August 18 - 12.30 AM - The lighthouse

[robertod]

The lighthouse stands tall on the rocky edge of the breakwater. The structure is ninety feet tall and nearly twenty feet in diameter and can be accessed through the trail covering the breakwater. The structure is painted red and white, as if it were a prisoner there, standing alone in its jailhouse clothes.
The breakwater´s trail end at the lighthouse door. The footprints come from this door. They walk away from the lighthouse. They go to the nearby rocks, then they continue on the wet sand below. They go towards the rocks and end where the cave entrance is.
Apart from the entrance, the perimeter of the lighthouse is in contact with the sea rocks. Due to the low tide, the break water has no contact with the sea, whose wave are extinguishing far from the shore.
The door is closed with a chain and a lock. It is white painted like the wall is, but the paint already began to detach at various points.

[VictoriaSilverwolf]

"Let's see if anybody's home," Michael mumbles. He raps loudly on the door with the butt end of his pistol. "Open up! Got some hurt folks down at the sea cave!". Subtlety isn't his strong point, but he figures he won't act like this is a police raid until he finds out what's going on. If nobody answers after a while, he'll try shooting the lock open, the way they do in the gangster movies.

[robertod]

Nobody answers and Michael needs to shoot the lock open.
Behind the door is an iron spiral staircase going up. At the top is the lamp room. Nobody´s inside. The ceiling is high, and the lamp was placed upon a platform which is raised above the floor. The room is circular and has windows all around the perimeter.

The lamp is an old model that works throught a vaporized oil burner. The fuel is vaporized at high pressure and burned to heat the mantle, giving the output light. The lamp lacks a 'sun valve', which would automatically regulate the light and turning it off during the daytime.

On the table is a nautical chart of the Bay of Fundy. It is a graphic representation of the maritime area adjacent coastal Greyton and the nearby small Coney Island. The map shows depths of water, heights of land, natural features of the seabed (high density of kelp forests nearby Coney Island and Greyton), details of the coastline, information on tides, currents and winds.

There´s a telescope, but strangely, it is not pointed at the sea. It has been recently moved, as the dust on the floor suggests. It was placed in the opposite side of the room, in a point suited to observe the West Hills.

On the table is some gunpowder and burning dust, as if someone had recently cleaned a gun. There are books about the ecosystem of the Bay of Fundy. There are also books of astronomy, in particular about the periodicity of star constellations.

[jp1885]

Ivy peers down the eyepiece of the telescope, trying to work out what the lighthouse keeper (presumably) has been looking at.

[robertod]

She sees the church, the place where the group has met Father Colby.

[VictoriaSilverwolf]

"Not much here you wouldn't expect a lighthouse keeper to have,"Michael says. "Been lookin' at the church, huh? Maybe we better talk to the padre again. Looks like the lighthouse keeper's got a roscoe ready for use, too. Might be innocent, might not be. I'd like to track him down, too. Meanwhile, we better get back to the others and make sure Selma's OK."

[jp1885]

"Father Colby might be in trouble too, unless that's his crucifix you're carrying, in which case I'd say he's beyond our help."

"Wait a second before we go Michael."

Ivy takes a look through the books to see if anything has been marked, underlined or otherwise highlighted.

[robertod]

Yes, some parts of the books have aroused the reader's interest. They are underlined and marked with improvised bookmarks.

The Virgo constellation is the main focus of astronomy books with lots of images and drawings of the stars.

The biology books focus on fish migration in the nearby area and Atlantic as well. Who read them had perhaps some interest in maximizing the chances of good fishing. What is less obvious is a strange interest in the kelp algae. The reader was interested in the life cycle of the plant.

[VictoriaSilverwolf]

"Looks like our lighthouse keeper thought he was some kind of genius, like Luther Burbank or somethin'. Might wanna see if this kelp stuff acts like loco weed for the local hopheads. Those folks sure acted like they were out of their heads, anyway. Let's try to memorize some of this stuff and then get outta here." He studies the underlined and bookmarked passages to see if they give him any ideas.

Spoiler:

If either one is relevant:

INT = 88 [dice]0[/dice]Library Use = 49[dice]1[/dice]

[jp1885]

"The sign of Virgo again..."

Ivy mutters as she joins Michael in inspecting the book.

"I wonder if that kelp is something to do with those creatures that attacked us?"

She muses, impressed, and slightly put-out, that her colleague thought to make a note of the underlined paragraphs before she did.