Play@YSDC

Pierre and Laurent say a nervous au revoir to the houngan and slowly trail out of the Hounfor district in the twilight. Their legs are heavy and their hearts no less so, it has been a troubling day. Parting ways at the marketplace, Pierre heads down the back streets to the Lavigne house, unsure how he will account for today's events to his mother.

Laurent walks back down the main street, towards the sea. Lamps glimmer through cracks in shutters and the road is quiet except for the occasional scrabbling of a rat or some other animal. In the distance he can hear the faint sounds of drums and horns, carried on the wind. The Rara procession must still be winding its way through some distant part of Dame Marie. Taking a deep breath, Laurent finds the air is not quite so hot and sticky as usual, a light, cool breeze blows, carrying the salty tang of the sea and clearing out some of the stink from the gutters. Near Pointe Pierre a faint fishy smell lingers. He thinks he sees someone underneath the old mapou tree, a thin, shrivelled face with the pale skin pulled tight across, eyes dark and shadowed, like a skull, leering. But when he looks closer there's no one there.

He returns to his shack, on the outskirts of Pointe Pierre. His father half sitting on the edge of his cot, half-drunk bottle in his hand, seemingly fast asleep. Laurent curls up on his own roughly stuffed mattress and tries to sleep. His dreams haunted by pallid, looming faces with hints of squirming shapes deep in the black pits where eyes should be.

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When Laurent wakes to the sound of a particular incessant rooster, the sun is already up, the day is starting to warm up and he feels sweaty in the single room. Looking around his father has already gone. He checks his feet for chigres and then peers out the door. There are already several of the hollowed-out ceiba-tree fishing boats bobbing in the water.

Laurent gets breakfast ready, hungry after a night's sleep.

Is school in session today?

With no school today, Laurent decides to go down to the shore after breakfast and look at the boats.

Fishing boats crowd the shoreline, most heading out into the bay where the catch is more plentiful.

Laurent heads back to Dr. Clermont's to see if he has been able to learn anything from examining Lawton Lindo's body.

It's still pretty early and Laurent finds that Dr Clermont is not yet up when he knocks on his door. The old doctor takes it in good humour and unlocks the surgery and brings Laurent through to where he's kept the body of Lawton Lindo. The bloated grey corpse looks similar to yesterday, missing hand, exposed entrails, mangled face, but there is now a longer incision running all the way up the chest to the neck, and the ribs have been prised apart, revealing the heart and other viscera. The smell is much worse, and flies are thick in the room. There are puddles of congealed blood on the floor.

'We need to bury the poor man. Or have the Azagon take him away. He is becoming quite piquant.'

Clermont points out the pale, clammy skin with patches of red-blue discolouration and dark, prominent veins. He explains that Lindo has probably been dead for thirty six hours or so, suggesting he died a few hours or so after Laurent last saw him. The body is more bloated than would be expected for this stage of decomposition but it has obviously been submerged in water for an extended period of time which has caused the swelling.

'I did not find any water in the lungs,' he says, pointing to a section of bloody meat sitting beside an instrument of lenses and tubes that Laurent recognises from school as being a microscope. Laurent assumes the doctor must have removed a piece of lung to study it. 'Sometimes that happens, when someone falls into the water, a reflex. But more often it means that they died before the body was submerged.'

'And these injuries,' he points to the gash in the abdomen and where the hand has been severed. 'Whatever did this was not a simple reef shark, look at the pattern of serration, it is too big. Maybe a bull shark, although I've never heard of them out in the bay. Something big. Or, maybe it's not an animal bite, it is hard to say when the body is in this condition. Perhaps this man was hacked to death with machetes? I must talk to Lieutenant Etienne.'

OOC:   I think a roll for Insight.

Laurent takes it in stride, having seen a lot already that's more disturbing. "I could arrange to have the body taken back to the Azagon," he says.

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

Mumbling distractedly, Clermont says, 'Oui, that would be very helpful.' Then he seems to realise what he's said and looks up at Laurent. 'Could you do that? I have my old Renault but...l'odeur, you know, it takes so long to come out.'

"I service their vehicles," says Laurent. "I think I could get them to allow me to use one, especially since he was one of their guests."

Clermont smiles and looks visibly cheered up. 'Merci, merci beacoup, that is a load off my mind. I really need to get him out of here before the morning surgery starts if you could...'

"I can use your telephone to call them," suggests Laurent.

'Ah, oui, oui, of course, of course.' Clermont leads Laurent through to his office where a shiny black bakelite rotary phone sits on the desk. Dr Clermont is one of the few people in Dame Marie with a telephone and he is inordinately proud of it. 'Uh, do you know the number? Would you like me to show you how to dial it?'

OOC:   I suggest a roll here to see if Laurent knows how to get hold of the Azagon. He can have two die - one human and one for his technical knowledge

"Merci," says Laurent, who had just been planning to ask the operator to connect him.

Roll to know how to contact the Azagon (human die plus professional die):
2d6

Laurent doesn't know the number for the Azagon but he knows enough about telephones to try the operator and have the exchange connect him. There are so few telephones in Dame Marie that they know exactly where's he talking about.

After a few rings a man answers, 'L'hôtel Azagon, bonjour, Monsieur Henninger speaking. How can I help you?' He sounds a little bit confused, like he doesn't get many telephone calls.

"This is Laurent Toussaint," says Laurent. "I'm calling from Dr. Clermont's office. We have the body of one of your guests here, Lawton Lindo, and we'd like to arrange for it to be brought back to the Azagon."

'Hein? Mr Lindo? Non, that cannot be. Uh, is he alright?' Mr Henninger seems to be struggling to understand the situation.

"I'm afraid not, Monsieur Henninger," says Laurent. "Il est mort."

'Mort? Non, how can this be?' asks Henninger. 'He was well, what happened to him?'

"He was found washed up on an island," says Laurent. "As for the cause of death, Dr. Clermont is the best one to answer that. Would you like to speak to him?"