [u]1d10[/u] [b]9[/b]

[Silver Priest]

As the agents speak, the axe Yarrow is holding onto turns to dust within his hands. It would seem destroying the mirrors and ridding the house of the evil within it took all of its energy.

Anyone who had a watch finds it is now well past 1 in the morning. Would the team spend the night in their hotel room or try and make it back to Frasier's farmhouse?

ooc,Everyone can make an idea roll as well. Success indicates that the body of Barbara Turner is still in the house. Leaving it here may not be the best idea since a neighbor did see them inside the house earlier. Chances are good they can remove it now without anyone seeing, given it is so late, but then they'd need to figure out what to do with the body. They could also call the police and report discovering her body, provided they could think of a good alibi for it.

[Anatomist]

failed SAN 41,[dice]0[/dice]

possible SAN gain,[dice]1[/dice]

failed INT 14,[dice]2[/dice]

[HoneyDog]

Idea,[url=http://orokos.com/roll/754604]Idea[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]17[/b]

Nik looks at wonderment at the crumbled ax.

"We did a good thing here" he tells the others. "This place was malignant. But we should think about what to do now".

He addresses Vanessa.

"There are people in town who can link us to this place - our friend Tony and that prick at the storage centre. I say that we tell the local police about our looking into Arthur Donnelly on a corruption beef, and when we came here we found the body of the real estate agent. In fact, let me do the talking; you're in no condition. Go back to the hotel."

He turns to Yarrow.

"Doctor, I don't think there is anything or anyone to link you to this apart from us. You should just go home. We'll keep your name out of it as much as possible."

He looks at both.

"Any objections?"

[Mr. Handy]

"We don't need to ruin the dead man's reputation," says Vanessa, "and the body being found here would raise more questions than if she were merely another missing person. Let's bring her to Frasier's place. He must have a way to dispose of dead bodies; I'm sure not all of his patients survive. Speaking of which, Dr. Yarrow and I should spend the next few days there ourselves, recovering like he recommended."

[HoneyDog]

“And what if we get seen sneaking her body out?” Nik replies. “And Frasier wasn’t exactly keen on having us there. I don’t think he’ll warm to us any further if we show up with a body for him to dispose of. Shit, Donnelly had no reputation, remember? He left in disgrace, his death judged a suicide. She was the real estate agent for this place, and bodies show up here all the damn time. They won’t think anything of it. What about her reputation? You want to turn her into landfill or pig food or something? She's blameless.”

[Silver Priest]

OOC:   Anatomist, You actually don't have to make a san roll to see if you passed, you automatically gain what you rolled on the 1d10 san.

[Mr. Handy]

"Well, that's true," says Vanessa. "My only concern is that we were seen here earlier. What do you think, Dr. Yarrow?"

[Anatomist]

What do you think, Dr. Yarrow?"

"I guess leaving her with Frasier makes the most sense, I can't see how he will deny us, he's already too involved. "

[HoneyDog]

Nik frowns at Yarrow.

“You want to be an accessory to disposing of a body? Just go home, Doctor.”

He turns back to Marchand.

“Of course we were seen earlier! We’re doing an investigation, and one of our number was injured. What’s the problem? We haven’t done anything wrong apart from break some mirrors and shoot Charley, and he’s not here. We need to clean up the blood. My point is that people in the town know that we were asking about the house, and I met with Barbara Turner. Our fingerprints are all over this place. If we just leave, people are gonna come looking to ask us questions. If we stay, we’re FBI agents investigating one of our own. Who’s gonna suspect us of anything? We didn’t hurt her. She killed herself.”

He looks around.

“I’m going to get something to clean up the blood. Either help me or leave. But we’re not moving that body.”

[Anatomist]

Yarrow sights "well do that then, I don't really care anymore. All I want is to get home. Hopefully I'll never get involved in something like this ever again!" And with that Yarrow starts walking toward the exit.

[Mr. Handy]

"All right, we'll do it your way," says Vanessa to Nik. She helps him stage the scene.

[Silver Priest]

Yarrow leaves the house without incident. He gets in his car and makes the drive back to his home.

Nik and Vanessa get to work cleaning up the scene. Both trained professionals, they do a decent job of cleaning up the blood.

ooc,Both of you can make a forensics roll, only one of you needs to pass to ensure there are no traces of anything that incriminates you. Even if you both fail, there's a decent chance the scene will be staged well enough no one will dig deeper. Can I get a brief summary of how exactly you plan to stage the scene? I'm thinking you want to make it look like Turner came to the house, destroyed the mirrors, and then hung herself. A bit bizarre, but the house has a history of bizarre suicides and accidents. Then do you want to call the police and report her death, or leave and come back during the day and "discover" her body then.

[Mr. Handy]

Vanessa's forensics expertise is more than good enough to make the scene appear as they want it.

OOC,Forensics roll (80% skill): [dice]0[/dice] That sounds right to me, but it's [b]Nik[/b]'s plan, so I'll let him describe it. I think we should stay here until dawn and then call the police, acting as though we'd just arrived. That way nobody can spot us leaving again.

[HoneyDog]

OOC,Sounds fine. I think the risk of attempting to move a body isn't worth it. This way we can account for our presence.

"Okay" says Nik. "I'll call the locals in a few hours and explain what we're doing, and that we looked at the house as Donnelly was interested in it. I'd met Turner before, so I recognised her body. You get out of here at the first opportunity, you need to rest."

[Mr. Handy]

"Okay," says Vanessa. "I'll go back to Frasier's to recuperate. It's what he wanted me to do anyway."