This is an in-character game thread from Changeling: In Love and War. (This page is not Creative Commons licenced.)
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
GM OC: Forked out of "Event: Welcome Home Poppies!"
Hugh practically screamed at the waiter.
"Get a hold of yourself! Just because the trifle and everything else in
the kitchen is poisoned, there are dents in the new frying pans and
there's a petty poisoner unconscious in the kitchen there is NO. NEED.
TO. PANIC!!!!"
Abandoning all decorum, Hugh charged the remainder of the way to the
kitchen, panting "Don't panic!" under his breath. Screeching to a halt,
he rounded the corner into the kitchen and, seeing the entire kitchen
swivel to face him sought to establish priorities.
"I AM PERFECTLY CALM!!!
OC: Help! I'm stuck in a post factory and they keep whipping me and my fingers are just bloody stumps! :(
With great presence of mind, the nearest chef whipped a lukewarm cup of
tea off the nearest sideboard and hurled it, managing to get at least
half of it into the screaming faerie's wide open mouth. Spluttering and
dripping the other half onto the floor, Hugh took a deep breath.
"Right. Yes. Thank you. Where was this poisoner found?"
Storyteller
"Argh! The tea! In my eyes!" screamed the still frantic
waiter, who'd managed to get splashed by the ballistic beverage.
"Over here, by the sink," said a rather more coherent sous-chef. She led Hugh and the others over to what could
technically be called a sink, but would more honestly be called a vast
continental land-mass of bubbles. More than two dozen people
worked at stages along it, cleaning the dishes of the hundreds of
guests in preparation for forthcoming courses.
In one corner of the expanse, a rather sorry-looking figure lay slumped
against a supporting post. On closer inspection, he was in fact
chained to the post. He was a strange-looking man by human
standards, but to the faeries he was somewhat less of a mythical
creature. His legs were huge and powerful, and terminated in
hooves, whilst his upper body resembled merely that of a - well-muscled
and very hairy - man.
A gaggle of chefs, waiters and miscellanous staff were standing around
- mostly aimlessly, although one small child was poking the unconscious
captive with a serving fork.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
"No no no! Where are your priorities? The poisoner's clearly not going
anywhere and I've no idea what needs doing with him! But the food,
that's going to need checking, starting where he was found."
Hugh absent-mindedly swept a teatowel off the nearby rack and handed it to the overwrought waiter.
"Stop that washing up! Don't serve anything else. Where's the bottle?"
Storyteller
"Here it is!" shouted the fork-poking child, whilst the waiter ran off
to bother the washing-up servants. She very nearly picked the
bottle up to give to Hugh, before an ample lady who presumably was her
mother pulled her back.
"Aww," she whined, but pointed Hugh to the bottle anyway. It lay
on the floor where the captive had presumably dropped it. It was
mostly empty bar a few drops of black liquid left in the bottom and, as
the waiter had told him, did indeed have a skull and crossbones
prominently emblazoned on the side.
Nyano-Sgiathatch
Nyano paused for at the entrance to the kitchens. He felt some
trepidation at entering Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's domain whilst the
chef was in residence after it had been invaded.
Then he caught a glimpse of the poisoner in the corner of the room and he felt his hackles rise.
"How dare he try to ruin our coming home party" He thought to himself
as he marched over, converting his boomerang back into a spear along
the way.
As he approached the unconcious fae he started to poke it in the legs
with his spear. Eventually the pain brought it round.
"Tell me what you were doing in the kitchens and why!" The Raccoon
demanded, with all the authority of a Noble of Faerie behind his words.
OOC That's a sovereign two (Dictum) command to tell me everything I want to know.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Hugh nodded, rootled around in his jacket and pulled a small lump of
English Toffee from his pocket from the small stash he kept for just
such occasions. Handing it to the small child with a grin, he swept a
clean set of tongs from the drying washing up and strode purposefully
over to the bottle.
Kneeling down next to it, he carefully scooped it up and lifted it near
the cavernous Fearnley-Whittinstall nose. He sniffed carefully.
Storyteller
Nyano casts the Dictum (Sovereign 2) cantrip!
Rolling (Charisma) 6 + (Kenning) 1 = 7 dice. No applicable specialty.
Target is stunned, so difficulty 5.
4 successes!
The poisoner has Willpower 2, and cannot resist.
"Sir!" the man blurts out with uncharacteristic consciousness.
"Please don't kill me, I'm just a poor man, I'm only doing it because I
was paid..."
Tears started to form in the corners of his eyes.
"I don't even know who sent me, or what's in the bottle... It
was... a man who wore a mask, to hide his face. He said he'd kill
me if I didn't... But if I did, my family would never go hungry
again..."
Nyano-Sgiathatch
Nyano looks unsympathetic.
"If you needed the work or food you should have petitioned your liege
lord. Now, I may decide to be lenient on you if you tell me everything
you know about this man.
Where did you meet him? Did he have a funny accent or five fingers on his right hand? Stuff like that."
Storyteller
Hugh lifted the bottle to his nose, inhaling deeply. Despite
there being little left of the liquid, it smelt horrifically
pungent. The scent of chilli, and of tea, and of aubergine; they
were certainly there. But also fainter whiffs of blueberries and
rabbits, foxgloves and deadly nightshade, cat-mittens and happy
nightshade, arsenic and Arsenal.
A truly strange concoction indeed, and... possibly deadly. Or
maybe just tasty. It's a little difficult to tell from just the
smell.
Meanwhile, the head scout was deep into the grilling of their
captive. (With such a furry captive, it was probably wise that he
did not choose to use an actual grill.)
He... He met me in a forest, far from here to the west. I
was scavenging for what food I could find. I... I have a
large family, and they are not... not well able to survive without
me... He... he spoke confusingly. I could fathom little
besides what he wanted me to do, sir. He said... He might
have said his name was... Indigo something."
Nyano-Sgiathatch
"'Indigo Something'? I'll have my men keep an eye out by anyone of that
name. Now for the important question, What did you actually put the
poison in?"
Storyteller
"Well... Well... As much... as I could find.
He... The man told me that a mere drop should do, so I
should... add it to as much as I could..."
So saying, the captive burst properly into tears, dejectedly fiddling with the chains that still tied him to the sink.
Nyano-Sgiathatch
Nyano had to supress his panic when he heard how many items of food were poisoned.
He looked frantically around the bustling kitchen, and then an idea occured to him.
His eyes settled on three of his men who had just stumbled in through the door.
"Wilks, Sooty, Clyde, get over here and unhook the prisoner. We're going to take him for a little walk!"
He turns to prisoner "We're going to take you around the kitchen, and
if you think you might have put poison in a dish, you're going to point
it out. Remember, if any poisoned dishes go out to the crowd you're
going to be tried for murder, or worse..."
Storyteller
Holy haddock, Dictum lasts for an hour =S
The three guards unchained the somewhat limp captive, and between them hefted him around the kitchen.
"That one," he said, pointing vaguely at a large pot bubbling on the stove. "And that one, and that one..."
This continued for some dozen or so pots of cooking food, until the
captive let his gaze dwell guiltily for slightly too long on a pot that
had already been used, served from, and placed in a stack to be
washed...
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Hugh had the scent of it now, the important thing was to make sure no one else got the taste
of it. Legs pumping, he charged back out of the kitchen straight back
towards the assembled guests, only to almost run into a familiar figure
on the way there. He jinked and was about to carry on running past when
a sudden thought struck him.
"You're Northern, right?"
"Aye ahm tha."
"Follow me."
And he took to his heels again. The important thing, he decided as he
burst into the hall at full pelt, hair flying everywhere, clothes
soaked in a thin layer of sweat, the important thing was not to spread
panic by keeping the Poisoning as quiet as possible.
"EVERYONE!" he bellowed, somehow finding the air in his lungs to make himself heard over the hubbub of party conversation.
"THE FOOD'S BEEN POISONED! NO ONE EAT ANYTHING!"
He raised his nose to the air, scenting for the distinctive scent he
detected from the bottle inamongst a scene full of exotically perfumed
fae. As he did so, he murmered to the following Captain.
"The stuff has distilled Arsenal in it."
The captains eyes widened, his nostrils flared and with a great scream
of "THE TOOON FOREEEVERR!" he set his shoulder once more and began the
deceptively fast run of the football hooligan towards a poor confused
looking elderly gentleman still holding a loaded forkful up in the air.
Storyteller
OC: Righty, this has gone back into the main hall
again, and the Welcome Home Poppies thread is still catching up with
Akane's investigations in the past. Thus: Haaaaalt! This
bit will continue once Akane is up-to-date. (Sorry!)
EDIT: Nyano/Gustaffsen-when-he-arrives, you can continue here so long
as it doesn't end up waaay in the future of what's going on in the main
hall.
Storyteller
Gustafssen hurried towards the kitchens, nearly bowling over a rapidly
departing Hugh and Geordie combination. Nevertheless, despite the
delay caused by the unintelligible barrage of Northern insults,
Gustafssen arrived in the kitchen to quite a sight.
No work was going on anymore; the eyes of hundreds of kitchen staff and
others were on the odd parade making its way around the room.
Nyano the raccoon led the group, pausing occasionally to glare at a
rather hairy cloven-hoofed man who was looking warily around and
pointing at pots and pans. Supporting him and restraining him was
the seemingly difficult task of no less than three guards, none of whom
looked particularly happy to be there.
Gustafssen
Standing in the Doorway Gustafssen surveyed the scene before
pronouncing, "Never fear Gustafssen is here!" To which half the
Fae in the room dived under anything large and heavy that could be used
as a sheild. The rest of them, those too slow, too dim witted or
too new to know what this meant, just stood there looking confused.
Completely oblivious to the reaction the Scientist continued in the
vein of Doctors and scientists everywhere. "Firstly we would like
to know what is going on. Secondly and more importantly we would
like to know to whom we send the bill?"
Nyano-Sgiathatch
On seeing Gustaffsen arrive the raccoon veers away from his party towards the engineer.
He holds out what looks like a marmite bottle that someone finally got
around to labelling appropriately with one hand and points at the
prisoner with the other.
"That idiot poisoned the meal with the stuff in this bottle. I was
hoping you could tell us what it is, what the symptoms are and possibly
work with Illandra's people towards making a cure."
Gustafssen
On seeing Gustaffsen arrive the raccoon veers away from his party towards the engineer.
He holds out what looks like a marmite bottle that someone finally got
around to labelling appropriately with one hand and points at the
prisoner with the other.
"That idiot poisoned the meal with the stuff in this bottle. I was
hoping you could tell us what it is, what they symptoms are and
possibly work with Illandra's people towards making a cure."
Looking down at the small Racoon the Scientist says, “Ahhhh Nyano, it
was you who interrupted us in our research? Good, good.”
Before taking out a small ancient looking accountant’s addition device
and placing it on a work table. “Poison you say?” at which
a few of the devices keys depressed and the crank lever pulled down
with a kerchunk noise. “And you want us to diagnose, symptomise
and liaise with the Honeysuckle medics? Seems fair enough.
At least there’s no corsetry involved this time.” Throughout this
brief exchange the machine rattled along occasionally making expensive
sounding kerchings. This somewhat one sided exchange having
concluded he throws open his bag and starts to rummage muttering to
himself once more. “Wo ist es? Wo ist es? Angegangen, angegangen
wei? ich, da? sie innen hier irgendwo sind. Es ist nicht wie es ist
einfach, sie nach allen zu verlieren.”
“Ah ha! Here they are.” And then with a great thud a small
box was thumped down upon the desk in front of him. A furtive
whisper ran round the room, what was this that he had found? A
new device? Possibly. A new and awesome device? Kinda
likely. A new, awesome and potentially disastrous device with
world shattering powers? If they were unlucky. Soon the
buzz of excitement was reaching a fever pitch and the occupants of the
kitchen were jostling with each other to either get a look at the box
or to stay as far away from it as possible depending on whether
curiosity or survival instinct won the toss.
And then Gustafssen took off the lid…
OOC: And with that I’m off to bed for the night.
[Private to
Nyano-Sgiathatch: Note to Nayano: The box contains 24 plain
and simple looking mushrooms sitting snuggly in a tray of mud.]
[Private
to GM: Translation: Where is it? Where is it? Come on, come
on I know they're in here somewhere. It's not like it's easy to
lose them after all.]
Nyano-Sgiathatch
Nyano looks down at the box in confusion.
"Don't you want to see the poison bottle, or talk to the medics? I'm
not sure what good a group of mushrooms are, unless..."
Nyano brightens up as an idea hits him.
"Are they a crack squad of poison identifying mushrooms?"
Gustafssen
As the little racoon spoke Gustafssen nodded along with his reasoning,
“Interesting Idea. But no I’m afraid not. They are in fact
just Mushrooms. On the other hand they are like little sponges,
what ever you put them in the seem to just soak right up.” “Which
is why,” he said, wagging his finger under Nyano’s nose.
“you should only ever wipe mushrooms clean not wash them. But we
digress, we have a job to do.”
This said he once more started rummaging through his bag with much
clinking of glass and banging of small metal objects. Finally he
carefully unrolled a small length of cloth within which a large number
or tiny atomiser sprays were securely stored. Carefully he moved
his hand along the rows of sprays quietly mumbling to himself, “Now
what we need here is a spot of House but only one,” quickly he
extracted a spray and applied it to a single mushroom. “Then a
liberal coating of CSI, both Miami and Vegas.” Another spray but
this time applied to all the mushrooms except one which he picked up
and placed to the side of the tray. “And a spot of Gray’s
Anatomy, ER, Cadfael, Miss Marple, Quincy M.E. and a good dash of Only
when I laugh.” All of these bottles were gently sprayed over the
mushroom cluster. “And finally we need what every good
investigation needs, a Victim.” This final bottle was used on the
lone mushroom.
“Now we have everything almost right where we need it.” This said
the fae scientist scooped up the Poison bottle and dripped a drop of it
onto the Victim mushroom. Then he took out another atomiser from
his coat pocket, this one slightly larger than the rest, with a long
rubber squeeze bag running off of it, and glowing gently with a
pearlescent multicoloured hue. “And finally Das Material von
Tr‰umen selbst!”
And with one dainty squirt he sent a cloud of it dancing and scattering over the mushrooms.
Suddenly there was movement in the box as the mushrooms pulled
themselves from their muddy resting place and stood before their
creator. The onlookers were unsure how a mushroom could look wide
eyed and bushy tailed but never the less they all later agreed these
mushrooms certainly gave that impression. Well all except the one
the was rolling around on the floor looking kind of sickly and
ill. Quickly Gustafssen addressed them in fluent mushroom
informing them of the situation at hand and without a moment to lose
they were off. Some mushrooms scurrying around the kitchens
taking samples of this, that and the other. A couple of them
helping the sick mushroom into a bed carefully made out of the mud in
the box. All the while one mushroom sat carefully watching soap
operas on a small hand held television or playing with tennis ball.
Then turning back to Nyano Gustafssen said “As I said before, little
sponges. Soak up anything you put them in.” Then pulling a
carrot from his pocket and settling down on another work bench he
continued. “Now all we do is wait.” And with that the small
accounting machine made another expensive sounding Keching.
Storyteller
The fungal servants rushed hither and thither about the kitchen,
collecting samples, using unrealistic technology to super-enhance
photographs, and being exceptionally bitchy/sleuthy/British (as
appropriate).
Before long, they had brought back to Gustafssen the results of their
investigations. Though many of the dishes seemed to contain a
little of the strange savoury black liquid, including some of the
puddings, none of them seemed harmful - at least, not particularly so
to mushrooms. The taste, they reported, was somewhat unusual and
very strong. The sort of thing you either love or hate,
really. Its ingredients were largely unknown to the vegetables,
but the tastes they reported seemed chemically compatible with Hugh's
earlier assumptions.
Once the word had spread amongst the mushrooms, the 'sick' one was rapidly accused of faking it.
Storyteller
"Reet!" came an almost-explicable exclamation from the doorway, as the
Geordie stomped his way in. "Mister Nyano, Hugh's a-wantin' ye in
the main 'all! Mister Gutafssen, too, ye pro'lly wouldnae go
amiss!"
Gustafssen
“Ahha! Andere rufen aus. Gesch‰ft ist nicht im Alter so gut
gewesen.” Gustafssen exclaimed bouncing off the table in
excitement. “Well we guess things here are in order for the
moment.” Swiftly he crossed back to the table and started filling
his bag once more the mushrooms lining up and jumping back into their
tray. Just before the accounting device was finally packed away
it started creaking and a long strip of paper issued from one end;
which Gustafssen quickly looked over, signed, and placed on the table
beside the small racoon saying, ‘My bill sir,’ This said he
turned and headed towards the dinning room.
[Private to
Nyano-Sgiathatch: Righty, it's a list of long complex terms typical of
medical bills and bills in general throughout the universe.
Finnally at the bottom it is all totalled up saying, Final cost:
One Dream from a true Genius.]
Nyano-Sgiathatch
Nyano looks down at the bill, it takes him a minute to compute all the
figures and by the time he's made sense of it Gustafssen has already
left.
Shrugging his little raccoon shoulders, he gestures for the guards to bring the prisoner and heads out himself.
Storyteller
OC: Righty-ho, nothing to see here, move along please... *threadlock*
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