Play@YSDC

Once the ritual is done, the boat leaves. It has an engine that makes a deafening noise. As they get close to the island, Weeks speaks to say all that he knows about the place. He say this as if talking about things that happen on a distant continent.

"There´s a village there called Flowerege. Those folks don´t feel like going anywhere far from there. The Anderson own everything here... schooners.. boats... I mean.. stuff.. the Anderson just own. That´s it. We do the job and then Michaud exports. That´s the way things go. The Andersons know many things of the sea. They know her well. They know where the scrods migrate and they tell us. Sawney, the lighthouse keeper, he goes to Coney Island every now and then. He goes there to know what the Andersons have to say. And then he talks to us. But, no.. we never meet anyone in the island. There´s a small port there, I will drop you there "





Coney Island is a tiny island, measuring about sixty square miles. A hill in the center roughly divides the territory into two coastal areas. One side is the coastal region facing Greyton. Here lies Flowerege, the only human settlement of the island. The other coast lies hidden beyond the hill, and faces the open sea. Flowerege begins at the foot of the hill, occupy part of the coast and meet the sea with its small harbor. A mixed broadleaf and conifers forest starts from the top of the hill, flanks the village on both sides, and ends before the land meets the sea rocks. A tangle of ferns and shrubs makes the forest undergrowth, which probably have never met the passage of man.

Flowerege looks like a small and insignificant human settlement, which dared to challenge the undisturbed and indifferent nature, still reigning in the other parts of the island. It doesn´t seem to exist any trail connecting the village to anything else in the island. Like Greyton, the whole village is wrapped in the mist, suffering the same persistent weather condition caused by the Bay of Fundy habitat, although the fog here is much lighter than in Greyton.

The small port looks the only entry and exit point for the isolated inhabitants. The port consists in nothing more than an old wooden pier. Since the tide has lowered during the travel, part of the squalor of such a structure is revealed, as composed by twisted wooden legs being fully conquered by aquatic plants and mosses. The smell of decomposing sea life fills the air, while dozens of seagulls flitting over the harbor like hungry vultures. Many stand on the pier to clean their feathers or consume their freshly hunted fishes.
Some old rowing boats are moored at the pier. There are fishing nets inside, piled chaotically along with with rusted harpoons. The waters near the port are calm and turbid like those of a swamp. The soft sound of the waves is barely perceptible, being covered by the strong and repetitive croaking of the seagulls. Nearby the pier, two fishermen with straw hats are sitting on the rocks and holding a long fishing rod in their hands. They stare at the floating hook, ignoring whatever else might happen around them.

At northwest there are two houses separated from the main group of village homes. Between them and the rest of the village is a field dotted with trees, so that the two houses are partially hidden to the rest of the town. One of these two houses, the largest, is a mansion, but seems to have been abandoned long ago. This is also the only building built in bricks. Beyond the mansion, begins a more dense moorland made of grasses, ferns, shrubs and, nettles. With a careful look, the group notice there are wooden ruins lying beneath the moor, buried by the overgrown vegetation. These are remains of abandoned and forgotten dwellings. The town must have been much bigger long ago.

The boat approaches the small port and the noise stops. When the noise ends, the group realizes that the village is surrounded by a peaceful silence. The two men fishing nearby the docks seem indifferent to the characters arrival.

"And I thought Greyton was a miserable place..."

Relieved that the journey had been uneventful, Ivy peers over the side of the boat as they near Flowerege and inspects the pier.

"I suppose we just hove into port and go say hello?"

"Yes, that's probably our best bet," says Kathryn. "I'm curious about that mansion, too. Maybe it's not as deserted as it looks."

Emma takes in the view. "Hopefully the people here won't be as drab as their home."

The old fisherman approaches the boat so that the investigators can step on the pier. He says he will wait for them on board. Seen from close up, Flowerege is town of small extent, with apparent dearth of visible life. Scarcely a wisp of smoke come from the tangle of chimney pots. Time seems to have stopped. The only thing witnessing the passage of time is the inevitable decadence and decay of the town itself.

The steeple looms stark and unpainted against the foggy seaward horizon. It is crumbling down at the top. There´s only a black gaping hole where a clock should have been. Many roofs had wholly caved in. The vast huddle of sagging gambrel roof and peaked gables suggests the idea of wormy decay. Here and there, the ruins of wharves jutted out from the shore to end in indeterminate rottenness. There are a few hundred homes, and they are arranged irregularly. The houses are wood made. Many homes were built with damp, rotten and moss-covered planks. Courtyards have piles of stacked wood.

The streets are dirty and dotted with tufts and small stones. There's no source of street lighting. There aren´t many people on the streets either. People wear dirty clothes looking like patched rags, not much different from what the serfs used to wear in the past. Men have a beard and long hair, as if left to grow as a result of pure indifference to the body care. Women are not better dressed and their head is covered by a scarf. The villagers look at the foreigners with a quick glance, a rude and instinctive gesture that shows no curiosity.
There´s a group of four men that are gathered around a bench in the square. They are gathered as if they were having a discussion, but they are mostly exchanging glances and just occasionally they utter a few words, after giving a quick glance to the strangers with passive indifference. Silence reigns all around only disturbed by the sporadic sounds of seagulls fluttering over the seashore.

"Maybe we should talk to some of the women first," suggests Kathryn.

"I'll speak to the women - they seem a little more respectable than the menfolk."

Ivy shudders as a troubling thought occurs to her.

"Maybe because they're all 'wives' of that thing in the cave... Still, we'll get nowhere standing around here on the jetty."

Without further ado, she strides off the address the nearest group of women.

To talk to the women, the investigators must approach the courtyard of a house. Here they find two women sitting on the ground. They are probably in their thirties, even if their damaged skin makes them look much older. They watch Ivy with astonishment and fear as she approaches.

Kathryn follows Ivy and approaches the women. "Hi!" she says with a wave. "Would you mind if we talked to you?"

OOC,Charm roll (55% skill) to get the women to talk: [dice]0[/dice]

At the same time, Michael approaches the group of four men. He holds out a fistful of the cheap cigars he always carries.

"Anybody want a smoke?" He gestures at the sea. "Fish bitin' today? I heard this might be a good place to drop a line, thought I'd check it out for myself."

Ivy stands next to Kathryn and tries to smile.

"It's okay, we won't bite."

She casually looks around to see if anyone is watching.

Spot hidden 65% pass,[dice]0[/dice]

The women are confused and disoriented, as if those newly arrived strangers were speaking a language that they do not properly understand. It seems they have never seen anyone with their ways and clothing. One of them nods her head.

Ivy,the other inhabitants around take a look and do it with some little fear, mostly because the group is like aliens to them. However, none of them watches the group furtively.

Feelng a little more at ease, Ivy tries to communicate with the women some more. She points to herself.

"Ivy. My name's Ivy."

Then she points to one of the women.

"Your name?"

"I'm Kathryn," says Kathryn, pointing at herself.

One of the woman speaks, now watching the investigators with distrust.
"Me is Kate. You from far. Why you here?"

"We're looking for a little boy," says Kathryn, showing the women a picture of Timothy. "Have you seen him?"

While waiting to see if the men respond at all, Michael takes a look at the women to see how things are going over there.

The woman looks at the photo several times, struggling to remember, as if calling back such details
has really nothing to do with her existance.

"A guy from the sea"

She point at the sea, at the direction of Greyton

"The boy was with him around here. We not know where gone... things of the Andersons..
We don´t know.. we don´t care."

Ivy tries to hide her impatience with this lacklustre woman.

"Well, what do you care about?"

The woman answers, but seems to find the question strange.
"Me... ´bout my cow's milk ... and the wheat in the field. It´s two moons still ´fore the harvest...
and then.. I care the others get fish.. you got food where you come from? Is that why you are here?"

"What did the guy from the sea look like?" asks Kathryn. She describes Carson. "Did he look like that?"

The woman say no with the head.
"The man you look for comes here every week. Comes from over the sea every week. The grains of our fields ... they do something with them and then they make barrels.. a lot of barrels. The man comes from the sea to pick the barrels.. then goes back to the sea... he needs to do that... because of the fishes we take from the sea."

She says this the way a tribesman would speak of his mythic life cyrcle.

"Was the boy with him?" asks Kathryn.

Figuring these guys are just a bunch of numbskulls, Michael casually strolls over to the womenfolk to see what's going on.

The woman shakes her head.
"The boy was with the man today only. They being here the sun was a little higher in the sky. Other days, this man took the barrels at the dock to put them on his boat. Never came near here."

"What does the man's boat look like?" asks Kathryn. "Is it still here on the island?"

Growing increasingly impatient with these slow-witted locals, Ivy keeps tight-lipped while the others ask questions, lest she lose her temper.

"Small boat .. only the man and child"
The woman points her finger at a point on the beach, to the west.
" Overthere... near the Jennings' house ... the one in front of the Anderson's big house."

Another woman is staring at Ivy's jacket with curiosity. She notes that it looks very different from her vest, which is made from rough wool. She asks Ivy:
"What kind of animal you killed to get this?"

"Thank you," says Kathryn with a smile, now having confirmed that they are both still on the island. "Do you know which way they went from there?"

Ivy can no longer help herself.

"It's a little thing called 'tailoring'," she snaps. "Now, the boy and the man: you say they went to the Jennings House? Who is Jennings?"

The woman responds with a tone of vagueness.
"He was a young man, fair hair. Yes the child was with him. They walked coming from the beach and I saw them.. They were heading to the Jennings' house oh mybe to the Andersons. They walked in the moor and I not see them nomore. Something goes behind other thing no way to see it nomore."

The other woman looks at Ivy with her mouth ope, like a curious pupil.

"Oh ... and how you feed this tayloring? You eat it after you kill it?"

When he has a chance, Michael will draw Ivy aside, nodding and smiling at the women to indicate that he's no danger to them.

"These dames are inbred. The guys are even worse. Score one for the suffragettes, I guess. Anyway, they haven't got enough brains among them to have built a halfway decent house. We've gotta talk to these Jennings and Andersons. They might be something like the feudal lords over these poor dopes."

"Thank you, ladies," says Kathryn, now that she has the information they need. "Her jacket is made from wool. It comes from a sheep, but you don't have to kill the sheep to get it. You just shear the wool off. Then it grows back and later, you can do it again."

Fighting hard to keep her cool, Ivy is glad of Michael and Kathryn's intervention.

"These people are positively prehistoric!" she mutters. "I agree - clearly there's nothing to be gained from talking to them any longer. Shall we try the Jennings House next?"

"Yes, let's go," says Kathryn walking away with her. When they're out of earshot, she continues. "Imagine not knowing about sheep and wool. I'm a city girl, but even I know that."

As they head for the Jennings place, Michael notices the inn off to the side.

"Now who in blazes would want to stay in this godforsaken place? We better check out that inn over there, too, see who's been visiting lately."

“Good point; we’ll need somewhere on this god-forsaken rock to stay, more’s the pity. Let’s go to the inn first.”