Week 7: May 13th - May 17th

[cartesio]

Seventh Week

The tense truce that had covered Cartesio was over. The town, feeling betrayed after having given a chance to the outsiders, pushed back. Enraged, they started getting even more daring, starting to get into the tourists' only safe haven: their motel rooms. They don't manage to break in, but it's not unusual to hear thumping on the doors, someone trying to get in. The windows are almost perpetually broken, there's so much graffiti on the ground floor of the motel, both inside and outside, it's hard to know what each one is saying. Can't be anything good, that's the only thing that's certain. The lounge's furniture has been tore to pieces, the lobby only has the guestbook intact, and the planters in middle of the motel are broken, the soil and plants strewn around.

The residents of Cartesio are near their breaking point. The despair, fury, and desire to get rid of the outsiders so everyone can return to their peaceful lives, have covered the town. It won't take long before they reach their breaking point, and if they do...what will happen to the visitors?

The Sergeant's grip on the town is total, and next week is the one marked as END. It seems like there's no way out, like the Sergeant won.

But you can't lose hope. You have to remember: now that you're on your darkest hour, the only way lef to go is upwards. Things can get better, you have to make it happen!

In the lobby of the motel there's a few more brochures, and the maps have been updated once again. Don't mind that some of them have been damaged in one of the attacks on the motel.

Links

IC Rules
Guestbook
Room Assignments
Events
Locations
NPCs
Activity Check

Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday

[Welcome to the seventh week! If you want to contact the Sergeant, please post here!. Also please remember to submit your activity check!]

Comments

+1 investigation buddy!

[quickpersuader]

[He'll find someone else there as well.]

Cars.

[Apparently that word is the same even in Kino's world. She breathes it out in surprise and not a little eagerness, because though it isn't a motorrad, it's something.

She'll probably be disappointed. But it still warrants a look, doesn't it?]

[cartesio]

[There sure are a lot of vehicles here. None of them have any engines, and there seems to be none around here.

Are you both looking for anything specific?]

[marmoron]

You can drive a car?

[It's a mildly toned question today. Keith's likewise pretty enthused about seeing things that can be drivem/flown around. He hasn't flown in ages, Kino, it's been so hard.

He hasn't tried lifting up the hoods on one of the cars or checking out the planes just yet to know to be disappointed by how unusable they are, but he will be looking around for keys!]

[quickpersuader]

Not very well, but enough to get by in a pinch.

[Enough to bust the gasoline open and burn some evil sheep to death??

She's going to start checking out the bodies of the cars, looking for any outside indication that they are not functional and making note of any large ones that can carry a lot of passengers in particular.]

[cartesio]

[You're lucky, Keith. The keys are all hanging on a wall. There's a key for every shell of a vehicle here, yup.

Everything you see, Kino, hints that these vehicles would be functional if they had engines. None of them is large enough to carry a lot of passengers, unfortunately. The cars are large enough for five people -- including the driver -- and the planes have even less space]

[marmoron]

...Meaning you know where the gas and the brakes are and what the steering wheel does?

[That's about all you need to know about cars anyway, it's fine. He'll be borrowig one of the keys for one of the planes and will be looking towards the appropriate section of the hangar. It's clear he's eager to go check those out, but after a moment he snags one of the keys for the cars too.]

Trying to loot more stuff or what.

[Time to try opening up the bumpers on a car.]

[quickpersuader]

Basically. Mr. Uedera and I talked about getting cars and packing everyone in, but if we did that I think I'd be better suited to a back seat for defense.

[Defense.]

Anyway, I was checking the condition of the cars, that's all.

[She glances around. Is there any way to pop one open without any townspeople noticing?]

[cartesio]

[Open the trunks, Keith, Kino! If you don't mind using crowbars. The townspeople seems to be doing their hardest to ignore you, thankfully]

[marmoron]

...Well yeah. If you can't drive, you're not driving the getaway car.

[Getting access to a car's something he's thought about too in the earlier weeks, but seeing as Sarge had seemed pretty fucking serious about upholding that rule about staying in town.....

If the townsfolk are indeed merrily ignoring them all, Keith's going to give the trunk a glance and see if he can just use the car key to get it unlocked and open without having to uh.. get more hands on. But if not... those are indeed some nice crowbars lying around, huh.]

Wonder whose car this is.

guess who thought she hit post, it me

[quickpersuader]

That's for the best.

[Well, if they're all ignoring her...

Sure, let's go open up the hood of this sucker. ...As gently as she can.]

[cartesio]

[The trunk opens easily. Inside there's an engine!

...

...a tiny engine. Like of the size of your thumb. A close examination of it will show it's the engine you'd expect from this vehicle, though, just...extremely small.

If only your mechanic was still alive]

[marmoron]

[Keith is just going to stare at this tiny ass engine for a moment, looking thoroughly underwhelmed. He picks up the engine to take a closer look at it.]

....the hell is the Sergeant up to.

[Just shaking his head.]

We should every other vehicle in here.

[quickpersuader]

[...What the heckie.]

Can we... ask the workers if they're supposed to be that size?

[Like sure everyone hates them but maybe they can confirm whether or not they're noticing stuff like thumbnail sized engines.]

[cartesio]

[Go ahead, guys. Ask them!]

[marmoron]

They're not paying attention to us right now. I don't know if calling attention to ourselves by asking them questions before we've finished looking around is the best idea.

]They might get the cops called on them either way, but...]

Not to mention, we might find more things to ask questions about if we keep looking. [A shrug.] You can ask if you want, but I'm gonna take a look at the plane.

[Which he's going to start heading towards, with or without Kino here.]

[quickpersuader]

[Fair enough. With a nod, she'll go check all of the other cars to see if they're in the same state.]

[cartesio]

[The planes are generally well-kept! Some need repair work, but others are intact. Just for one or two passengers, unfortunately, but they're here. One of them has on what seems to be a GPS. Hm!

As for the cars, their state seems to vary. Most have their engines missing, but, like the one with the tiny engine, stuff keeps happening. When Kino approaches one of the cars that seem to be usable the tires deflate almost completely, right in front of her eyes. When she approaches another the key on the ignition flies off the lock, hitting the back window and vanishing away somewhere in the back of the vehicle.

It's like you're being teased, Kino. 'Hey, look at all these vehicles that are viable! Too bad they have these minor problems you can't solve right now']

[marmoron]

[After seeing the state of the car's engines, Keith's nto going to hold out hope that these planes are actually functional right now. That said, he'll be sure to take a closer look at the controls -- just make sure he could fly them if necessary.

Other than that, he'll be taking a look at this mysterious GPS. Is the GPS itself working?]

[quickpersuader]

[She actually jumps, a hand hovering over her revolver for a moment when the tires deflate out of nowhere. After checking each car and each one falling to some random inconvenience, she gives a small insulted huff.]

Is this a joke?

[cartesio]

[The GPS is working. The screen shows a point -- Cartesio, most likely. Want to try to zoom out, Keith? Around the dot there currently are a few roads leading out, and...a lot of green squares. Must be farmlands.

Once Kino finishes checking the cars and goes towards Keith again, she'll find some of the minor inconveniences seem to have solved themselves. In fact, when she passes by the car with the deflated tires, she'll find they were inflating again, although they stop when she stares at the car for too long. Stepping towards it makes it all deflate again.

You're definitely being toyed with, Kino. Take a guess who is to blame]

[marmoron]

[Keith's clearly just settled in the sanity corner of the hangar here. He'll look over his shoulder real quick and call out to Kino.]

Hey c'mere. Found something that actually works.

[In the meantime, yeah he'll fiddle around with the GPS a bit! How far away's the nearest town over looking to be?]

[quickpersuader]

[Very funny, Sarge. With a sour look, Kino walks over to Keith to check out what's up with the GPS.]

[cartesio]

[Zoom out all you want, Keith! You'll find Cartesio is ridiculously isolated. There's a huge lake like 1500 miles away, but other than that, it's...pretty empty out there.

When Keith tries to zoom out further than that, the GPS turns off for a few seconds. IF he tries to turn it on again, he'll find it's zoomed into Cartesio again. Zooming out too much will make that happen once again.

What conclusions there's to get from the Sergeant messing with the vehicles right in front of you -- and therefore establishing he can do such a thing -- and from the GPS refusing to show further than a certain range is up to you, but one thing is clear: getting out and away of Cartesio is much more difficult than you think.

Hangar: Exploration Complete]

[marmoron]

[Keith's so tempted to just fucking throw the GPS, but after giving this two tries he'll just put it back down. A bit forcefully, mind you, but at least he didn't break it.]

So you think all this crap's been like this the whole time or does the Sergeant know we're in here.

[quickpersuader]

It kept changing only when I approached it, so safe to say - he knows we're here.