IC: Scene 3 - The Campsite

[amarriner]

The Students' Campsite
On the banks of the Miskatonic River
Monday June 6, 1927 1:10 pm

Albert, Mickey, and Donald pull up to the end of Cabot Road in Albert's Ford. They park the car a little off to the side of the narrow road and get out. In front of them is the darkly muttering Miskatonic River. It's flowing fast today, likely a result of the weekend's storms. A slight wind has picked up and it seems a bit cooler here than it was in town. As the three get ready to head up the river, the hear another car approaching.

After a moment, a taxi appears and drops off Gregory, Ondine, and Jack. Gregory asks the cabby to pick them up around sundown. He nods and says, Hey, it's your dime, Mack. Reunited, they all decide to make the half-mile hike together. It's somewhat slow going as much of the bank is overgrown, but they make it without too much trouble.

The bank opens up into a sandy strip where Atwater and Cardigan were camped. Surprisingly, the tent is still up, but the group doesn't see much of anything else. There seems to be a lot of crows around and everyone can hear them constantly cawing. A police officer is stationed by the tent and informs them that the rest of the cops and the civilian volunteers are already in the woods looking for Cardigan. You're welcome to join them, of course. Or you can take a look around here, but there ain't much to see as far as I know.

[Miss Scarlet]

You're welcome to join them, of course. Or you can take a look around here, but there ain't much to see as far as I know.

Thank you officer. I think I'd like to look at the campsite first then I'll join the others in the search for the boy. Winston says to the Policeman.

Albert will systematically search the campsite looking for any clue, any footprint, anything that could help him to have an idea what had happened there and where Richard could be.

Spot hidden.
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1485475/

[amarriner]

Be my guest, says the officer. Albert spends the next 20 minutes or so searching around the campsite. There's no much of anything at all in the tent or its immediate surrounding area. All of the footprints, unfortunately, have been either washed away by the heavy storm and rains of the weekend or trampled by the civilian volunteers or the police so there's not much unusual there.

The only thing that strikes Albert as odd as that the crows they saw and heard when they first arrived don't seem to be going away. If anything their caws seem to be increasing. Albert looks up and down the bank and notices a small group of crows huddled around a small area of beach a short way up the sandy beach.

[Miss Scarlet]

Albert Winston

It's odd those crows around here. There is one logical explanation for that, but I don't want to think about it now... He shakes his head to push these dark thought away of his mind.

Discretely Albert signalize to his colleagues to follow him and heads to the small group of crows huddled around a small area of beach a short way up the sandy beach.

[Samuel]

Gregory Atkinson

Albert Winston
Discretely Albert signalize to his colleagues to follow him and heads to the small group of crows huddled around a small area of beach a short way up the sandy beach.

Gregory goes with the others and indicates to Jack to follow (since he is employed by the firm, I will volunteer to have him as my "henchman" [in the classic D&D sense] until HellBlazer gets back, just to keep the story moving). I can't imagine the cops would miss a body this close to the campsite, but then again...wolves?!?

[zielonobrody]

Donald Lutherhagen

He looks around the campsite for anything out of place in a normal campsite. The positioning of the tent, the fire, and if there was one he kicks the ashes.

Donald follows Albert after the find.

[amarriner]

Nothing strikes Donald as particularly odd. Really the only thing left to see at the site itself is the tent which doesn't yield any readily apparent clues. He sees where the student's had their fire, but he can't deduce anything from it.

[Riotopsys]

Ondine Dumont

Completely ignoring Albert's waves Ondine approaches the tent enters, and proceeds to give it a once over. Arkham's finest, why isn't this site protected?

Spot hidden in the tent please
Tent Spot hidden (1d100=31)

[amarriner]

The Tent
Ondine spends a bit of time searching through the tent. Nothing much presents itself as the tent is mostly empty. No blood, no nothing really. The officer walks over to her and explains how they went through the tent thoroughly, and took everything back to the station. So far, nothing has turned up as a clue. Ondine is a bit skeptical of the police thus far, though, so she doesn't know how reliable this information is.


The Crows
Albert, Donald, Gregory, and Jack approach the bustling murder of crows. The big black birds don't pay much attention to the four until they're almost on top of them--at which point the birds fly off cawing madly at the interruption. The resulting image is horrifying. The group sees a face-down, rotting corpse. The crows had eaten much of the flesh off the left shoulder, and were moving on to the higher reaches of the back before being disturbed. Most of the left ear is gone as well.

The body is not fully uncovered and some of it still lays beneath the sand. The stench is awful, though, and supremely revolting. Clouds of flies buzz around the bloated thing. It looks as if the body has been here for a few days. The river had risen substantially over the weekend because of the storm and now that it's abated, the water has receded a bit which must have uncovered this much of the corpse.

SAN (1/1d4+1) checks for the four who see the corpse (well three, I'll worry about Jack for now).

[Miss Scarlet]

Albert Winston

Albert looks at the semi-buried corpse for a moment before reacting. We should call the Police and check who this is. I think we shouldn’t move the body without Police's knowledge. Saying this, Winston calls the Policeman who was guarding the campsite.

Officer, there is a body here! He shouts.

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1495789

[Samuel]

Gregory Atkinson

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1495885/

After taking a few moments to get over the shock with some deep breaths, Gregory says: Jack, get on the other side and help me keep those crows from coming back, Mr. Lutherhagen, please go back and keep Ondine and the kid (Mickey) from seeing this and and tell that idiot cop to hurry up!, omit the last part if the officer has responded or is hurrying over, but Greg definitely says it if he is silent and is taking his time.

Wow, I thought I'd roll a 99 for sure!

To Albert, much more quietly: Lutherhagen knew Richard, right? When we get this body turned over I'd rather he did an ID than Mickey.

Christ, Saltonstall is going to flip! How did the morons at the department miss this? That Atwater kid must have really lost it. Yeah, he's jumping to conclusions here, but it seems like the obvious ones for the situation.

[Miss Scarlet]

Albert Winston

I can ID him too, if it's him. Richard is my student. Albert comments with Gregory, being positive until there is no more hope.

[Riotopsys]

Ondine Dumont

Ondine spends a bit of time searching through the tent. Nothing much presents itself as the tent is mostly empty. No blood, no nothing really. The officer walks over to her and explains how they went through the tent thoroughly, and took everything back to the station. So far, nothing has turned up as a clue. Ondine is a bit skeptical of the police thus far, though, so she doesn't know how reliable this information is.

Officer as the items we're removed did you by chance see a book or any article that would be out of place on a camping trip

Officer, there is a body here! He shouts.

Ondine then stairs dumb founded toward the direction of the others. when the officer leaves she follows behind

Should donald wish to stop her he won't have a problem

[zielonobrody]

Donald Lutherhagen

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1497580/

Dear Lord! cries Donald turning away and fighting nausea. He recovers quiclky though and seeing Ondine and the officer walking towards the river walks away from the horrid site to intercept Ondine.
Please Ondine. You shouldn't be seeing this. Walk with me please. Let's leave it to the Police. Mickey, you too. Please. A bit pale, Donald takes her hand and walks her away from the corpse.

[Dondero]

Mickey O'Dwyer

Updated equipment: Bag containing pen, paper, magnifiying glass, sampling kit, botany book, basic first aid materials, small scalpel for extracting samples, electric torch.
Let me know if anything not ok.


Mickey had been feeling unwell on the ride over to the campsite. Sure that it must be the stress of the morning catching up with him, he elected to remain in the car until his wave of nausea passed.

After about half an hour, Mickey grabbed his bag, tugged on his cap and made his way over to his group of new friends. He heard them before he saw them, and realisation that something was very wrong hit him with full force.

Jogging over to them, he yelled What is it? What have you found? Catching up with Donald and Ondine, his voice rising hysterically, It’s Richie isn’t it? Starting to shake and tears rolling down his face, he tries to push his way past them , only to be gently held back by Donald, who leads him back with Ondine. Mr Lutherhagen? Miss Dumont? Will somebody tell me what’s happening? Put me out of my misery, ok? as he starts shaking.

[amarriner]

The Tent

Officer as the items we're removed did you by chance see a book or any article that would be out of place on a camping trip

Hmm, not that I'm aware of, Miss. There were a couple of botany textbooks, but from what I understand these kids were students at MU so that's not really unusual. Certainly there was nothing out of the ordinary.


The Corpse

Jack didn't fare as well as the rest of you guys did for the Sanity roll. He failed the roll and then proceeded to lose 5 Sanity. He then failed (or succeeded depending on your point of view!) his Idea roll to prevent temporary insanity (because he lost 5 or more Sanity in a single roll). So the long and the short of it is Jack is temporarily insane and is not moving or talking right now. Geez, you'd think a PI would be used to this sort of thing.

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1498774/
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1498778/

Officer, there is a body here! He shouts.

At this, the cop turns and runs towards the spot where Albert, Gregory, and Jack are passing the returning Donald along the way. Gregory is shouting for Jack to help keep the crows at bay, but Jack's eyes are glazed over and he's not moving at all. He's just standing bolt upright staring at the corpse.

The crows are trying to get back at the corpse a bit. They aren't too close yet, but they're gaining confidence and inching slowly back towards the group. Gregory does his best to keep them away but there are a lot of them.

Once the cop reaches the body he yells at everyone, Okay keep back! I've got to take a look at this. I don't want anyone tampering with evidence! He hears them discussing identifying the body, though, and thinks it might be a good idea to do that and so he kneels down and reaches to turn the body over as best he can since it's still partially buried in the wet sand.

At this point, more awfulness happens. The officer only moves the corpse slightly when suddenly from beneath it a hand shoots out and grabs the officer's arm! This is accompanied by a horrendous screech and screaming. The cop falls a little and backs away from the body in shock. The hand is wrinkled and old, but very human and very alive! From the angle, those present can see that it's a different person than the one they've been looking at! There's another body underneath the corpse ... and it's alive!!!

In the chaos, one of the crows seizes the opportunity to swoop in and and succeeds in plucking off a finger from the newly exposed hand that grabbed the policeman. This elicits even louder and stronger screams from the trapped person below the corpse ...

More Sanity rolls!
I need a Sanity roll (1/1d6+2) from Gregory and Albert for seeing the hand and then another roll (0/1d3) for the bird taking the finger. I'll roll Jack's in a few minutes and post the results in the OOC thread. Needless to say he'll be useless for a short while.

[Riotopsys]

Ondine Dumont

Mon dieu ! Donald is it him. what happened, you've gone ashen.

[Dondero]

Mickey O'Dwyer

Torn between running over to the tent to check out for himself the latest discovery, Mickey instead, awaits by the reassuring presence of Donald. Trying his best to regain his composure, Mickey's nerves are further frayed by the sounds of more commotion coming from the campsite.

Making an irrational mental note to check out the botany textbooks, to determine if they're Richie's, Mickey says absently What's with all these crows?

Taking a few faltering steps back, Mickey's confidence eludes him, as he comes to the conclusion that even if the body is Richie's, I'm not sure I'm up to the job of ID'ing him.

[Samuel]

Gregory Atkinson

More Sanity rolls!
I need a Sanity roll (1/1d6+2) from Gregory and Albert for seeing the hand and then another roll (0/1d3) for the bird taking the finger. I'll roll Jack's in a few minutes and post the results in the OOC thread. Needless to say he'll be useless for a short while.

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1499316/ 100
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1499329/ 3
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1499330/ 70
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1499331/ 3

Gregory says: Gurgle.....

7 points in a few minutes, more than 10% of total, shall I begin rolling a new one?

[Miss Scarlet]

Albert Winston

Sanity rolls

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1499591/
Lost 1

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1499597/

Winston is shocked by seeing a hand coming beneath the corpse, but it seems he has seen too much odd things in his life that his reaction is to reach for that hand. Unfortunately the crow gets it first, but still he tries to pull that hand to see what is attached to it.