IC -2 - Yesterday Upon the Stair - Everyone

[Mr. Handy]

Harry shines his light into the closet to see if there's anything inside it.

[LiviaBlue]

Shirley moves to inspect the picture frame. It wasn't a mirror but maybe it worked like one.

[Mephistophilis]

Harry pulls open the cupboard door. As he does so there is a foul stench released and he instinctively covers his nose. The smell is nasty, putrid and sweet, with notes of shit and rancid meat. The smell of the charnel house, the smell of rot and death.

Inside the low closet, crumpled against the back wall, is a body. Clad in a heavy jacket and trousers, it has been gnawed by rats. The face, what is left of it, is that of a white man in maybe his fifties, skin leathered by the sun, his appearance haggard and prematurely aged. He has lost both his eyes and his lips have been mostly chewed off as well, giving him a horrific sort of smile.

A rough cord is draped over his shoulders, like, maybe he was strangled? The left hand is missing, it's not obvious where it has gone. Underneath him are the remains of a couple of ratty women's dresses piled on top of each other. The floor itself is slick with blood, and there's little footprints in the crimson smear, little rat footprints.

OOC:   That's a 1d4/2d6 SAN check for seeing a mutilated body. You can also roll INT to see if you recognise him.

Despite the horrible mutilation, Harry can still recognise the man. It's Old Danny. He sleeps rough around Northfield, moving around a bit, doing the occasional odd job or picking through rubbish at the curb. Your parents always said he was harmless and "a bit slow."

Looking at the picture frame, Shirley realises it is just turned against the wall. She struggles to twist it back around again and reveals what seems to be an oil painting. The canvas is stained and a little battered but the thick paint is still mostly intact with only a little water damage to the corner resting on the floor.

It's a portrait of a striking middle-aged woman with salt and pepper hair. She's smiling benignly out of the picture but gives an odd impression of furtive secrecy, perhaps even malice, but Shirley's not sure where she gets that idea from. Behind the woman is a large library of books and sleeping on her lap is a large black cat.

There's something familiar about that woman. Shirley's seen her somewhere before. In a mirror.

And that cat. She's seen that before as well. Stuffed.

OOC:   That's a 1d2/1D4 SAN check for seeing a painting of the woman you saw in the reflection and the stuffed cat. I don't think Shirley saw the stuffed cat move did she?

[Mr. Handy]

"It's Old Danny!" cries Harry.

Sanity roll (current level 18) for seeing the corpse:
d%
Sanity loss for seeing the corpse:
2d6
INT roll (75% stat) to recognize him:
d%

[Mephistophilis]

Gasping at the mutilated visage of Old Danny, Harry can't take his eyes off the lips, glistening, slick with blood, torn with strips still dangling off. The teeth exposed by the loss of tissue lending the man a sort of leering grin. The edges of the mouth twitching to accentuate the look. Teeth parting slightly to reveal a swollen and purple tongue. Head twisting slowly to fix Harry with the dark, empty sockets.

There's a crash from the other room, like more planks of wood or shelving falling to the ground

[Mr. Handy]

"He's still alive!" shouts Harry. "Shirley, help me with him, he's in real bad shape!"

Notice Stuff roll (40% skill) in the basement:
d%

[LiviaBlue]

No, Shirley hasn't seen the cat move. I think it was Darren and Kyle.

SAN (43):
d%

Loss:
1d4

Shirley let's go of the portrait started, not expecting to recognize the woman.

"That's who I saw in the mirror! I think she a witch." she tells the others as Herry opens the door.

When she turns to see what he discovered, Shirley can barley manage to cover her mouth and muffle a scream. The sight of the man was the most horrifying this she has ever seems. Even worse than what Rodger did earlier.

"Oh gosh, oh gosh! He is?" she steps besides Herry, fumbling with her backpack and pulling out her water bottle. First aid class never covered something like this.

Notice Stuff (60%):
d%

[Mr. Handy]

Harry does whatever he can to treat Danny's injuries.

First Aid roll (40% skill) treating Danny:
d%

[aine]

Louis comes into the bedroom,
“Hey guys, this is where I shut Roger in, he’s here somewhere and I just heard a crash in the other room; someone’s coming!” He squeaks, hopping from one foot to the other.
“We gotta get out of here! What are you doing?”

[Mephistophilis]

Inside the low closet, crumpled against the back wall, is a body. Clad in a heavy jacket and trousers, it has been gnawed by rats. The face, what is left of it, is that of a white man in maybe his fifties, skin leathered by the sun, his appearance haggard and prematurely aged. He has lost both his eyes and his lips have been mostly chewed off as well, giving him a horrific sort of smile.

Despite the horrible mutilation, when Harry says his name, Shirley can still recognise the man. It's Old Danny. He sleeps rough around Northfield, moving around a bit, doing the occasional odd job or picking through rubbish at the curb. Your parents always said he was harmless and "a bit slow."

A rough cord is draped over his shoulders, like, maybe he was strangled? The left hand is missing, it's not obvious where it has gone. Underneath him are the remains of a couple of ratty women's dresses piled on top of each other. The floor itself is slick with blood, and there's little footprints in the crimson smear, little rat footprints.

Although the man is clearly dead, and beyond help, Harry is attempting to bandage the stump of his missing hand and place strips of material over the empty eye sockets in a gross parody of first aid. The poking and prodding displaces the body which falls forward into Harry.

OOC:   That's a 1d4/2d6 SAN check for seeing a mutilated body.

Old Danny looks to be in a bad way.Harry rips some tattered strips from an old dress and tries to bandage the bleeding stump of his missing hand. Then he balls up some more material and places strips over the empty eye sockets that weep rivulets of blood.

The man leans forward and embraces Harry. Softly he whispers, 'Help me, Harry.'

[Mr. Handy]

"Of course I'll help you, Danny," says Harry as he does what he can. "What happened? Who did this to you?"

[LiviaBlue]

SAN (41%):
d%
SAN loss (1/5th: 8):
2d6
INT Freak Out (55%):
d%

Once close enough to get a look at the mangled body, Shirley finds herself at a loss of words for a long moment, her water bottle forgotten in her hand, the painting ignored behind her, even Roger didn't seem that important at the moment.

Her shock is only broken when Herry desperately tries to pack the corpse only to cause it to topple over.

"Herry! He's not alive! He can't be! He's so... so... just no one could survive that." She pulls the boy by his shoulders, starting to freak out and wanting to get both of them away from it.

[Mr. Handy]

"Of course he's still alive," says Harry, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Dead people don't talk."

[LiviaBlue]

"He's not talking, Harry! He doesn't have a mouth!" Shirley only becomes more agitated at the nonsense coming from Harry. The boy was the most logical and analytical person she knew. What he was saying was so not like him.

"Think about this! He's... he's dead."

[Mr. Handy]

"But I heard him!" insists Harry. "You just couldn't hear him because he was whispering."

[Mephistophilis]

Shirley pulls the corpse off Harry and it rolls onto the floor, face upwards, rictus smile across his face.

Then through ragged lips he hisses, 'It hurts...'

[Mr. Handy]

"Careful, you're hurting him!" protests Harry.

[aine]

Louis can see the other two wrestling with something in the wardrobe but he’s getting freaked out by the noises coming from the south so, clutching his bat, he turns and creeps towards the noise, determined that he, Shirley and Darren not be ambushed by a crazed Roger; a Roger who has grown into monstrous proportions in Louis’s imagination.

[Mephistophilis]

Louis moves cautiously to the door and peers into the darkness. There's the sound of movement in the room to the south. Something pointed thrusts through the crack in the wall and mass follows it, squeezing through the gap and slipping out into the centre of the room

OOC:   Roll Notice Stuff

[Mr. Handy]

Harry is too preoccupied with Danny to notice anything.

Notice Stuff roll (40% skill) to see something enter:
d%