Episode 1 - Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate

[CrackheadC.]

Dirk stares blankly at Harry as he rattles off his analysis of the poster and its message before stating, "That's a whole lot of words to say that this poster and message shouldn't be possible...right?"

As Harry and Max prattle on about the possibility of "prevenge", time travel, and ESP, Dirk laughs "Yeah, maybe a wizard put this poster here." He follows the others into the office on their search while continuing, "I never really got Star Trek myself. But Star Wars was great!" Dirk imitates swinging a lightsaber including making the signature Whoosh sound.

When Charlie got the file cabinet up and grabbed the confidential envelope, Dirk snatched up the larger manila folder to give it a quick peruse. Unable to figure out what he was looking at, Dirk passed it on to one of the more nerdy kids in the group.

Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic: 30%
1d100

[Philulhu]

Reading, writing and arithmetic (30%)

1d100

Hard success!

By no means a gifted scholar, a lot of stuff that Charlie did read was related to horror and true crime, so this felt natural to him. He scanned the pages and frowned.

”Jesus! They knew what this LeMann guy was up to and they were just trying to cover their own asses!” he said.

[Snapper]

1d%80%

Success.

Max pushed his glasses up then methodically read. "You are right Charlie. That Ina Matthews woman hid everything to protect this stupid fun park and herself."

"This is an adult in a responsible position, making this decision to lie and hide something awful from the police. Nothing like this happened in The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew."

"There must have been some very angry parents and kids after this." Max looked distracted by this last thought.

[Mr. Handy]

"Yeah," says Harry, reading over his shoulder. "I bet the police would be really interested in seeing these."

Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic roll (60% skill) to understand the documents:
d%

[CrackheadC.]

OOC:   Assuming one of the brighter kids explains the papers as they discuss it, do the handwritten notes that state LeMann's references and education didn't line up suggest that the park knew this before his hiring, or it is something they tacked onto his file after some incident?

[BoyBlunder78]

Darren casts his eyes over the papers.

OOC:   Hard Success!

"That woman seems a right bitch!!! How can you hide what he can ya accuse the victims and families...." Darren says , his knuckles whitening as he holds his bat.

[Mephistophilis]

It isn't really possible to tell when the failure to contact the references or check out his qualifications happened because it is recorded on separate sheets of notepad paper to the initial interview notes.

However, both Charlie and Darren can see the writing is the same and there's even some signs of the handwriting coming through the pages that suggests the notes were written at the same time or at least consecutively on the same notepad.

Darren also notices that LeMann claimed on his CV to go to the same elementary school as he did, Zionsville. But he's pretty sure the school didn't open until 1966, it was the twentieth anniversary last year.

[Philulhu]

”Adults, man! They covered it up to save themselves, rather than protecting us kids!” Charlie cried indignantly.

”That sucks!”

[Mr. Handy]

"Yeah," says Harry, "but now we have the proof. Now we have something to show the police."

[Philulhu]

”Ok, so we take this with us,” said Charlie.”Gotta make them pay for what they’ve done!” This wasn’t like one of the murders he usually read about, they were abstract, not quite real. This had happened to kids, probably about the same age as him. Mentally, he made a note of the TV programmes that this needed to go to.

[Snapper]

"If everyone's happy to, you can put all these notes and stuff in my backpack."

Max opens his backpack and makes space behind some well-thumbed comics (including Detective Comics: Batman, Spiderman, X-Men, Doctor Strange, and Strange Tales).

"Back to my earlier question. Do we want to follow the footprints I could see? One group go north along the path. Another follows the roller coaster. The last, somehow, goes under the roller coaster."

"At the moment, I think Harry and I both vote for under the roller coaster."

[Mr. Handy]

"Never split the party," says Harry. "It's a bad idea in Dungeons & Dragons, and it's a bad idea in situations like this. No end of grief would come of it. If we're going to stay here, I'm curious about what's under the coaster, but maybe we should go to the police now that we have something to show them."

[Mephistophilis]

The light of the sun has completely disappeared, leaving the office in inky darkness, lit only by the occasional thin beams of the flashlights, tracing out shafts of swirling grey mist. There nothing beyond the limit of the light, thick fog edging suffocatingly close. You can taste it, wet and cloying. Heavy and chilling. The air very, very quiet. Except, there's that rustling noise again, somewhere to the north. Occasional looming shadows flitting across the edge of your vision that seem to have melted away when you look.

The lines represent where Max has found footprints.

[Philulhu]

”We’re not too far from the gate, so why don’t we go an check what’s making that noise, then we can go the the police?” said Charlie, nodding in the direction of the rustling noise.

[Mr. Handy]

"Because in every horror movie I've ever seen, that's always a mistake," says Harry. "That and splitting up the group. And going in the basement. Though sometimes you have to do that."

[BoyBlunder78]

" That creep even lied about the school he went to. I went ro that school and im pretty sure it wasnt open back then." Darren's head snapped round at the mention of splitting the party, "NO! WE ARE NOT SPLITTING THE PARTY!" Slamming his bat down on the table, the scrawled name on it facing toward the group." Harry's right, that's how we lose fri...people and I.. We aren't losing anyone!!" At the mention of the basement Darren can feel the tears build up as he turns away from the group, his hand reaching into his pocket.

[Snapper]

Max sighed, looked at Harry and raised his eyebrows, but continued in an even, reasonable voice. "I believe you misunderstood my question. The groups I was talking about are the groups of footprints I found, not us. I wasn't proposing we split the team, obviously, I'm not an idiot. I may not have watched horror movies but I've read Dracula."

"And quite a lot of old Marvel Tomb of Dracula comics, as it happens. Although, sadly, the philistines have discontinued the title."

"I was asking for a vote, the idea being that we all go with the majority vote. That being the American way."

[Mr. Handy]

"Oh, okay," says Harry. "I vote we go to the police, now that we have something to show them."

[Mephistophilis]

OOC:   So what are you doing? Where are you going?

[Snapper]

"Well, going to the police involves back-tracking the way we came in, which is where the roller coaster now seems to be blocking our path. Harry is voting police and I want to head that way too, because I want to see what's happened to the path."

"So that's two votes to head south along the path, I guess."