Maize

Participants: Unlimited
Contracts: Allowed

The corn continues to dry on its stalks, and a rising sense of anticipation begins to grow in the town of Maize. The locals seem focused, preoccupied, your existence barely registers as an annoying blip on their radar. The gossip has proved somewhat useful so far, but surely some careful probing could prompt things in a fruitful direction?

Choose a timeslot and roll Manipulation + (Investigation or Socialise). This is a roll of finesse and charm; Striking Looks applies, but the Bright One's blessing does not.

10 Successes are required to uncover the Clue for this Investigation.
For each participant with 4+ dots in the Skill they used, gain an Element.
For each participant that used an appropriate Specialty, gain an Element.
For every 5 Successes beyond that needed to uncover the Clue, gain an Element.

Early Afternoon

The morning really made Imogen rethink her assignment here. It was cold and unpleasant, far from what she has quickly grown used to in Los Angeles. As much as she wanted to laze about and remain in her room all day, that was what yesterday was for. Today, she wanted to hit the ground running after spending enough time coming to grips with Maize.

After a morning jog, she suited up in another layer and ventured out with her camera. She took a few pictures of the church facings, while snapping a few of the people. The trick was to make them incidental, rather than think she was spying on them directly. Unlike yesterday, it seemed that the town came out of hibernation at the very least. She wasn't too successful but the pictures of the town's architecture should be worth a few pennies.

Day 2 - Early Afternoon, Investigation: Something Unusual w/ Manipulation + Investigation + Striking Looks (Collaboration): 6d10o10h8 1

Late Morning

I hit the streets after breakfast. There weren't many streets. It was fairly easy to get a sense of the town, it's geography and the places where the locals might talk more than they should.

I stopped at the post office. A town like this often favored PO boxes over door to door delivery. Spend a little time mailing a package to the home office, chat up the post man a bit, listen to the bits of conversation with those picking up their mail and you might learn a thing or two.

It was a quieter day than I had hoped, but every bit of information helped.

- - -
Collaboration
[D2 LM] Investigation: Something Unusual, Manipulaton+Investigation: 6d10o10h8 1

LM2 - Something Unusual (Manipulation 4, Investigation 4, Reading Body Language Speciality, Striking Looks 2, Willpower +3): 14d10o10h8 4

Got an early start on the investigation. He knew how to read people, how to see their movements to figure out who knew what. It certainly helped that he was attractive, but his greatest gift was his own ability to twist their conversations while reading them.

A useful trick when trying to get people to lose their money playing carnival games.

Used an appropriate spec and 4 in Investigation. Should gain 2 more elements.

Jean was out, having slept late, or at least what he considered late, getting up around 9 am. He had been snooping around the night before, wondering if there was more to this town than it seemed. Having seen or heard anything interesting, he had returned to the motel, certain that this place was as righteous as any. Then there had been the dreams. Dreams of the yellow strange fruit that they grew in this kingdom. It tasted bit bland as far as he was concerned, but if lathed with gravy or butter he could eat it. What the plant was doing in his dreams, he had no idea. And so he took out, asking people few questions.

__________
Collaborating
D2 LM Manipulation + Investigation: 2d10o10h8 1
Striking looks die D2: 1d10o10h8 1
<.< so actually 2. I am terribly sorry I forgot that I am good looking.

Late in the morning, after Tiffani was finally able to snag a few hours of sleep after sneaking into someones unlocked garage, she trudged her way through the cold and into the main part of town. Despite the miserable cold, she couldn't help but smile to herself - small towns were wonderful places for transients like herself. No one ever locked their doors.

Not much of a restaurant selection, she noted. Most of them were the usual diner type restaurants that passed their food off as homemade. Why bother going out to eat just to get the same food you would make at home? Anyway, her first priority was warmth rather than food and her money was dwindling. If only her wretched Keeper had given her a big wad of cash before kicking her out of Arcadia.

Tiffani decided on the titular restaurant of the town - the Maize Cafe. The name itself reminded her of a place that served runny eggs, burned toast, and watered-down orange juice. Her home in England had enough places like this, as well, even if the food was different. For a few moments, she did her best to make herself look somewhat respectable by using her reflection in the window, then pulled open the door to find a booth or table closest to the greatest number of people. There, she could eavesdrop on multiple conversations simultaneously until, perhaps, one of them caught her attention.

Until then, however, she played nervously with the silver charm bracelet on her right wrist - something she always did when she felt unsettled. After those strange dreams of ghostly corn stalks that waved ominously despite the lack of a breeze ... what was that all about? She tried to dismiss it as her thinking about the Children of the Corn movie a little too much, but ... no, she knew somehow that it was more than that. Yes, she knew this town would be trouble the moment she crossed into the township limits.

When the waitress came to her table and poured her a cup of coffee, she parted her lips slightly to say something and then hesitated. As soon as she said her first word, she would be giving herself away as a foreigner. English, yes, but she knew the mood in this country about immigrants and wasn't too keen on outing herself as one. Usually, either half the patrons would slowly swamp her table with questions about where she was from - or - they would run her out of town on a rail with dirty looks, impolite comments, and bad customer service.

"Excuse me," Tiffani said with extreme politeness to the waitress as the woman finished pouring the coffee, "but is your town always so busy in the morning? I know people are going to work and school, but even with that, I've never seen a town this size be so full of people bustling this way and that. Not unless there was some sort of holiday event taking place."

If she could get the waitress talking, perhaps some snippet would emerge that would explain why this place felt, well ... haunted.


Trying to socialize with the waitress : Collaboration (D2, EA) Manipulation 3 + Socializing 3 + Striking Looks 2: 8d10o10h8 1

Reina was curious, so she began asking around, looking into what sort of local events came with the corn harvest. Maybe it was some sort of crazy Wicker Man thing, who knew? Better to find out, though.

LM, Something Unusual, Manipulation+Investigation+Striking Looks: 6d10o10h8 2

Clue: This clue reveals that there is a strangely high incidence of finding dead animals in the corn fields. The remains of small critters--rats, squirrels, crows--generally go unnoticed now that ploughing and planting are done by tractor, but even the least observant of farmers pays attention when a deer femur snaps a plough blade.

Further Investigations: From LA onwards. Most of these rumours are in the form of "you should get a Vogel, I swear I found parts of a bear on my field two years ago and it's still good." Checking out the claims might just be a wild goose chase, but what if it isn’t?

2 Elements Gained