WEEK 0 — MARCH 29, 30

[cartesio]

Week 0

You have been threatened by the Sergeant: if nobody dies before March 31st at noon, you, along with everyone else, will forfeit your lives. The Sergeant pushed everyone away from the Lodge, judging that had been enough interaction with his guests. So what now?

Will you submit to the Sergeant’s demands? Will you resist him and wait to see what happens? He wouldn’t be capable of killing you and everyone else, right?

Only time will tell.

The next day you'll find a newspaper at the motel lounge, telling you about today’s weather forecast with 100% accuracy. Looks like you can expect to find a newspaper every day to find out the weather and any other news about the town. It even includes something branded 'THE SHARK ALERT'. Who could that be directed to?

There's also a copy of yesterday's newspaper. There's nothing about the Sergeant or about your predicament, but there is something about your arrival to the town.

Cartesio is your world for the next four days, better make the most out of your time here.

OOC Note: The current IC:OOC ratio for the days is as follows: The 29th top-level covers Monday and Tuesday, while the 30th top-level is for Wednesday and Thursday.

Links

IC Rules
Room Assignments
Locations
Tasks

March 28^th
March 29^th
March 30^th

Comments

[theserpentsmiles]

[Three things are required for fire to start and continue: heat, oxygen, and fuel. Take away any combination of those and there's no way for the fire to continue burning.

He needs non-flammable material, and a lot of it. Rocks, water, sand, metal.....metal. There's a hell of a lot of metal in the junkyard. He doesn't have a lot of time so he'll figure out the rest of the plan on the way, once he sees what he's working with. Are there people near? He'll shout to anyone he spots:]

We need to keep it from reaching the park!

[...Something is weird, though. Asphalt may be made of the same kinds of things that end badly when exposed to fire, like petroleum and gasolene, and liquid asphalt is flammable - but it's generally made from the 'bottom of the barrel' material, after most of the usably flammable materials have been taken for other purposes. It almost never burns.

Not with a normal fire, at any rate. Which tells Nagisa this is probably arson. Dammit.]

[paciscere]

[ here's matoba arriving late to the scene, and probably the only person still smiling about everything. he doesn't look worried at all, but someone's gotta stay cool and fresh here. he waves cheerfully to nagisa when he hears his call, nods to show him that he understands, and then eyes the fire. oya, what an impressive fire. and it's heading right for him and the park, so he should do something about it, he supposes. ]

Well, it is my job as an exorcist to protect people. [ tossing that comment out like it's an afterthought.

he breaks off a sturdy branch from one of the trees and starts... drawing in the dirt path? first a large circle, about 6 feet in diameter. then, quickly a large one around that. split into sections. squiggles that look more like symbols than they do words. finally a bigger symbol in the middle, what looks to be a spiral around three hugging commas - the mitsu tomoe. the entire process takes mere minutes.

then he's off again to draw one, two more so that in the end, there are three arrays in a row, pointing at the approaching fire. binding seals, meant to slow down the fire and buy them time. ] These should help, but they won't hold up for long once the fire is here.

[cartesio]

[Matoba's actions may have saved the park. Almost as soon as he finishes the symbols, the fire seems to be deterred, it's not advancing as quickly as before. It was only matter of time until something was done.

Thankfully, something was done. A couple streets away, Alfin managed to arrange the Cartesio public services to do something useful. The foam covers the fire, flakes of it fall around Matoba and into the park. The heat is gone in a moment, for the first time since the day started, it feels like things aren't going to be as bad as they seemed before.

Still, there's the fire on the streets left, almost consuming the townspeople's houses. Sakura is helping with a fire extinguisher over there, and Waver is trying to organize people so they don't get hurt]

[cartesio]

[It's as if the gods heard you, Nagisa. Alfin's intervention saved the park!

Still, you're right in that the way the fire moves is odd. The way it's along the streets...there must be a cause for this.

Perhaps once everything's over you'll be able to find something about why this all happened? With some luck you will]

[theserpentsmiles]

[He'll start heading back toward the other fire, and examine the road along the way. Maybe something was spread over it? Even if the fire was started unusually, that can't be all. It would still spread normally...right?

Whoever is responsible for this must have been planning this in advance. He's sure it's a 'who'. Which makes this an assassination.]

[cartesio]

[If there was something spread all over the street to help the fire, it seems the fire consumed it. However, in a street that's still intact, there seems to be something useful: some sort of liquid on the asphalt, forming a line. Odorless, transparent, but undoubtedly abnormal. Given how it's in the middle of the street and some awful things have happened...

It's a confirmation, that's for sure: this was intentional. The exact cause of the fire is still a mystery, but there's no way it was an accident]

[agoreable]

[ This is the perfect time for the town crier--- I mean, Lovepon to make an appearance. And she's fucking screeching. ]

Arson!! Someone's trying to kill us!! We must find the culprit and execute them at haste!!

[ And while shouting various things like that, she's going to check if she can follow the line anywhere. ]

[ayuzawa]

[ WELL THAT SURE HAPPENED. misaki is angry. she cracks her knuckles, also screeching alongside the resident town screecher: ]

That bastard...they'll get what's coming to them! Someone has a death wish!

[cartesio]

[Perhaps? The liquid sure is going down the street towards the park, to the side nearer to the commercial areas with the shops.

It's like the streets surrounding the motel and the park were supposed to be lit on fire]

[agoreable]

[ Lovepon gives a nod to Misaki, extremely encouraged by the presence of another equally enraged person. ]

It's leading over there! We should all go together, it'll be safer this way.

[ And... more easy to commit acts of violence. ]

Right place this time

[theserpentsmiles]

[Don't mind Nagisa being Suddenly Here, he does that. He's got his sample.]

Calm down. Causing mass panic will only make things worse, and announcing your intentions isn't going to help find whoever did this.

[agoreable]

They should know what they deserve!! We'll get our hands on them soon enough, look, we'll find them this way!

[ Calming down..? Lovepon...? Unlikely. ]

[ayuzawa]

How can anyone be calm in a situation like this?!

[ BUT UH. WE'RE FOLLOWING THE TRAIL! that is a thing that is happening. ]

[cartesio]

[The trail continues until it ends...right at the edge of the town that's on that corner of the park. The trail turns into droplets, and there's nothing else.

No sign of who made this. Maybe they went away, frightened that Lovepon was clamoring for their execution? Or did they leave long ago, having done their plan?

Who knows. But they're not here anymore. Going further is unwise, given how it's the edge of the town. You'd be risking the Sergeant's punishment. Consider going back? Maybe the fire in the streets has been extinguished by now]

[theserpentsmiles]

[Nagisa is pretty calm. Does he need to force-calm? He'll do it!]

Um... I don't think they'll be at the end of the trail... [And sure enough the trail dwindles to nothing with no sign of the arsonist. Girls. Girls please.] And they probably heard you coming and left, even if they were here...

[agoreable]

[ Lovepon's hands form tight fists, but she calms down enough to give a response that is just loud speaking and not actual yelling. ]

But does they mean they're someone who's allowed to leave town? A sergeant's minion?

[theserpentsmiles]

Possibly - even likely. [She seems the type to run ahead without thinking...] It might not be, though. It could be an ordinary citizen, an outsider, or even one of the 'tourists'.

[Probably somehow tied back to the Sergeant, though....he needs to think about this. Specifically - what's the purpose?]

[cartesio]

[Returning to the motel is easy, and you don't see anyone suspicious. It's a bit unnerving how there's nobody you can blame immediately, but at least you can take solace on how it was all solved peacefully.

In front of the motel is the street where presumably the fire started. There's no trace of accelerants, and the asphalt is still hot. The townspeople are finally going away, the danger is over. Still...what could have caused it?

Maybe there's something in the cracked asphalt that could be a clue? It could have been caused by the fire, but if it wasn't...

Want to take a look?]

[alfin]

[ Fire having died down, Alfin is now examining places she couldn't before. This normally isn't something a princess would do, and she doesn't exactly have training in the matter... But that isn't going to stop her from trying her best! She bends down in front of the cracked asphalt, peering at (and inside) it curiously. ]

[cartesio]

[It's dark beneath the asphalt. If it wasn't because of the sun high in the sky, you wouldn't have seen anything.

But it's there: wiring. There's wiring underneath the streets.

Nothing unusual, really. After all, where else would underground wiring be? And now it's all melted and ruined, a shapeless puddle that doesn't even spark anymore.

Did the underground wiring cause the fires? Was it a mere unfortunate coincidence? How can a person tamper with underground wiring? Why would any of this happen in the first place?

Who knows. What's for sure is that there are no clues as to how that was possible.

All you know for sure is that there was a fire, and that it may have been worsened intentionally]

[theserpentsmiles]

[Gotcha.

He isn't sure what it is...he needs plastic. Or glass. His special gym clothes, the military-ish outfit he arrived in, aren't very absorbent... No, better not.

He uses the debit card he was given to scrape a little of the liquid up. He doesn't want anything happening before someone else gets a look at it. He'll just carry it the rest of the way back, hopefully it's not too thin.]

[cartesio]

[Well done, you have one (1) sample!

Lovepon over there is helping too, by causing mass hysteria having a healthy sense of paranoia. Want to join her?]