IC - Day 4 - Another Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood

[Mephistophilis]

It's very early on Holy Tuesday in Easter Week, and the sky is bright and clear. Laurent and Pierre are down by Pointe Pierre looking out towards Anse Douce cove. The tide is in and most of the beach is beneath the water but there is a narrow strip of sand they can walk along to reach the caves at the far end. A very few fishermen are out in the bay but most are still sleeping in their shacks along the shore at this time. One or two might be preparing to attend mass in the Catholic Church in the northeast of town, near the water front, others Lenten Vodou rituals in the Hounfor.

Somewhere in the distance they can hear the hoots and drums of a Rara band. But here in Pointe Pierre everything is quiet. The shops are still closed, wooden doors held fast or metal shutters drawn down. The larger boats tied up to the pier, others lined up along the sandy shore among patches of rough grass. There is no one in sight except for a couple of fishing boats bobbing in the distance. The heat of the day is not yet upon them but that fishy stench of the pier is starting to fill the air, mingling with the salt and droplets of water. Just the slightest waft of the more unpleasant odours of Dame Marie town itself, rotting rubbish, effluent, donkey shit.

The old malou tree looks naked without Old Pierre Labas underneath it. Leaning up against the tree is a sort of instrument. Skin and wood over a gourd back. Four strings, although one of them is snapped. Odd faces on the surface made out of cowrie shells, crude and grotesque.

[Mr. Handy]

"I wonder where Pierre Labas went?" says Laurent, looking around. "I could probably fix that instrument for him. It just needs a new string."

Since yesterday was Monday, I think today is supposed to be Tuesday.

I'd like to bring a flashlight to explore the cave.

[Mephistophilis]

OOC:   Ah crap. So it is. Will rewrite the intro to this thread.

[Mephistophilis]

Pierre looks at the tree, 'Who knows where the old man goes, or what he does.' He wanders over and lifts up the strange instrument. Picking at the remaining strings they ring out surprisingly strongly. 'Ha, Labas has left his gourd bandjo behind.' He holds it up and looks at it closely. 'Ugly thing. I don't think I've seen it before.'

OOC:   I'm not sure how likely it is you'd have an electric torch in this era. Roll me something to see what you've got. Rags on a stick up to nice electric flashlight depending on what you get.

[Mr. Handy]

I'd thought it might be part of my toolkit. Maybe that could be represented by allowing me to roll my occupation die if my human die doesn't do so well.

Roll to see what kind of light I could find:
1d6

[Mephistophilis]

OOC:   Okay, roll your occupation die as well

[Mr. Handy]

Unfortunately, Laurent didn't have an electric flashlight, so he had to improvise.

Occupation die:
1d6

[Mephistophilis]

Laurent goes through his tool kit, looking for an electric flashlight. He's sure he had something, something he uses to get a good look inside engines. After quite a few minutes rifling through the bag and eventually tipping it out, he finds what he's looking for. It's a rather small electric flashlight, good for getting into small places but with a pretty weak beam. He clicks it on and off a few times but it doesn't come on. After giving it a hard tap with the palm of his hand it flickers on.

[Mr. Handy]

Laurent keeps the flashlight turned off until he needs it to save battery life. He checks his tool kit to see if he has anything that could substitute for the missing string.

[Mephistophilis]

There's a length of stiff wire that Laurent unrolls and straightens out. It's a little thicker than the other strings but he thinks it would do.

[Mr. Handy]

Laurent takes the replacement wire and tries to repair the banjo with it.

[Mephistophilis]

It doesn't cause Laurent too much trouble to restring the gourd banjo. He gently tightens it until it sounds near enough to the others. He gives it a strum across all the strings and he can hear the replacement is just slightly out of tune, there's also a very slight metallic twang to it but that's inevitable given the material he had available.

'Why are you messing around with that?' whines Pierre.

OOC:   You can try and tune it properly if you like, sounds like a human roll and you can risk an Insight die if you want.

[Mr. Handy]

"Just doing something nice for Pierre Labas," says Laurent, as he tries to tune the banjo.

Roll (human die) trying to tune the banjo:
1d6

[Mephistophilis]

He's not exactly a musician but Laurent has a decent ear. He plucks the other strings then gradually tightens the wire until he has a note that sounds right. Then he strums all four strings and the notes ring out clearly. There's an odd harmonic effect, the individual sounds seems to intertwine and amplify, like a chord but more so. It's loud, and clear, cutting through the air. Laurent can feel it in his brain, burrowing in on the crescendo, then dissipating with some residual impression left as the sound fades away.

Then there's a crack. Impossibly loud, coming from the direction of Anse Douce, like tree splitting at a strike of lightning. 'What...? gasps Pierre. But Laurent is still reeling from that chord. He drops the banjo to the ground and feels himself wobble and begin to topple over before Pierre catches and stabilises him.

OOC:   Insight roll please

[Mr. Handy]

"I couldn't have done that, could I?" says Laurent, setting the banjo gently down. He shakes his head. "No, that's impossible. Come on, let's go to the cave."

Insight roll (current level 4) after the crack:
1d6

[Mephistophilis]

Pierre laughs weakly and shakes his head, 'You don't play that badly Laurent.' But his face betrays his unease.

Leaving the banjo gently propped up under the tree where he found it, Laurent and Pierre walk down to Anse Douce.



The day is getting hotter as the sun rises further into the sky. The walk down to the beach in the oddly still air raises a sweat in Laurent whose shirt is getting sticky under the arms and down his back.

There's only a thin strip of white sand visible with the tide so far in, tangles of sea-grape bushes covering the sand forces them to paddle through the shallow blue water in places. There's a humid closeness that Laurent hasn't felt here before. The air isn't so fresh, no breeze comes off the sea, and the fishy stink that clings to the pier in Pointe Pierre is getting stronger rather than dissipating.

Through the scattered rocks and chunks of coral, Laurent and Pierre return to the gully at the end of the 'peaceful cove.' Entering the maze of coral chunks and naked rock they approach the network of sheltered, dark caves. That same ammonia smell like rotting fish is becoming overpowering. And there's something strange about the caves, they don't look right somehow, like they're different from the last time they were down here.

Like they've moved.

[Mr. Handy]

"Could that have been an earthquake?" Laurent wonders aloud. "Let's go inside. Maybe it stinks less in the caves." He looks around for any signs of recent passage, such as footprints in the sand.

[Mephistophilis]

In response to Laurent's thought about an earthquake, Pierre purses his lips as if he's about to say something, then he just shakes his head and carries on walking.

This bit of the beach is very sheltered from the sea and Laurent can many footprints in the sand. It is difficult to distinguish individual prints in the tangle of impressions but he thinks he can see his own shoes, presumably from the last time they were here.



Back in the cave at the end of the cove things look different. The rock-itself has fissured, and crumbled, lumps of it shifting and sliding out of position. What was previously the zigzagging crack in the rock face has widened into a passage. Where before it narrowed to become impassable it now seems to continue back into the darkness. The stench is horrendous. The rotting, ammonia smell. Some of it must come from the bat guano that coats the cave floor with a thick layer of fine brown dust. But there's a gentle waft of breeze that seems to come from the passage in the rock, carrying the stink of whatever is beyond it, more than guano, something sweeter, more sickly, a nasty smell that Laurent can't place and isn't sure he wants to.

Laurent begins to feel light headed. That smell is getting deep inside his nose, his sinuses. It feels wrong, unclean. He notices that Pierre has backed up away from the passage, back towards the cave entrance.

From somewhere inside that passage he hears a noise, a sort of fluttering.

[Mr. Handy]

"That fluttering sound is probably a bat," says Laurent quietly. "I know it smells bad, but we should keep going."

[Mephistophilis]

Pierre continues to linger by the entrance, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Laurent goes further into the cave, noting the rock and indentation in the sand where they found clothes buried. And the criss-cross of many different sized footprints, many wearing shoes, some barefoot. They are a mixture of sizes suggesting men and women, maybe even children. A couple of the freshest barefoot prints are extraordinarily large, with deep indentations at the tips, with the impression of some kind of membrane evident between the toes. Laurent suspects it would pretty easy to identify whoever these prints belong to.

As he's crouched in the sand, looking at the prints, the fluttering sound from the darkness builds in intensity. In the confines of the cave it takes on a haunting, echoey quality. Louder and louder, Laurent begins to feel as well as hear it. A constant, rising crescendo. Rustling, dry and syncopated, leathery. And under that a scratching, crunching sound. The breeze from within the passage picks up, carrying a stale, rotten stench like opening an old tomb. Then in the blackness he sees something move, for a second the darkness seems to writhe and crawl and then before he can react a tidal wave of black and brown, flapping wings, scratching claws, little bodies colliding with one another, and the walls, and Laurent himself.

From behind him Laurent hears the sharp, fearful cry of Pierre before the unstoppable surge strikes him, toppling him over into the sand. Dark bodies flowing over and past him. Out through the opening of the cave and into the air. Foul, foetid, ammonic breath filling his mouth and lungs.

...

And then. As quickly as it started. The struggling, flapping wings are gone. And Laurent is lying on his back in the sand. The salty tang of sea air washing out the stench from his chest in great gulping breaths.