Play@YSDC

It is a short walk along New Row to Stonewater’s, with Skipper pressing on slightly ahead to take photos.

OOC:   By all means make a Photography roll.

One of the glass door panels has been replaced by a length of plywood; evidence of the paramedics’ forced entry, but without closer study, nothing seems otherwise amiss outside.

OOC:   Does anyone have either the History or Art/Craft (Architecture) skill? If so, you may roll. If no-one has either skill, someone can try their luck and spend 10 Luck points to roll against their INT characteristic instead.

OOC: I don't have History or Art/Craft, but my INT is 80 so I'd like to roll for that and spend ten Luck points.

Luck: 55/65

INT roll (80%):

1d100

OOC:   By passing that test, Izzy now has the option of spending an additional 10 Luck points to acquire either History or Art/Craft (Architecture) at half her INT, so at 40 in this case. Everyone, bear the option to try your luck in mind when I call for a roll on a skill no-one has

Izzy knows something of the city and deduces that the building is indeed Georgian as Anderson suggested. Moreover, it is most probably a listed building.

1d%pHpH60%

OOC:   Crit success.

Skipper takes a few excellently framed photographs of the bookshop. Zooming in through the camera display, he is able to look into the shop.

Within, he sees a tall black woman at the till. It looks like she’s busy setting up.

Izzy approaches the main door and knocks a couple of times, holding up her warrant card with the other hand to show the group are here on official business.

Upon seeing the investigators, the woman strides towards the door.

"I'm sorry, we're not open until-" she stops upon seeing Izzy's warrant card. "Oh! One second!"

Hurrying forward, she unlocks the doors and ushers you in. She is tall, slender Black woman with a long face and relaxed hair cut into a pixie bob. Dressed in a crisp, ivory-coloured blouse, smart suit trousers, and patent Leather Oxford shoes, she smiles apologetically.

"Sorry, I thought you were early birds," she says. "Are you here about last night? Have you spoken to Warwick? He'd gone by the time I got here. How is he?"

You may make a Read Person roll if you so wish.

Ms Jackson is pleased to see you, if slightly irritated by events. Like many people when presented with police credentials, she is babbling somewhat.

The store itself looks like any other large bookshop, with the shelves split up into various sections. The till is situated at the far end of the store, before it doglegs to the left.

Please make an Observation roll.

You notice a large, apparently glazed dome set into the ceiling over the till.

Also of note is a convex mirror mounted above the left-hand door that you just came through, presumably to cover one of the dead spots Anderson mentioned.

Read Person (60%):

1d100

Observation (60%):

1d100

Izzy glances at her colleagues for their own opinions. "He's... okay, as far as I can see. Definitely shaken, but that's understandable. No lasting damage though."

She takes care not to mention Warwick's suggestion of a poltergeist, preferring to keep the supernatural cards close to her chest for the moment.

Des looked the woman up and down, then peered around the shop…

Observation (60%) 1d100

Read Person (60%) 1d100

Jordan smiles at the woman in greeting, then looks around and up at the dome above.

Read Person roll (60% skill) in the bookshop:
d%
Observation roll (60% skill) in the bookshop:
d%

Skipper drifts on, sipping coffee.

1d%dp30%

1d%30%

He seems slightly out of place in this environment and not really able to focus.

For those of you who are examining the store, you notice that, just as Warwick Anderson mentioned, the bookshop is a very strange shape. The entrance from New Row leads to the central section, which lies in the wedge-shaped gap between the buildings fronting onto New Row and Garrick Street. Just beyond the central section’s halfway point, a spur leads to one of the Garrick Street entrances and, just beyond that, a set of glass-sided stairs leads down to the basement. Finally, another spur leads to the second Garrick Street entrance.


Click image to enlarge.

Remember that Nightingale requires investigators to perform an Initial Vestigia Assessment at the scene of any potential Falcon incident. If you wish to do this, please state where in the shop you are testing.

The woman smiles at Izzy.

"That's good news; Warwick is a model employee. I'm glad he's okay."

She extends her hand.

"Saffron Jackson. I manage the store. I suppose I've got to give a statement? Do you need to look around or something?"

"So a statement, yeah? I got a phone call in the early hours from a police officer asking me to come to the bookshop to take care of the door," Jackson says, eyes darting from investigator to investigator. "They said they'd had to break in to get inside to see what had happened to poor Warwick. They left shortly after that because it was all kicking off in the piazza; a fight outside a bar or something - I don't know."

"Next, I called the maintenance company to send someone over to board up the door and clean up the glass. Once the maintenance guy got here, I checked around to see if anything was missing. It didn't look like it, but it was hard to tell in all that mess downstairs. I've not touched anything down there because one of the officers told me not to until you'd been down to see it."

"So if you'd like to follow me, I'll take you to the basement. I don't want to tell you how to do your job, but I'd really appreciate it if you could hurry it up - I'd like to get everything all squared up before opening time."

Izzy writes everything down quickly, taking the statement from Saffron. She doesn't need to worry about memorising the layout of the shop floors, however, being a regular customer herself, and vaguely recognising Saffron in passing from previous visits, even if they never spoke beyond the usual customer/staff exchange at the tills.

"Thanks for that. I'm happy to check out the basement then if we're all ready, just one thing though. Nobody else would have keys to this place, would they, aside from yourself and Warwick? No disgruntled ex-employees who might have made a copy before being fired, for instance?"

"Ready when you are," says Jordan.

Skipper continues snapping a few photos of the ground level as the moment seizes him. "Ready when you are."

"Let me know if you have any good books on photography."

“Extra keys? Stonewaters is a national chain, so there might be one stored in our headquarters in Durham, but nobody else would have one here,” Saffron says to Izzy.

“I can’t think of any disgruntled employees - we’re all a pretty happy bunch and Stonewaters is a good company to work for.”

She turns to Skipper and Jordan

“We do have a small photography section. As it happens, it’s in the basement, just behind the art section. We moved them downstairs as part of the reorganisation that Warwick was doing. You’re welcome to take a look. Please follow me.”

She leads you past the till, turns left and heads down the glass-sided stairs.

Please make a Sense Vestigia roll.

As you pass the till, you catch a faint whiff of something: the stench of a slaughterhouse combined with rotting straw.

In addition, you hear shouting and a sense of excitement, desire and disappointment.

You realise these impressions are concentrated under the dome.

Sense Vestigia: 60%

1d100


As she follows Saffron, passing by the till, Izzy can't help but retch a little as the smell hits her. She tries to hide it, but it's clear to anyone looking or listening that she is forcing herself not to gag. Perhaps the local bobbies were right to get the Folly involved after all.

Des noticed Izzy’s involuntary shudder as she walked past the tills but didn’t sense anything herself. She shrugged. Must have been an allergic reactions to books or summit!

Sense Vestigia (30%) 1d100