2, Greeenapple Acre Cottage

[Rooter]

Spoiler:

Hard Luck = 30[dice]0[/dice]

Judith searches without success. As the unearthly light appears to head for the roof she peers up at the high beams in nervous apprehension, looking for a point of entry.

[evil_scientist]

Alister Sergeant

Alister joins the search for the hidden safe, relying rather on blind chance then methodical search:

Hard Luck 30%
[dice]0[/dice]

[Mr. Handy]

When Sean sees that there's nothing of interest up in the loft besides the lantern, he brings it back down. "I've worked with electricity before," he says. "Mostly with cars, but it's the same principle."

OOC,Spot Hidden roll (65 / 2 = 32% skill) searching the barn: [dice]0[/dice]

[Cearlan]

Don't know what happened with that last roll - I'll try again if that's alright?

Maynard's roll, 25%

[dice]0[/dice]

[Mr. Handy]

OOC,When a spoiler button control (like this one) has an apostrophe in the title, it becomes impossible to open it. You can still see the contents by quoting the post containing it, but the dice roll can't be seen that way unless the post is edited to remove the apostrophe and make the button's contents visible.

[Priest]

While the attention of most is still focused on the search for the safe Judith continues to search the roof for somewhere that might enable the ‘Light’ to enter the building. She sees nothing but a series of odd noises from above send shivers racing down her spine. Then Sean reappears from the hayloft holding an old storm lantern, so it may have been him that she had heard. Dorothy, the tension and ludicrous nature of the situation beginning to show, makes some strange comment about signaling to the ‘Light’. While Alister poking around in the opposite corner to Dorothy uncovers an old but well maintained motorcycle. Then all attention is focused on Keiffer who is digging at the floor behind the wooden stairs to the hayloft…

Within moments he has uncovered a small steel door set into a concrete surround that has been cunningly disguised to appear as nothing more than part of the floor. It seems he has found the safe. With the key it is but a momentary job to open the strongbox, the stiffness of the hinges and their screeching protest, would appear to show it has been several years since it was last opened. Inside carefully tied together by red string are several sheets of neatly handwritten medical notes, all showing signs of having been removed from their files and stored within the safe. The notes are dated showing that they cover several decades, the latest seems to date from 1923 and deal with a family called Whately.

Underneath these pages rests a leather bound journal. Other than a coating of dust the journal’s cover is blank showing nothing of interest. Opening it reveals it to be a rather uninspiring notebook of a type easily found in any stationary’s, the majority of which is still blank. However a swathe of pages have been carefully written on in the same neat handwriting as some of the older medical notes and a quick skim of the contents show that it deals with something often referred to as the ‘Devourer of Sins’. It seems that both doctors, Webb and his predecessor Martins, knew of this creature, though not its origin or true nature. There is no mention of where it had come from, or when it had first appeared, simply that it had been used to provide a simple solution to a problem that seemed to affect a number of influential families throughout the state.

It seems that amongst these ‘families’ there had been the occasional birth of ‘malformed’ or ‘unnatural’ offspring, unsuitable to carry the families name “unto the next generation”. And this ‘Devourer of Sins’ provided a simple, but effective, solution. A solution for which these families were willing to pay.

The journal goes on to provide details of just how such services were provided, but to read the whole thing is going to take several hours. Suffice to say that certain symbols were inscribed on the victim, and necessary, if archaic, rituals were enacted before the entity was encouraged from its box to devour the poor patient until “nothing but ashes remained”. Once this had been achieved the entity was enticed to return to its box, again by the use of these strange rituals the words of which are detailed phonetically within the text, carrying with it the ashes of its victim. Task completed the box was resealed, with ritually prepared wax, leaving none the wiser.

There is little discussion of the nature of the entity, or how to deal with an ‘escape’. For the most part the journal reads like some kind of bizarre recipe for a madman’s use. Were it not for the evidence of your own eyes it would be dismissed as the ramblings of some insane writer of fiction.

On the final written page of the journal, someone has written in tiny letters as a footnote;

“I have noticed that the entity shows some aversion to electricity. Maybe this can be used as means of control, I shall have to give this some thought”. There is nothing more to say whether the doctor had continued his researches.

Also within the safe are the following;
Around $600 in small bills; an account book for the Arkham First National Bank showing a balance of $19,000; and a small pot of some strange, funny smelling, black wax.

OOC:   I shall be away until Wednesday next, so there will be no updates before then

[HoneyDog]

Kieffer

“We need to perform this ritual and get that thing back in its box” he tells whoever is listening. “The wax must be used to seal the box once it’s inside. But this is going to take time – we need to distract the creature somehow. Does anyone know anything about electricity?”

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"So it's not just me," Dorothy says. "You think this thing -- this ball of light -- is some kind of living being, right? Maybe from Mars or something, who knows. If we can't communicate with it, maybe we can at least make ourselves a little safer.

"Here's what I figure. This thing punishes people who do bad things. 'Devourer of Sins,' right? That's what I think happened to the man who -- sorry, Emilia; the man who killed your grandfather. Probably a robbery attempt, then the thing came along to punish him. So first of all, nobody touch that money! And try to avoid anything that might even seem evil. Maybe this thing's got mind reading powers or something."

She hopes they don't think she's off her trolley.

[HoneyDog]

Kieffer looks hard at Dorothy.

“Yes, this thing is alive, in some fashion anyway. When it came at me, I could feel the hate in it. I don’t think it targets evil, I hadn’t done anything to it, I was just there. It wants to kill and we’re all at risk unless we find a way to keep it from devouring us.”

[Rooter]

Judith thinks Dorothy is off her trolley -- but she isn't so certain about her own sanity anymore, either. "Well there's plenty of electricity outside at the moment. When I saw that ... thing earlier I noticed that it dodged around between the lightning bolts."

[HoneyDog]

Kieffer

"Me too. It proves we can use electricity against it. And it doesn't matter if the thing is a living creature or not. We need to stop it before it kills us."

[Mr. Handy]

"I know about electricity," says Sean. "Maybe we can use it to herd and trap the light. I don't know, maybe it does go after sinners. I mean, everybody has sinned at some point or another. And that old lady at the diner might have been on to something when she saw it as an angel. Angels don't bear swords for nothing."

[HoneyDog]

Kieffer

“You might be right about that Sean. But it means the creature won’t be discriminating!”

He talks more urgently. “Sean, there’s a generator in the cellar. Do you think we could use that to protect us against the light? We also need to get the box the light was contained in. I left it in the kitchen, so I’ll be the one who gets it back.”

[evil_scientist]

Alister Sergeant

Alister finally regains his composure. He is shocked by the turn of events, but after seeing "empirical evidence" of the Light, he is more or less ready to accept it as a paranormal phenomenon... Which doesn't make the situation less scary.

"The generator must be very heavy, but I think two people can carry it..." he wonder, trying to remember the size of the portable generator. He gulps. "I am ready to be one of those people, because I've been down the cellar already."

[Mr. Handy]

"I'm fairly strong," says Sean. "I can come too to help carry stuff. It sounds like it'll take two of us to lug the generator and a third to carry the box."

[Cearlan]

Maynard steps forward. "I can carry the box or the generator, whichever is best."

[HoneyDog]

Kieffer

“The box only needs one person to carry it. And maybe instead of taking the generator away, we just use it where it is?”

He addresses Maynard.

“Sir, maybe you could take the box. You’ve seen it I believe. I will distract the creature to give the rest of you a chance to get to the kitchen and the cellar.”

[Cearlan]

Maynard nods in acquiescence.
"Of course I'll get the box now then if we are all ready to go before something else bad happens."

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Electricity, huh?" Dorothy scruffs her feet on the floor. "It may not help much, but I can build up some static and zap that thing if it gets too close!"

[Mr. Handy]

"I doubt static will be enough," says Sean. "I wouldn't take a chance on it unless there was no other choice, anyway. We need that generator to provide enough juice to be sure of affecting it."