IC - 1 - It Was a Dark and Stormy Night - Louis

[Mr. Handy]

"I'm not a sissy little weakling," says Harry, following. "Give me a lever and a place to stand, and I could move the world. Anyway, we only have your word that you just pushed open the door. You'd have to show us before we could believe you."

[kabukiman]

"I'd rather not have to pick glass out of y'all skin." Shirley walks over to the edge of the porch, bending over the rail to respond to Kyle. "So let's see we can get in through one of the doors. How did you even get in, Roger?" she asks, turning around to get back under the semi-dry cover.

"Your probably right Shirley. Well, Roger Why don't you push again the door so we may enter?"
Being all wet is making Kyle angry, and since he is with his friends he is getting bolder; he would never speak this way to Roger in a normal day.

[aine]

“Nice find, Daz!” Louis whistles as Darren pulls out the crowbar.
“Come on, we can open the door or a window with that.”

[BoyBlunder78]

Darren twirls the crowbar. He looks at Ian and hands him 'Thunder' "Here, you take this, should help you keep slimer away." Looking at Louis "Right let's go break stuff!" And heads to the back of the house.

[Mephistophilis]

While Darren, Louis, and Ian have been in the shed, Roger has walked up behind them. As they come back to the door they can see him carrying a large paper wasp nest. Before anyone can act he uses both hands to smash it on the threshold. 'Stupid wasps.' He takes a screwdriver and pokes at the white, bloated larvae within, pausing to pop them, slowly, as he waits for Louis to finish looking around the shed. 'Only a moron would think any of the crap in here is worth anything.'

Once Louis is finished, Roger finds the queen and, after pausing for a moment to make sure he has an audience, he smashes her with screwdriver’s handle. 'You jerks ready to quit wastin’ my time?'

Shirley and Harry - if you want to wind up Roger enough to open the door each roll Taunt

Louis - you can still roll Luck to see if there's something useful in the shed - tell me what you're after.

Darren and Louis - there's something particularly nasty about the way Roger splats that wasp, a real malevolence. Roll Sanity 0/1 (0 loss for a pass, 1 loss for a failure).

[BoyBlunder78]

san 65
1d100

[Mr. Handy]

"Aw, he can't open it," says Harry. "He's all talk and no action."

Taunt roll (5% skill) to get Roger to open the door:
d%

[LiviaBlue]

Not thinking she can get Roger to help out, Shirley calls out again when she sees Darren swing his newly found toy just outside the shed.

"How about we try to use that to get the door unstuck?" she reaches over the rails again to get a better look at that side of the property where the boys are.

[Mephistophilis]

Hanging off the porch railings, Shirley can see the shed and Roger stood outside it poking a smashed wasp's nest. The patch of cracked and crumbling concrete towards the edge of the grounds is also visible. There's a sort of hatch or wooden cover in the middle of the concrete.

[Mr. Handy]

"Now that's a good lever," says Harry when he sees Darren with the crowbar. "It should be able to get the door open with no problem."

[BoyBlunder78]

Darren walks to door and attempts to pry it open.

[aine]

Sanity 65 roll: 63. Luck 65 roll:12 (So sorry: I wrote all this out yesterday but it didn’t post for some reason

Louis isn’t too fazed by the pointless destruction of the wasps; he eats squirrels for tea for starters, but he does swear to revenge their deaths on Roger. Somehow.
He looks around the shed for something to light up, he can never afford the batteries to run his own torch.

[Mephistophilis]

Poking around in the shed, Louis finds a rusty can. Shaking it there's something sloshing about in there. He unscrews the cap and gives it a sniff. Smells like kerosene. Picking up an old pickaxe handle and some greasy rags he reckons he could make a crude torch of sorts, if he had any matches to light it.

-----

Returning to the front porch, Darren inserts the pointed end of the crowbar into the doorframe. It slips between the frame and the door itself without any difficulty and he pulls on the bar against the resistance. For a moment there's a disconcerting cracking sound and he thinks the frame might splinter and come off but then the door shifts, the hinges screeching in protest, and it swings open releasing an odd, unpleasant smell - acrid, decaying, stuffy. 'Nice one Darren, can we go inside now? I'm all wet,' whines Ian.

The place is pitch black, the slightest illumination coming from the half-covered moon peaking through the drizzle. There's a couple of fat candles melted into the floor in the entrance hall, but they've gone out and faint trails of smoke indicate they were recently alight. A long and narrow hallway extends ahead, with stairs going upwards on one side. There's little furniture except for a few iron plant stands holding curiously robust ferns and other ornamental plants that spill out of their pots and seem to give rise to that faint scent of decaying vegetable matter. The only other furnishing is a grandfather clock which stands against the east wall.

There are two doors off to the right and two off to the left. At the end of the hallway is the back door leading onto the back porch.

-----


Seeing Darren open the door, Roger pushes past him to the inside. 'About time, Pickett.' He takes out a Zippo and lights the candles again. They burn with a low, unimpressive flame, and issue occasional wisps of acrid smoke.

[Mr. Handy]

Harry wanders over to the first door on the right and tries it.

[BoyBlunder78]

"Stay behind me."Darren whispers to Ian as he enters the hallway.

[kabukiman]

"What are those candles for? Are you trying to start a fire here?"- Asks Kyle nervous.

[LiviaBlue]

Shirley walks inside quickly, without much hesitation, digging through her pack for her flashlight. "I wish we could have a nice campfire," she says wistfully at Kyle's comment, "I, too, am soaked to the bone," she offers Ian a sympathetic smile as she moves down the hallway reaching for the first door on the left, liking Harry's initiative.

"Maybe we can find an old stove or something."

[aine]

Louis brings up the rear, carrying his can of slosh and makeshift torch; the candles would light it he thinks. And then he wonders how Roger got in to light the candles the first time round...
“Shall we set up camp in one of these first rooms and wait it out?”

[Mephistophilis]

'Why am I lighting candles? Because it's dark in here dipwad,' Roger hollers at Kyle.

Once they've all entered the house, Roger takes an old fashioned key out of his pocket and locks the door, returning the key to his pocket. 'Now nobody's leaving until they have proved they’re not scaredycats, or it's dawn. Whatever comes first.' He gives a little cackle. 'You want the key and you even think about trying to get it off me - you know my brother Ace, well he'll come looking for you and show what it really means to get beaten up - you get me? To make things interesting there's another key I hid somewhere in the house - good luck finding that losers.'

-----

Harry finds a sliding door and drags it open, the rail screaming like it's in pain. Flashing his light inside he catches a dark shape on the wooden floor that issues a high-pitched screech and scurries off.

The room is fairly unremarkable. It looks like a a dining room. There is a heavy oval wooden table with a dark stub of candle in the centre. It's surrounded by an incomplete set of wobbly wooden chairs, their stuffing long gnawed at by rats.

Fragments of a large shattered mirror hang from a crooked frame on the south wall and small broken bits of mirrored glass catch the light, scattered throughout the room. In one corner is a battered china cabinet, missing a door, with only a few small fragments inside. Down the walls water trickles in little rivulets and there's a sharp scent to the air, like urine.

-----

Grabbing for the door handle, Shirley finds there is no door, just a wide gap where a door should be. Shining her flashlight into the gloom she finds a large and roomy space but the smell is stagnant, mildewy, like damp furniture and carpet. The flashlight beam catches flecks of dust motes. The room is filled with dusty chairs and couches, all spilling their stuffing. It seems to be some kind of parlour, somewhere guests might once have been entertained.

Against the south wall is a fireplace with a carved wooden mantel; on the mantel someone has placed a battered knapsack and beside it a misshapen candle with faint wisps of smoke puffing from a smouldering red wick. There are the remains of a small fire in the fireplace, made with bits of a broken chair. Judging by the soot and lingering smell, there is something blocking the fireplace flue.

Around the room are the broken remnants of several paintings, little more than broken frames and tattered canvases.

-----

The ceiling here has been damaged by a slow leak, the boards above are likely to be rotten.

These plants are thriving, someone must be caring for them. And even with care the lack of light should be enough to kill most of them off. What's making them grow so luxuriantly?

Roll Sanity - 0/1 loss.

[BoyBlunder78]

Darren follows Shirley and walks over to the fireplace, using his crowbar to poke around in the grate.

notice stuff 40.
1d100