The Vanishing of Abigail Wright

[HoneyDog]

Nik tries not to, but he visibly shivers.

"Fuck" he says. He turns around when Jose speaks.

"I had the same feeling yesterday" he tells the other two. "Someone is watching us. I thought I heard two people talking out there just now. I know I did."

He looks around, frowning.

"This place is definitely off. I hoped there wasn't anything here, but there is. I can feel it".

[Mr. Handy]

"I didn't notice anything myself," says Vanessa, "but that's definitely a bad sign. What were the voices saying?"

[HoneyDog]

Nik shakes his head.

"I couldn't make anything out."

He walks over to the symbol and looks at it closely.

"This doesn't mean anything to me, but maybe our friend Dr. Wu might be able to help. Why don't I call him and see if he's around?"

He takes out his phone and dials the museum.

Occult,Occult 10: [url=https://orokos.com/roll/785614]Occult[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]31[/b]

[Silver Priest]

OOC:   Nik, please make a luck roll.

[Silver Priest]

Dr. Woo answers. "Good to hear from you, Agent Siilasvuo. It has been some time. Of course I will assist in anyway I am able."

Nik describes the symbol to the best of his ability.

"I believe I recognize it. In Demonology It's the mark of Purson, a great lord of hell. In mythology he is served by twenty two legions of demons. His talents include knowing of hidden things, the finding of treasures,and the knowledge of past, present, and future. Taking a human or aerial body he answers truly of all secret and divine things of Earth and the creation of the world at the behest of Bael. Purson is depicted as a man with the face of a lion, carrying a ferocious viper, and riding a bear. Before him there can be heard trumpets sounding."

[HoneyDog]

Nik scribbles notes to show the others.

“Lion, huh?” He shivers again.

“Why might someone want to communicate with Purson, Doctor? We’ve found some odd drawings which indicate imaginary rooms in this building, and a whole different building, a hotel, at this address. Have you ever heard of this building, the MacAllister? And does the word Broadalbin mean anything to you?”

[Silver Priest]

"Well, I suppose there are many reasons. You have your run of the mill occultists, but a more serious follower would likely be seeking to find the truth of something; or perhaps they want answers, be it from the past or future. I doubt that narrows it down all that much, I'm sorry. But I'd suggest figuring out what the worshiper may have been seeking-- once you know that, you'll have a better understanding of what Purson would offer them.

"I should specify that so far as I know what we consider demonology is all mythology. In all my research I've never stumbled any of it having truth behind it. There's a possibility it may be being used either as a front or cover to something deeper, or is being used by an occult dabbler. But there's also the possibility that it's entirely legitimate; I don't believe I have a solid understanding of every sort of legitimate occult phenomena, if you will."

"As for imaginary rooms and the like, I have heard tales of magi-- ah, hypergeometry that can have that effect, though it's a diverse field. It could be the building you're seeing is an illusion, or there are gateways to the hidden building located within it.Or it could have a more mundane explanation. I'm afraid the building's name means nothing to me, nor the hotel. But if you're in New York it shouldn't prove too difficult to track down the history of the building."

"Be careful, Agent. It sounds like a fascinating case, but also one that could be much more than meets the idea."

[HoneyDog]

“Thanks a lot, Doctor.”

Nik finishes the call and turns to the others. After summarising the rest of the call he says,

“Maybe one of us should check out the history of the building. It could be that similar things have happened here in the past. Shall we search some more before we break for lunch?”

[Mr. Handy]

"Good idea," says Vanessa. "Jose, do you want to research the building's history? If not, I can do it, but I'm getting better at sorting through all this stuff."

[Silver Priest]

As soon as one of the agents removes the sheet the symbol is engraved to, their comes a loud and harsh racket of noise from outside. Any agents who rush to the window see a taxi driver is holding down on his horn as an ill kept man in dirty fatigues slowly stumbles across the street as if in a daze. He holds a large snake around his neck that appears to be sleeping. Before the agents can react, the man crosses the street and the cab drives off.

Even for New York, it was not a usual sight.

OOC:   Jose or anyone else, feel free to continue with researching the building, though do note that may take some time depending on what leads you chase down and how good you roll.

[HoneyDog]

Nik begins searching through the room again.

Search,Search 44:[url=https://orokos.com/roll/786355]Search[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]96[/b]

[Anatomist]

OOC:   can i do building history from this place?

[Mr. Handy]

Vanessa helps with the search.

OOC,You'll probably have to go somewhere else, like a records office or library. Since you're doing that, I'll search. Hours spent: [dice]0[/dice] Search roll (57% skill) going through the stuff some more: [dice]1[/dice]

[Silver Priest]

OOC:   Indeed Anatomist, unfortunately if you want to find more information about the building you'll need to go to city hall. A library might be able to help you, especially if they've digitized the records. It's only the year 2000 so not as many records are online as are today, but New York is likelier to be than say, Groversville. What you want to roll here depends on what you're doing. If you're just searching city records for the history of the building, roll bureaucracy. Same if you are searching for Blueprints. Searching the internet would require a Computer Science roll. As for the other agents, I'll update you both on what you discover when I know what Jose's planning to search for, assuming he still wants to.

[Anatomist]

'This is some weird shit i tell you, I think i got a better chance on pulling some history on this building as you suggest Vanessa. im going over at City Hall' He tosses his keys to Vanessa 'car keys, ill take a cab'

Once in City Hall José will request blueprints and history of the building

Bureaucracy 40%,[dice]0[/dice]

[Silver Priest]

Jose,Jose makes his way to city hall and asks to see records. He's led to a very large room with hundreds if not thousands of boxes, most of which are only scarcely organized. He gets to work looking up the history of the Macallistar, but finds nothing. It quickly becomes obvious this could take awhile. Not as long as cataloging the apartment, but he still might be here for a few hours. [ooc]Sadly Jose finds nothing now on specifically what he is looking for. Once the other characters do another search roll you'll be able to make another bureaucracy roll, but until then we can assume he's searching through the records unsuccessfully. I'll let you know when you can take an action. :)[/ooc]

Vanessa and Nik continue to work. Nik finds nothing, but Vanessa isn't working for too long before she finds something of interest. There's a piece of paper lodged into the space between two objects on the wall. She tears it off, discovering that it's a page out of what appears to be a play. It's triple spaced and the writing is sparse.

SCENE: The Smoking Lounge, a large parlor on the fourth floor. In the room are THE
DOG, THOMAS, MICHELLE, ROGER, MARK and LOUIS.

THOMAS: Today's the big day.

MARK: I always enjoy a good going away party.
He sips his drink.

MICHELLE: You enjoy any excuse to get hammered, you worthless drunk.

THOMAS: Come on guys, not today. Abby wouldn't want us to fight.
Enter ABIGAIL.

THOMAS: Abby!

MICHELLE: Are you sure you want to go upstairs?
ABIGAIL nods. MICHELLE appears disgusted.

ROGER: Give them our best, will you? With luck I'll be joining you soon.

POST: Abigail is special, Carun. You could never hope to grasp the hidden face of reality. None of you can! At best you'll end up here with Mark.

MARK: It's a living.

POST: I'll be along soon, Abby.
ABIGAIL says nothing. Suddenly, something makes everyone jump. the DOG barks.

MICHELLE:Is that him?

ROGER: Obviously.

THOMAS: I'm going to miss you, Abby. I-- never really got the chance to say it, but I wanted to let you know that--
Enter the ENCYCLOPEDIA SALESMAN. ABIGAIL approaches him. The rest of the group applaud her, except MICHELLE. He takes her arm and they ascend the stairs.

MARK: She was special. The salesman doesn't take too many upstairs.

MICHELLE: Shut up Mark.
MARK puffs on his cigar, seems about to say something, but instead turns to look directly at the audience. He holds their gaze unblinking for exactly 36 seconds.
End Scene.

[Mr. Handy]

"She's written this play about herself and the other artists in the building!" says Vanessa. "Look, there's Roger Carun. The others must also be her neighbors. We should talk to the rest of them after lunch, once Jose returns. We can also check out the smoking lounge on the fourth floor, presuming this building has one. I'm curious about the dog. And whoever this encyclopedia salesman is, he took her upstairs. She must have been writing about her departure before it happened."

[HoneyDog]

”Whoa, slow down a moment!” says Nik. “We need to compare the handwriting.”

[Silver Priest]

The text seems to have been written on a typewriter, and is different from any other evidence the agents have found.

[Mr. Handy]

"It's typed,' says Vanessa. "Is there a typewriter among all this junk? Maybe we'll find more pages from the play in here somewhere. I'd really like to know what happens in the next scene. It would give us some clues as to what has happened to Abigail. From the sound of it, Post is next. We need to talk to him first before he disappears too."