Play@YSDC

After some searching along the A4286 and environs, you eventually locate Flowers Fields Garden Centre up a narrow lane. Tufts of grass growing along the middle betray how few visitors the place receives.

In contrast to nearby Hazlemere Garden Centre – it’s larger, more successful rival – Flowers Fields is small, shabby and run-down. You pull into an overgrown gravel car park, which leads to a tumbledown shop, no bigger than a portacabin. Next to this is a scruffy patch of hardstanding on which surprisingly healthy-looking pot-plants and shrubs sit on rickety wooden benches.

Looming behind these are a number of neglected-looking greenhouses, made opaque with age. Collapsing sheds and battered polytunnels nestle next to a couple of grotty portaloos, which stand to one side for the patrons’ convenience.

The afternoon is wearing on and the weather is dull. A faint breeze plays across the empty car park - you wouldn't be surprised if some tumbleweed skittered past. Despite all evidence to the contrary, a sigh on the shop door declares it 'open'.

Jordan gets out of the car and looks around for any moss.

Des peered out of the car window with a scowl on her face. ”Wot’s a garden centre?” she asked.

"You've never heard of a garden centre?" Izzy isn't quite sure she's believing what she's hearing. Fine, there's not much call for gardens in inner city flats that dot the city, and she herself doesn't have a garden (being on a top floor flat herself) - and no real plants inside the apartment either, considering she'd likely end up killing them all through neglect - but even somewhere as urban as London has plenty of gardens and allotments to spare.

Or Freya would probably eat them all. Maybe she should get a catnip plant while they're here...

"Basically, it's a place to buy stuff for gardens. Obviously. Plants and so on. And for maintaining them too, so lawnmowers and spades, that sort of thing..."

It's an awful explanation, but when was the last time Izzy set foot in a garden centre anyway? Even though her parents have a beautifully maintained back garden at their house in Croydon, complete with a perfectly manicured lawn and her mother's prized violets.

Clearing her mind, Izzy focuses on the area around her, and keeps a weather sense out for any vestigium as she approaches the door to the centre...

Sense Vestigium: 60%

1d100

”Dull!” pronounced Des, following Izzy towards the entrance.

Sense Vestigia (60%) 1d100

Skipper pauses to take a few (film) photos of the less than enticing plant nursery, before looking over at Leo, Des and crew.

"Awright Team B! Our efforts have uncovered that the late Mr InCel had a spray-on version of Harry Potter's cloak, and have brought us all here."

"In two sentences, what, if anything, have you all dug up?"

After getting out of the car, Leo joins the others. After getting knocked down last time, he's a little hesitant this time, but he also reaches out to see if he can detect any lingering evidence in the area.

Sense Vestigia (60/30): 1d100

"Well, Skipper, only that he used that spray to plant cameras. We got CCTV footage of the Invisible Man red-handed, so to speak."

Leo made a big show of counting to two on his fingers and grinned.

Des rolled her eyes at Skipper’s ‘Team B’ comment. ”Summat up with ‘is car. Smelt of… …” She waved her hands in a vaguely magical expression. ”… … vertigo. There’s summat in the boot an’ all. Looks like glitter. And yeah, that’s more’n two sentences but you don’t no the diff’rence between A an’ B… …”

She held up two fingers to Skipper to underline her point.

Looking around the stony car park, you find plenty of grass tufts and dandelions, but no red moss.

Izzy and Leo sense no particular vestigia, but Leo - his senses slightly sharper - detects something slightly unusual from the direction of the small shop.

As if on queue, dark clouds scud across the waning sun and a light flickers on inside the building.

OOC:   Do I get any signare?

After taking a moment to determine the direction of the source, Leo gets the attention of his colleague.

"Something over there," he says as he points toward the shop. "Definitely something over there."

Izzy notices the clouds and sighs, considering it's still early in the day.

"Like a gods damn cricket Test match..." she mutters, as she joins Leo. "You've got something?"

As far as she can tell, the light turning on just means there's someone at the shop, not surprising given the 'open' sign. To her, presumably it's nothing more than a reaction to the clouds making everything darker.

Skipper grunt/growls in (apparent) amusement. "The CCTV cameras, that's definitely a score, but we'd already guessed he was using the spray-on Bilbo's One Ring as car wax, so you don't get that one. I feel like we're one goal up at half time."

"Meantime, remember the giant Venus fly-traps growing in hydro in the Folly basements, Seymour. Be on your toes." He gestures vaguely in the direction of the plant nursery foliage. "But maybe don't set the whole place on fire." The last is directed to Leo with a slight grin.

Skipper takes a few photos of the nursery shop while he's poking the Team B Bear.

"Keep your eyes out for a reddish moss," says Jordan. "The deceased had some in his stomach. Looks like rain. We should get inside now."

"Red moss. Got it."

Of course, Leo left his umbrella back at The Folly, so he starts cautiously toward the store, wondering exactly what is setting off his spidey-sense.

Izzy frowns slightly. "I've still got no idea what you're on about, Skip. I've never heard of any Venus fly-traps growing in the basement, unless Molly's taken up gardening and not told anyone. Besides, Foxglove's room is down there and magic doesn't work around her, so if there is something growing it would be mundane anyway."

Although she definitely appreciates the reference to a great musical. Otherwise, she too keeps an eye out for anything odd, especially in the way of reddish moss, and takes on a more confident, 'I have the right to go anywhere I want' stance, as befits a police officer, before entering the shop.

After a short stroll across the car park (without seeing any red moss), you enter the shop. It is rather cramped and somewhat... well, grotty. The decor matches the goods that are on sale - dusty and dated.

Behind a small counter, her back turned to you as she bustles around with some paperwork, is a short, rather rotund elderly lady with white thistledown hair and strangely pointed ears. Almost immediately you sense a vestigia: the feel of sticky sap, the smell of peat and bright floral colours.

Before you can say anything she stiffens, sniffing the air.

“Ah, The Nightingale has sent his little Peewits to visit my establishment I see," she says in a high-pitched voice. "Honoured, I’m sure. How can I help such fine people today?”

She turns, fixing beady, but not unfriendly, eyes on you.

As soon as Leo saw the woman, he started reaching for his warrant card out of pure instinct. After she spoke, he almost put it back in his pocket, but he knew this was one box he wanted to check in case things went pear-shaped.

"DC Leo Dansby," he said before re-pocketing the card, giving her his best disarming smile. "Friends, it seems our reputation precedes us. But you have us at a disadvantage, And you are?"

Des wondered if anyone else was getting a strange Cabbage Patch Doll vibe off the woman… …

Jordan has never seen an elf before, and he has an image in his mind of elves being tall and thin. This strange woman is neither, but she does have the pointy ears, so maybe she is one. He doesn't know what to say to an elf, or whatever she is, so he lets the magical experts do the talking, at least for now, just standing there looking tough but friendly.