Play@YSDC

Henninger walks Laurent down to Pointe Pierre. Most of the fishing boats have returned for the day but he can see Pierre Lavigne is pulled up against the pier with his father working on something in the boat. The sun is low in the sky now and lends the water a red glow.

"Pierre!" calls Laurent, waving. "We were looking to take a boat out to sea. Is yours available?"

Pierre wanders over to Laurent, 'Oui, oui, maybe if you could look at the engine, it's making a funny blue smoke but still seems to be working. If you fix it I'm sure my father will let us take it out for a while, before it gets too dark.'

"Sure, that's what I'm good at," says Laurent. He examines the engine, cracking his knuckles and setting to work.

Roll to repair the engine (1 human die, 1 occupation die):
2d6

There's a simple block in the fuel line and Laurent clears it easily. He takes enough time to make sure it looks like a serious piece of work however. Fabrice is very grateful and readily allows Pierre to take Laurent out onto the water.

'So where're we going?' asks Pierre.

"We're going out to try to contact Agoué," says Laurent. "We need to find out what is wrong in his domain and what we need to do to set things right. Then the loa will calm down. It is too dangerous to have him ride someone. That will just give an opening for the Gèdé again."

To Laurent's explanation all Pierre can say is 'Oh.'

He busies himself readying the boat and then casts off from the landing platform into the water. He starts the motor and the two cruise in silence out of Pointe Pierre and into the middle of the bay.

Eventually he kills the engine and lets the boat float. 'Now what?'

"I'm not sure," says Laurent. "Maybe we need to call out to him?"

Pierre looks sceptical. 'You go first then.'

"Oh, great Agoué!" calls Laurent. "We wish to aid you in setting things right! We apologize if we have offended you! Please come and speak to us, that we may know your will and accomplish it!"

The two of them sit there for a few minutes, the boat floats on the still water, bobbing slightly. Eventually Pierre can't hold it in any longer and bursts out laughing. 'Any better ideas?'

OOC:   I think this would be an Insight die roll to contact Agoue. Don't think the Human or Professional dice would apply here. So you'd need to roll an Insight check after.

"Actually, I might," says Laurent, thinking.

Roll (insight die) to contact Agoué:
1d6
Insight roll (current level 4) for using insight:
1d6

Laurent remembers the chant of the congregation in the Hounfor, 'Agoué, O Agoué Woyo. Li sorti nan mer la. Canon ii chargé Canon ii chargé' pou tire.' Maybe that will get his attention.

Laurent repeats the chant.

Laurent intones the chant, 'Agoué, O Agoué Woyo. Li sorti nan mer la. Canon ii chargé Canon ii chargé' pou tire.' Nothing happens. The sun continues to shine, the boat bobs on the water. He repeats it, 'Agoué, O Agoué Woyo. Li sorti nan mer la. Canon ii chargé Canon ii chargé' pou tire.'

He goes to pause, and see the effect of repeating the chant but Laurent finds himself unable to stop. His lips, his tongue, his vocal cords, they continue with a will of their own. 'Agoué, O Agoué Woyo. Li sorti nan mer la. Canon ii chargé Canon ii chargé' pou tire.' Then again. 'Agoué, O Agoué Woyo. Li sorti nan mer la. Canon ii chargé Canon ii chargé' pou tire.'. Louder and louder. 'Agoué, O Agoué Woyo. Li sorti nan mer la. Canon ii chargé Canon ii chargé' pou tire.'

Where before the sky had been bright, the sun still well above the horizon, now a darkness descends. Clouds roil in across the sun. The water bubbles and boils. The boat bobs and then bucks. A gentle rain turns quickly into a torrent, water beginning to pool in the bottom of the boat.

'Agoué, O Agoué Woyo. Li sorti nan mer la. Canon ii chargé Canon ii chargé' pou tire.'

'Agoué, O Agoué Woyo. Li sorti nan mer la. Canon ii chargé Canon ii chargé' pou tire.'

Laurent reaches a crescendo as a flash of lightning arcs out of the clouds to illuminate the darkness in stark white light. Crashing thunder like the sound of multiple rifles or cannons fills the air, deafening and disorientating.

A hundred yards beyond the boat a slight depression appears on the glistening skin of the water. Like a slowly opening eye it grows in diameter. Now a smooth round hole ten feet across, and around it the water is roiling and bubbling, and moving, revolving about the centre. Now twenty feet across and moving more quickly. Now thirty feet and spinning like a whirlpool. The boat caught up in the currents and beginning to circle the expanding core.

Pierre grips the sides of the boat and shouts something to Laurent but his voice is drowned by the roar of the sea and the constant crashing thunder.

The small fishing boat is circling the whirlpool more and more rapidly, drawing closer and closer from the rim towards the centre with each revolution. Laurent thinks they will be drawn into the centre of the whirlpool and dragged under the water like a fly sucked down the drain of a monstrous bathtub.

Then the smooth flat surface of the spinning centre ripples and darkens. The water lifts, and bows, and starts to pour off some surface. A dark shape is rising from the centre of the whirlpool. Large and dark. It rises slowly but inexorably out of the depths. When it eventually stops moving water continues to gush from the top and down the sides to splash noisily into the sea. It is a ship. A vast, hulking ship of black rotting wood and rusted clamps of iron. There is a smell. The smell of salt and mildew and pitch. And underneath that the scent of faeces and disease and blood. The unmistakable odour of death and suffering and fear. The only illumination is the frequent flashes of lightning framing the view in a series of frozen images. The constant roar of water and thunder. Laurent doesn't know why but seeing the vast, oppressive hulk he can't but think of the great ships that brought his ancestors to the shores, as slaves and chattels, the bodies of those who didn't make it flung overboard.

Then...

Silence

No rushing water. No thunder.

And light. From somewhere. Not the sun. Not lightning. But a glow.

And at the prow of the ship stands a man. He's tall. Wearing some kind of uniform. Like a military dress uniform or a modern ship's captain. He looks down from the ship at Laurent. And Laurent knows he's looking at him. Right at him. Laurent feels seen. Seen inside and out. It is not a pleasant feeling. But he can't tear his eyes away. can't look around him. Can't force himself to see what has happened to the water. To the sky. To Pierre. There's just him and this man. Agoué. He knows it's Agoué. What else or who else could it be? Agoué. Just standing there at the prow of his ship. Looking at him. Seeing him.

"Great Agoué!" says Laurent, getting on his knees. "I have heard there is trouble in your domain. I come to ask you what it is, and what we can do to make things better. I am ready to serve you."

The eerie silence is immediately shattered by a cacophony of harsh noise. Like machinegun fire inside a tin-shed, or a fusillade of cannons. The noise hurts Laurent's ears, his head pounds, his teeth rattle. And through the noise he hears something more, like speech, only not words. Agoué is talking to him, he's not hearing it exactly, but somewhere in the incessant, deafening noise there is meaning.

But Agoué doesn't open his mouth. He doesn't move, There he is, on the prow of the rotting ship. But at the same time he's right in front of Laurent, in the boat. Even though he seems to be right in front of Laurent he gets little but the most superficial sensation of what Agoué looks like, a black man in a bright white uniform, handsome maybe, but indeterminate age. But all Laurent's attention is on the eyes, green eyes, green like the depth of the sea, the surface roiling with dark storm clouds, and at the corners, plump salt-water tears run down his face.

In those green eyes Laurent finds himself plunging under the water. His own eyes sting from the salt. Deeper he goes, the pressure building around him, the ache in his lungs increasing. The desire to take a breath, but he knows he cannot. Deeper still. The light diminishing the deeper he goes. His eyesight adjusting to the dim waters he sees dark shapes rise around him, and he levels out, swims through the undersea forest of coral formations and ferny, waving things, their fronds sensuously stroking his body as he swims between their undulating caresses. Bright fishes darting in and out through the plants and coral. Looking under him the sea floor is as white - or is it black? - as the velvet cloth in a jeweller's showcase. Shell-shaped gems and glittering star things only inches below his eyes. A Salvador Dali world.

His lungs burn now. And it takes every ounce of mental strength he has not to suck in the seawater in one long breath. Up ahead something white reflects the flashes of light from the surface. It's a boat, a modern twin engined cruiser, painted bright white. The Ti Maman, George Benson's boat. Keel snapped in two, the front of the boat sits upright on the sea floor, the stern twenty yards away and embedded in the sandy seabed. As Laurent gets closer he can see that there are people...bodies still in the boat. He swims closer to take a look but something in the distance attracts his attention. Movement, a swimmer maybe? Like him, deep under the water.

He swims towards it and then finds himself much further than he could possibly have swum. Like he was there, and now he has just been transported here. The banal everyday rules of motion seemingly irrelevant down here. And before him he can see grotesque, twisted coral formations, a fantasy world where hundreds of small fish and a few large ones swim lazily around natural castles, towers, spires and bridges. And beyond them a black opening in the coral. A cave? It reminded him of exploring a wild labyrinth of caves with his friends at a place called Terre Noir. They'd gone in high spirits, all excited, but the deeper they went the quieter it got, their jokes dried up, and eventually they'd turned and fled, never speaking of it again. Laurent doesn't want to go into that cave. Into the ominous darkness. But he finds himself swimming towards it, faster and faster. He feels more and more anxious, he remembers the feeling in that cave in Anse Douce, the crooked smile of that fissure in the rock, the feeling of unease, that something is just wrong. The fish up ahead, in the distance, he looks at them more carefully, they're not fish, they're something else, ugly, frightening, round unblinking eyes...

In an overwhelming rush of panic Laurent gasps down a deep breath. The salty water rushing through his nose and mouth and into his lungs. The sudden sensation of cold water in his mouth, in his chest, choking him, the salty, stinging taste. His vision blackens at the edges then constricts to the narrowest of tunnels. Everything is fuzzy and then darkness.

-----

Heaving up a mouthful, Laurent rolls onto his side and vomits a copious quantity of salty water. It gushes down his clothes and onto the floor of the boat. Pierre looks at him with a mixture of disgust and concern. The sun is a little lower in the sky but there are no clouds, the boat bobs gently in the bay. No sign of a hulking slave ship. No sign of Agoué. A few gulls wheeling overhead.

'Are you okay?' asks Pierre. 'Did you eat something off? You'd better help me clean out the boat or my dad will kill me.'

OOC:   Make an Insight roll for seeing Agoué and the sights under the sea

"Agoué showed me a vision of what was under the sea!" gasps Laurent. "I must tell it to the houngan! He will know what it means and what to do."

Insight roll (current level 4) for the vision:
1d6

Pierre shrugs and starts the engine back up again. He's muttering to himself, 'Motor out into the middle of the bay, shout out "Oh, great Agoué!" then vomit in the boat. You're practically a houngan already.' Once they're heading back in towards the shore Pierre finally looks at Laurent, 'A vision? Vision of what?'

Laurent describes his vision for Pierre as he cleans up the mess he made. "I think we may need to go diving and find the wreckage of the Ti Maman and that cave under the water later, but Auxian Ramses will know for certain," he says.

Pierre looks at Laurent with incredulity. 'Diving for the Ti Maman? You're listening to too many of those American radio dramas!'

-----

They motor in to Pointe Pierre as the sun dips into the sea at the horizon. The sky rapidly darkening. Most of the fishermen have long gone home but one or two remain on the shore, patching up their nets and boats.

Back in his usual spot under the malou tree is old Pierre Labas. He's strumming and slapping his guitar while his little black and white dog lies outstretched on the ground in front of him. It's difficult to hear what he's singing, and it's nothing Laurent recognises. It seems to be in Spanish, something like 'rompiendo la monotonia del tiempo.' Seeing Pierre and Laurent pull up he gives a big smile, revealing bright white teeth through his leathery lips.

"Bonsoir, Pierre," says Laurent, smiling back. "Have you ever seen Agoué?"

Labas pushes his straw hat to the back of his head then starts strumming his guitar, it's a simple blues riff. He sings in English:

• 'Early this mornin', when you knock on my door
  Early this mornin', ooh, when you knock on my door
  And I say, "Hello, Satan, believe it time to go"
  
  Me and the devil, we was walkin' side by side
  Me and the devil, ooh, we was walkin' side by side'

Then he stops singing and just continues to pick out a simple tune on the guitar. His dog sits up, ears raised, watching him.

'Se pa kesyon an, ti gason mwen an, se pa kesyon an. Thas no question boy. Question is, have you?'

"The answer is yes," says Laurent. "I called upon him when we were out at sea, and he showed me a vision."

The tune played by Labas subtly shifts and Laurent detects an old jazz standard. A bit too popular for his tastes. Labas sings again, his voice unusual, much higher than his usual deep and rough tone.

• 'How much do I love you?
  I'll tell you no lie
  How deep is the ocean?
  How high is the sky?
  How many times a day
  Do I think of you?
  How many roses
  Are sprinkled with dew?
  
  How far would I travel
  To be where you are?
  How far is the journey
  From here to a star?
  
  And if I ever lost you
  How much would I cry?
  How deep is the ocean?
  How high is the sky?

Pierre Labas chuckles to himself. 'Sa sa vle di?' What it mean boy. What you think Agoué mean?'

"Something under the sea has upset him," says Laurent. "Where the Ti Maman went down, he showed me a cave. I think that's where the trouble is."

Labas breaks out in a roar of laughter. 'An you boy, you going to swim under the water? Find that cave? Like them American divers on St Albin?'

He gives a throaty cough and then starts playing and singing again. His eyes unfocused and staring out into the middle distance.

• 'How much do I love you?
  I'll tell you no lie
  Deep is the ocean
  More deep than the sky
  
  How far would you travel
  To go where you're sent?
  And if you should find it
  Would you regret that you went?
  
  And if I ever lost you
  How much would I cry?
  How deep is the ocean?
  How high is the sky?

Laurent laughs too. "I didn't know you could read minds," he says. "That's exactly what I was thinking of doing! But first I want to talk to the houngan."

Labas nods, he continues to strum on his guitar and the song shifts back to the blues riff he was playing earlier. His dog sits up and looks at Laurent, right into his eyes. Labas has a strange look on his face. Sad maybe, haunted. He looks very very old.

• 'Early this mornin' there's a knock on the door
  Early this mornin', ooh, knock on the door
  Said, "Hello, it's Satan, an' now it's time to go"
  
  Him and the Devil, was walkin' side by side
  Him and the Devil, ooh, was walkin' side by side
  And now the Devil got him, ain't gonna be satisfied
  
  They may bury the body down by the highway side
  They may bury the body, ooh, down by the highway side
  But that old evil spirit will catch a camion and ride'

"Do you think Agoué is the devil?" asks Laurent.

Suddenly stopping his strumming, Labas leans the guitar against the mapou tree and taps out his pipe. Struggling to his feet he leans heavily on his short cane. He walks slowly, painfully up to Laurent. Staring directly into his eyes, the old man's stale breath washing across his face.

'Oh ti gason. Ou dwe wè pase sifas la. Gade anba. Mande kiyès Dyab la? Sa se move kesyon an. You don't understand little man. Ask is Agoué the Devil? That the wrong question. That the white man question. There no Devil. Question is what the Devil for? What Bondye want?'

"He spoke no words," says Laurent, "but he showed me a vision." He describes what he saw.

Labas chuckles. 'Sound like Agoué. Too hoity-toity to jus' come out an' say what he want.'

"What do you think he wants?" asks Laurent.

He shrugs. 'You talk to him, not me. But kesyon I be asking is why Agoué can't sort it out himself?'

"That is a good question," says Laurent. "Are there rules by which he has to play? Maybe he's not allowed to do certain things, but we can do them for him."

Laughing, Labas says, 'Rules? Maybe. Or he too much of a gentleman to get his hand dirty.' Then he shudders slightly and looks out to sea. 'Or maybe there some things scare even Agoué.'

"If they scare him, how are we supposed to deal with them?" asks Laurent.

He smiles at Laurent, but it's a thin, grim smile. 'Maybe humans too stupid to get scared? Don't know no better.'

Laurent laughs dryly. "That's certainly true," he says. "Thank you. I'll see what the houngan has to say."

He shrugs and sits back down. 'You do that boy, you see what he got to say.'

"I will," says Laurent. "Au revoir." He leads the younger Pierre back to the houngan.

It's pretty dark by the time Pierre and Laurent arrive at the hounfor. There's no street lighting in Dame Marie and what little illumination there is comes from the moon or the lanterns in people's windows. The hounfor is particularly dark. No lights visible. Banging on the door brings nobody. There's no sound from inside.

Laurent tries the door to see if it's locked.

Turning the handle, Laurent feels no resistance. Giving the door a little tug it begins to open. It wasn't locked.

Laurent takes a look inside.

The door swings open. The air inside the building is still. He walks slowly through the narrow corridor, the decorations lining the narrow space, strips of cloth and sack, shells and animal skulls, they all look a bit more sinister than before, leering at him in the darkness.

There's the slightest tang of smoke and incense but nothing recent. He looks into the room with the black tin cross riveted to the wall, where Lazaire had been. There's no Lazaire. No cot. Nothing.

Going through to the hounfor proper, with its earthen floor and brightly painted walls, that too is empty. He looks around, but there's no Lazaire, no Ramses. There's a few wooden stools and chairs, a couple of drums, candles, bowls, spoons, water jars and other things used for offerings.

Pierre has followed Laurent in. While Laurent is searching the room for anything, Pierre points at the blue-painted wooden column in the centre. 'What's that?'



Now his attention is drawn, Laurent can see that someone has drawn something on the pole. It's a small drawing, in some kind of paint. It seems to be a bearded man with the lower half of a fish, like a merman. The pain itself is very dark but the image has been made with some skill.

"Look at this," says Laurent. "I think Auxian must have painted it."

Does it look like something I saw in my vision?

The painting doesn't look like anything Laurent saw in his vision. Those things were...fish-like, even remembering those round, unblinking eyes makes him shudder involuntarily. But this, this is just a drawing of man's torso and a fish's tail. It's skilfully drawn, but doesn't really look like it represents anything real. It's more...representational, like a motif, like the veve of the loa. But the veve are much more abstract.

The only things that Laurent has ever seen represented like this are mermaids and mermen. Lasirenn is sometimes drawn as a mermaid, a sirèn, so conceivably this could be Agoué, although he's never seen him depicted this way.

OOC:   You can roll to see if you remember seeing it anywhere else. That'd be 1 human die and you could risk insight if you like.

Laurent doesn't think he's seen this anywhere before. He checks the rest of the place to see if there is any trace of Auxian or anyone else.

Roll (human die only) to recognize the painting:
1d6

There's something nagging him at the back of his mind about the painting but Laurent can't recall ever seeing it before. He and Pierre search the whole hounfor. There's no sign of Ramses or Lazaire. No evidence of a struggle or that anyone left in a hurry. But there's no clothes either. It's odd, the whole place seems like it hasn't been lived in for some time. No food. No clothes. No personal effects.

"Where could they have gone?" wonders Laurent aloud. "Wherever it is, I don't think there's anything more we can do about it tonight."

Pierre shrugs his shoulders. 'What did old Monsieur Labas say?'

He strums the air.

'Him and the Devil, was walking side by side
And now the Devil's got him and ain't gonna be satisfied'

"If the Devil's got him," says Laurent, "then it's up to us."

Pierre looks unconvinced. 'The Devil, or someone right here in Dame Marie?'

"Do you suspect someone in particular?" asks Laurent. "Could it be Ti-Jean Lazaire, or the spirit that was in him? He's gone too."

Pierre smiles and shrugs. 'No. I mean...no. It's just, I've not seen many loa, but I've seen plenty of men. Plenty of mean men. Sometimes it's just men being men. There's something strange going on in Dame Marie, but that doesn't mean it's Agoué or whoever. Strange men do strange things. He points at the odd drawing. What's this. Is it a message? Is it a message for us? A warning?'

"Could be," says Laurent, studying the drawing again. "It reminds me of Pierre Labas's stories of the sirèn. We should tell him what we found here."

Giving a weak laugh Pierre says, 'Old Pierre Labas, he says a lot of things. I think he makes most of them up. he's just a crazy old man Don't rely on what he has to say.'

OOC:   Done here? Want to go looking for Pierre Labas? Where would you look?

"I'll take what he says with a grain of salt," says Laurent, "but if he makes up most of what he says, that means there are some things he doesn't make up, and we just need to tell the difference. He's been around a long time, and he's seen a lot of things. That may be what made him crazy."

Yes, let's go look for him. We'll try the same place we saw him on our way here.

Labas is where they left him. Sitting under the mapou tree with his dog standing in front of him watching him play, tail straight and wagging. His fingers move quickly and skilfully across the fret-board. Laurent recognises the tune, it's bebop jazz, that white American Barney Kessel's solo from Jammin' the Blues. He's never seen the short film but he's heard recordings of it over the crackling radio. He has to admit, when he wants to, old Labas really can play.

The old man doesn't look up. He just nods his head in time with his playing. Eyes closed. The dog seems entranced.

Laurent waits for Pierre Labas to finish the song, not wanting to interrupting him. Besides, he likes the music.

It takes Labas a good five minutes to finish the song, but Laurent wouldn't have expected any different. He admires the way the old man's fingers dance across the battered old guitar. Never missing a fret, never missing a string. The tune becoming faster and more complex until it ends suddenly, the dog letting out a long whine and crumpling to the ground where it continues to whimper. Labas opens his eyes and fixes Laurent with a stare.

'So you wanna tell me your friend gone?'

"Yes," says Laurent. "How did you know?"

'Old Pierre, he knows things. He sees things. He hears things.' The old man chuckles to himself then gives Laurent a big grin. 'Old Pierre hear no one is answering the door at the hounfor.'

"You must have good hearing," says Laurent. "Did you hear anyone leave? Or did you hear anyone else arrive?"

Labas starts wheezing, and rocking, he looks like he's having a heart attack but after a second or so Laurent realises it is silent laughter. The old man slaps his thigh. 'Old Pierre no hear the hounfor...' he starts wheezing again.

Eventually he gets a hold if himself and takes a gulp from a bottle beside him that looks like some nasty bootleg rum. He sucks throigh his teeth. 'Pierre hear from the kongregasyon no ceremony tonight, no one answer the door.'

"Do you know where the houngan went?" asks Laurent.

Pierre Labas shrugs his shoulders.

"Merci," says Laurent. He describes the merman drawing they found. "What do you make of that?"

Labas frowns and seems to be thinking for a minute. Finally he answers. 'Sounds like what the white men think a merman looks like.' He allows himself a little smile. 'But they real ugly. Real ugly.' Then he goes silent for a further minute. He's screwing up his face. Like he's thinking, or breaking wind. It's hard to tell with Old Pierre. Eventually he says, 'I think I seen something like that before. Long time ago. Long long time ago.'

The old man just stops. Staring out into the blackness. To the invisible shoreline. Then he darts into action, sudden movements, he grabs something from his loose clothes. A small leather bag. He opens it up and empties out a handful of cowrie shells, carefully counting them. Then he casts them onto the floor.

'Yes, yes, long time ago. Long, long time ago.' There's a fevered look in his eyes that Laurent has never seen before. Pierre Lavigne tugs at his sleeve. 'Come on, let's go. The old man's mad,' he whispers.

"Maybe," whispers Laurent back, "but that doesn't mean he hasn't seen something important." He returns his attention to Labas. "Where did you see it?"

Pointing to the seafront Labas speaks, his voice low, but strained, insistent. 'Down there. Down by the sea.' He starts shaking his head, and the suddenly pounds fist against his temple.

'Long, long time ago. Old Dame Marie. Before, before...' He's muttering under his breath and Laurent can't make out what he's saying. Then he raises his voice to be a little more audible. 'You know Anse Douce? Yes, yes, you know Anse Douce. The coral make a cave. That where I seen it. On the wall. In the wall. In the passageway...' He fades out into silence.

Then he shakes his head again and smiles broadly at Laurent and Pierre. 'Well, ain't that something. I wonder what made me think of that?'

"Merci," says Laurent. "That could be where the houngan went. To that cave. What else do you remember about it?"

His expression is odd, almost like he's frightened, but Laurent has never seen Labas frightened before. She shakes his head vigorously, 'Don't be going there. Not there...'

He staggers to his feet, dropping the guitar to the ground. He collects his stick and starts shuffling off into the night, his little dog padding behind him, barking incessantly.

"Something must have happened when he was in that cave, a long time ago," says Laurent.

Pierre and Laurent watch the old man walking off, his dog yapping behind him. 'Don't tell me,' says Pierre, 'You want to go and look in that cave?'

"I want to go and look in that cave," says Laurent. "I know, you asked me not to tell you that."

The sun has plunged into the sea and the temperature is just beginning to drop, with a very slight wind stirring the air. The fishermen have all gone home and the pier is shrouded in darkness. The main source of light now is the bright moon, a yellow glow added from the lanterns outside Old Man Samuel’s shop where a small crowd of youths have gathered to listen to the tinny sound from the radio. The jaunty melody of American popular music carried on the breeze.

Pierre frowns at Laurent, 'Not now though? Not now!' He points over to the shop, 'Let's listen to some music, do it in the morning when it's light.'

Laurent does like the music, but he doesn't know if Auxian can wait until morning. "Don't we have school in the morning?" he asks.

Pierre has been gently swaying and tapping his feet to the music. But when Laurent asks him about school he looks alarmed. He puts an arm around Laurent. 'I think you need to get some rest frè,' he says in a concerned tone. 'It's the Easter holidays. No school for you tomorrow.'

"Oh, that's right," says Laurent. "Well, I suppose it is dangerous to go exploring a cave at night..."

Pierre looks relieved. 'Oui, oui, exploring mysterious caves can wait until the morning mon amie.' Laurent's friend is clearly keen to hang out with the other young people at Old Man Samuel's shop and he drags him along the seafront to listen to the music.

The small group of teenagers are standing and sitting around the outside of the shop, sipping fruit cocktails and overpriced bottles of Coca-Cola. It's pleasant enough, a cool breeze off the sea tempers the warm air, giving a salty tang to drinks and carrying a slightly fishy odour from the pier. A mixture of popular music, blues, and jazz plays over the crackling radio.

Laurent recognises many students from the École Dame Marie, a couple come over to Pierre and ask after his sister. One of them is Eddie Forbin, an ex-boyfriend of Marise Lavigne. Laurent glowers at him as he talks to Pierre.

OOC:   Want to move on to the morning of anything else you'd like to do before then?