DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Hall of Fame - Latest Top 10 completed games OAHE: Once upon an All Hallows Eve All Wet?

[OOC: Those interested in investigating, working on, or combating the water spirit at Old Man McGee's house. This is your thread. Chronologically this starts the night of the Parliament.]

Shadow

The ginger tom looked at Seeker for further direction, mrring a curious

"Well?"

[ooc: sorry, was waiting on the scene setting, but I can do it, I think...]

>Seeker-On-High<

Seeker leads the way on the Old Man McGee's house, onto the property and not quite to where he had seen the puddle-like footprints from the Astral.

"If you see any puddles, don't step in them. And be looking, carefully. In fact, you probably shouldn't go past me except toward the house and toward..."

He turned, to spot the pool he'd seen, the source of the spirit.

"Toward that. It's likely the spirit came out of that pool. There's the first place to check."

[OOC: I was giving time for people to decide how they wanted things to go. Scene setting I can do.]

Old Man McGee's is a white two story with an attic. It has peeling white paint on the clap board siding. There is a small front porch with a rocking chair that has seen better days. The windows are yellowed with grime and the yard looks like a jungle.

The pond off to one side of the house is where Seeker thinks the thing came from. There are no obvious puddles on this plane. In fact the pond is filthy with dirty water and mosquito larvae even this late in the season.

The bathroom that Seeker saw the thing in is up stairs on the back side of the house. What the rest of the house hold lay out is, really is unknown.

None of the windows seem open for a cat to crawl in. Yet the back door has a cat door set into it.

Bringer


Bringer hung back, allowing Seeker to point out the various points of interest, his massive head moving slowly to cover the area with all his senses alert for threat.

Shadow

Heeding Seeker's advice, he padded towards the house itself, moving his head back and forth to see if there was a way up to that closed bathroom window.

"There was the place? Big as a Burden?"

ooc I'm probably overstepping, but I believe all of us are in on this thread. I'd like to request we wait for everyone to get to post once or twice before we get too far.

Tiger-Lily



Her awareness works on many levels and she views the scene with interest examining the ground and looking towards the pond to see if she can see anything of interest. She does listen to Seeker though and exercises care, looking first before venturing any closer.

Soot

She had come, quietly padding along with Terror and Tiger-Lily. Her gaze swept the area and her head was cocked to one side as if listening.

Whiskers twitched, and her mouth was slightly open, as she drew in and scented the air.

>Seeker-On-High<

"I peeked in from Above, so we'll need to find a way in. And up. If it's still in the big cold water-place, I mean. But we should try to know what it is before it knows we're here."

He still suspects there should be wet, muddy spots on this side to mark the footprints he had seen, but maybe not. Maybe it's sneakier than that. He didn't like the idea that it might be sneaky.

"It was pretty big. But scale can be different from Above, and it might look big because it's powerful rather than because it's actually big. It's steps were burden-length apart. If not a little more."

He looked at the pool and wrinkled back his nose in distaste. "And if it came out of that, it's pretty nasty just because."

The window in the water room was inaccessible. But another on that floor could be approached via a dark bare tree limb from the great tree in the back yard. Around the massive trunk lay piles of brown and yellow leaves. Just a few weeks ago the tree had been full of green leaves. But fall had come.

Terror of the Alley

The stinking pool of water made him show his teeth -- he didn't like the looks of it at all. Burdens were often ridiculously preoccupied with being what they considered "clean" (even though that involved substances that smelled badly and erased natural odors). Burdens who did not seem to care about such things were often suspect.

"May I ask what you saw it do?" he asked Seeker as he scanned the area for any threats. "I regret that I missed your original report."

>Seeker-On-High<

"It was done when I got here, I think. Lying in the indoor pool, up there." He twitched an ear toward the upper story, the water room. "I didn't want its attention when I was Above, because Spirits are stronger on the other side and I'm just one cat. But the cat who lived here drowned not long ago. And now there's a water spirit here now. I have to think the two are linked, don't you?"

He got closer to the pool now, sniffing the ground near where he remembered the spirit's print marks. There had to be some sign on this side to match the other. And some way he could find it without raising attention.

Soot

She continued scenting the air and looking about. But her ear twitched as Seeker spoke, showing she was listening to his words.

The ground showed no sign of the spirit. Though Seeker can imagine where it had traversed the ground to get into the house. It should have left wet foot prints yet it didn't. Or they were so long ago that they water had since been absorbed by the ground.

Soot could smell sea air full of the tang of salt. It was not normally smelt in the small lake side town. The air currents carried it from the pond of fetid water to the house and the door that they suspect it entered. It is a straight line as if the spirit had a purpose for entering the house.

Bringer


The place did not necessarily smell bad... just different, perhaps odd, and Bringer's stub of a tail twitched as his excellent nose sorted through the various odors he detected.

"I don't like coincidences," he snarled, but quietly. "So I agree about the link."

Shadow

He padded back to the group to report, licking the back of his forepaw to slick back his whiskers.

"There's a see-through way in up not too far from the indoor pool, we can reach it with a quick tree climb. If it can be opened, it could be a more direct route in. I suggest we try the People door set into the back way first, if the burdens aren't nearby."

Most cats would know that Old Man McGee is hard of hearing and very unobservant. Unless he happens to be right in the room with them it is likely he won't notice much of anything.

Soot

"Sea smell," she says and sneezes slightly. "Salt water spray is harder to clean from fur than rain or lake water. From the pond to there." At that statement she tilted her head so her nose pointed in the direction of the door. "No wandering or movement away from that path."

>Seeker-On-High<

"We should check the doors, then. There might be a way in. But stay clear of the line directly from the pool to the front, still. Just to be safe."

Sea smell? He sniffed for it himself, just to be sure. There shouldn't be salt water here. That meant the spirit brought it. But why? What did that tell them about the spirit? Something drowned in the sea that rose from that nasty pool? That didn't connect. There was still something missing. He didn't like the gap in the picture.

Bringer


"I'll use the cat door," the big cat said. Bringer didn't necessarily look for a fight, but he wasn't afraid of one either.

"This place smells... odd."

Terror

"Salt?" he sniffed the air, then sneezed. It was not a smell that belonged here, but he could not combine it in a way that made sense with a large water spirit or the death of the cat who had called this place home.

"I will go through the cat door as well. I doubt the old Burden will see us -- his senses have dulled."

The back door of the place with the little space for a cat to enter was quiet. The panel slipped in as the cats made their way inside. The room beyond was dark with only the light through the window from outside. It smelled of cooking smells and old man. It smelled of something else too, something long dead.

That room held a small basin into which water could be run. There was a surface that would get hot that burdens used to do things to perfectly good food. There were also two other burden sized doors. One stood open and lead to a hall at the end of which was the front of the house, and the stairs on the right. The other burden sized door was closed and the smell of something long dead could be smelled from beneath it. It was quiet in the room.

Bringer


The big cat paused and looked around. His nose wrinkled up briefly. Sometimes Bringer liked the smell of death.

This was not one of those times.

He followed his nose down the hall and to the closed burden-sized door.

"I think the old burden is a burden no longer."

>Seeker-On-High<

"You're probably right. Which says to be more careful about this spirit. Would it help to Name it to see its victim?"

Probably not... Or he hoped not. The smell didn't make him at all curious to work to open that door.

Instead, he looked around the room they were in, then headed to the hallway. Perhaps he could spot something more clue-like there. Maybe a book. His burden had books *everywhere*, but others seemed to like them less. But the less they liked them, the more important any one you did find probably was.