Post by Adminenkainen on Oct 24, 2017 4:28:27 GMT
Between 3rd and 4th sessions:
White Knight took Blaze to meet the gnomes back on Friday of last week. They trudged through the snowy south land until they reached the ruins and found the gnomes there, staying in tiny tents set up around a campfire inside one of the ruins. Blaze was the last person to meet them and to learn that supernatural things existed. It was clear these are not just midgets -- they were uniformly 20 inches tall and all four of them looked like garden gnomes in black fur coats, earmuffs, and mittens.
The gnomes said they'd made some progress on finding all the pieces that sprang out of the clockwork machine and had made some headway on figuring out where the pieces came from. They had written a list of 20 tools they needed.
Later, when they tried to get those tools from the hardware store in town, they learned that now hardware was being rationed out like food. They had to buy the 10 items on the list over two days -- and half the list was tools the man didn't even recognize. "Looks made up to me," the man said.
When the two Heroes returned to the ruins, they worked to get straighter answers from the gnomes about what these tools were. One drew a weird, crab-look tool and said, on White Knight’s prompting, that their tools were left under their house.
One day, Dark Lash was observing the border with the Southlands and noticed that a man in black was observing her back. They spoke for awhile. He grilled her on her relationships with Jack Gunnell (the man seemed to know Jack) and the local police. They shared a common interest in keeping the police out of the Southlands and agreed to share information again at a later date.
On Wednesday afternoon, Dark Lash and White Knight stayed a little further north from the border and visited with Farmer Kim Devin, whose 75 acre farm was the one closest to the border. Kim had already been interviewed by Blaze by this point and was aware that a lot of strangers were sneaking through his land and taking stuff, initially, from the south, but they have been less active for the past two weeks. Kim was agreeable to vigilante activity on his lands, to help keep him safe, and would let patrols come warm themselves up in his barn at night (something Dark Lash had been needing).
That evening, around 8 o'clock, Gracie Heart was taking a stroll through downtown when a man dashed down the street, being chased by one of the village deputies. Gracie took off after them to see what was going on. The chase went on for miles, all the way to the south border were Dark Lash and White Knight were still on joint patrol. Dark Lash spotted the fleeing man first and performed a flying tackle. The officer revealed that the man was an attempted jewelry store robber. The Heroes accompanied them back to town, where the jewelry store gave them a $200 reward to split.
All week, Blaze had spent his time getting to know the people who were closest to the Fog Wall, all while claiming to work with the police. Luckily, most people he went to just wanted to talk and did not ask for credentials.
To the north was the Tonne Farm, a 73 acre farm. The Tonnes was a large family of large people, who seemed overly concerned with food rationing going on in the village. “And who will they expect to feed the community if this goes on long enough? We’ve seen this before -- the mayor will demand we sell at a reduced rate to the village to keep everyone fed, but then that’s food we can’t sell at a higher rate in the larger marketplace once the fog lifts!”
To the northeast was the Miller-Tegtmeier Farm, a whopping 175 acre farm, with onion, corn, and soybean crops. It was the oldest remaining farm in the area, having been built back in 1866. Three generations of Miller-Tegtmeiers worked the farm together -- but there was much sadness on the farm because the eldest son in the family was away at college and cut off from them by the Fog Wall. “We pray every day that this fog will go away and let our boy come back home,” Mrs. Miller said.
There was no farm to the east of town, just open fields around the Zenith Broadcasting Station. The station manager was Viktor Conner. He has a diligent crew of five locals -- plus one out-of-tower who was trapped here with them -- who do most of the shows that broadcast from 5 am to 11 pm. They do a continuing melodrama, minstrel show, and a suspense program each day, padded out with music. As often as possible, they bring locals in to perform on the air (“It lets my performers rest their voices more, and people like it.”)
Viktor did not make a lot of time to be interviewed, but defered Blaze to his assistant, Kathryne Borchard, a pretty young woman who was the out-of-towner Viktor referred to. Kathryne (“Call me Kat, everybody does around here”) was willing to talk his ear off about her family in St. Charles, how she thought she could commute to Mount Prospect because she wanted to work in radio so bad, and how she just sleeps at the station now (“I actually have for some time, even before…all this happened. It’s just easier to make it back and get typing on the next batch of shows this way.”). Kat was curious about Blaze and wanted to know his name, where he was from, and what he does for the police. She even invited him to come back and be on the air! (reaction roll: 11)
To the southeast of town was the 74 acre Burke farm. Burke did not take kindly to visitors and told Blaze he’d shoot him if he didn’t get off his land (reaction roll: 3!).
To the south was the 75 acre Devin farm. Kim Devin has been as vigilant as he can be about watching the strange land to the south. “All of it is well off my property, but not an acre of that land was there before, by God,” Kim says enthusiastically. “It’s all very weird, like we’re all being haunted maybe. People come and go from the south, stealing around like ghosts. Except, instead of spooking me they try to steal from me! At least they were doing it pretty bad the first few weeks. Things have been better lately. But anything anyone can do to help me I’m going to appreciate!” (reaction roll: 11!
To the southwest was another big farm, the 164 acre Russel farm. The Russels were as concerned about the Fog as everyone, but were relieved that its proximity was doing nothing to their onion or corn crops. They did have a problem initially, though, because they employed three part-timers and two of them lived on the other side of the Fog Wall. But they had employed some new workers already, temporarily, to take their place. The Russels knew that Kim has been having troubles, and that the Fischers to the north have always been trouble. They suspected Bruno Fischer was running something illegal on the farm, and his wife Mattie was just as bad. They never took good care of their farm and were hoping Mattie would sell to them since Bruno died.
Mattie Fischer wasn’t answering the door when Blaze tried it. The Fischer Farm had not looked to be in good shape when he first observed it, but it was definitely looking untended these days.
Earlier in the week, everyone but White Knight had been interested in the map Blaze had produced from Joe Dreschler. They found that Joe had been doing a lot of digging around town, supposedly for his job as public works director. The only thing all the dig sites had in common was that they were near old oak trees.
Batman interviewed Joe at his home one night and got the whole story of why. There was a local legend in town about Stanley H. Pierce, an eccentric stockbroker who got rich in Chicago but insisted on living out here in rural Mount Prospect. When the government confiscated gold back in ‘33 after the Crash, Stanley was said to have buried a quarter of a million dollars worth of gold rather than hand it over. No one ever found the money…but Joe unearthed a piece of writing of Stanley’s that referenced an “old oak tree.” Joe thought it was a clue, but had no luck digging around all the oak trees.
White Knight took Blaze to meet the gnomes back on Friday of last week. They trudged through the snowy south land until they reached the ruins and found the gnomes there, staying in tiny tents set up around a campfire inside one of the ruins. Blaze was the last person to meet them and to learn that supernatural things existed. It was clear these are not just midgets -- they were uniformly 20 inches tall and all four of them looked like garden gnomes in black fur coats, earmuffs, and mittens.
The gnomes said they'd made some progress on finding all the pieces that sprang out of the clockwork machine and had made some headway on figuring out where the pieces came from. They had written a list of 20 tools they needed.
Later, when they tried to get those tools from the hardware store in town, they learned that now hardware was being rationed out like food. They had to buy the 10 items on the list over two days -- and half the list was tools the man didn't even recognize. "Looks made up to me," the man said.
When the two Heroes returned to the ruins, they worked to get straighter answers from the gnomes about what these tools were. One drew a weird, crab-look tool and said, on White Knight’s prompting, that their tools were left under their house.
One day, Dark Lash was observing the border with the Southlands and noticed that a man in black was observing her back. They spoke for awhile. He grilled her on her relationships with Jack Gunnell (the man seemed to know Jack) and the local police. They shared a common interest in keeping the police out of the Southlands and agreed to share information again at a later date.
On Wednesday afternoon, Dark Lash and White Knight stayed a little further north from the border and visited with Farmer Kim Devin, whose 75 acre farm was the one closest to the border. Kim had already been interviewed by Blaze by this point and was aware that a lot of strangers were sneaking through his land and taking stuff, initially, from the south, but they have been less active for the past two weeks. Kim was agreeable to vigilante activity on his lands, to help keep him safe, and would let patrols come warm themselves up in his barn at night (something Dark Lash had been needing).
That evening, around 8 o'clock, Gracie Heart was taking a stroll through downtown when a man dashed down the street, being chased by one of the village deputies. Gracie took off after them to see what was going on. The chase went on for miles, all the way to the south border were Dark Lash and White Knight were still on joint patrol. Dark Lash spotted the fleeing man first and performed a flying tackle. The officer revealed that the man was an attempted jewelry store robber. The Heroes accompanied them back to town, where the jewelry store gave them a $200 reward to split.
All week, Blaze had spent his time getting to know the people who were closest to the Fog Wall, all while claiming to work with the police. Luckily, most people he went to just wanted to talk and did not ask for credentials.
To the north was the Tonne Farm, a 73 acre farm. The Tonnes was a large family of large people, who seemed overly concerned with food rationing going on in the village. “And who will they expect to feed the community if this goes on long enough? We’ve seen this before -- the mayor will demand we sell at a reduced rate to the village to keep everyone fed, but then that’s food we can’t sell at a higher rate in the larger marketplace once the fog lifts!”
To the northeast was the Miller-Tegtmeier Farm, a whopping 175 acre farm, with onion, corn, and soybean crops. It was the oldest remaining farm in the area, having been built back in 1866. Three generations of Miller-Tegtmeiers worked the farm together -- but there was much sadness on the farm because the eldest son in the family was away at college and cut off from them by the Fog Wall. “We pray every day that this fog will go away and let our boy come back home,” Mrs. Miller said.
There was no farm to the east of town, just open fields around the Zenith Broadcasting Station. The station manager was Viktor Conner. He has a diligent crew of five locals -- plus one out-of-tower who was trapped here with them -- who do most of the shows that broadcast from 5 am to 11 pm. They do a continuing melodrama, minstrel show, and a suspense program each day, padded out with music. As often as possible, they bring locals in to perform on the air (“It lets my performers rest their voices more, and people like it.”)
Viktor did not make a lot of time to be interviewed, but defered Blaze to his assistant, Kathryne Borchard, a pretty young woman who was the out-of-towner Viktor referred to. Kathryne (“Call me Kat, everybody does around here”) was willing to talk his ear off about her family in St. Charles, how she thought she could commute to Mount Prospect because she wanted to work in radio so bad, and how she just sleeps at the station now (“I actually have for some time, even before…all this happened. It’s just easier to make it back and get typing on the next batch of shows this way.”). Kat was curious about Blaze and wanted to know his name, where he was from, and what he does for the police. She even invited him to come back and be on the air! (reaction roll: 11)
To the southeast of town was the 74 acre Burke farm. Burke did not take kindly to visitors and told Blaze he’d shoot him if he didn’t get off his land (reaction roll: 3!).
To the south was the 75 acre Devin farm. Kim Devin has been as vigilant as he can be about watching the strange land to the south. “All of it is well off my property, but not an acre of that land was there before, by God,” Kim says enthusiastically. “It’s all very weird, like we’re all being haunted maybe. People come and go from the south, stealing around like ghosts. Except, instead of spooking me they try to steal from me! At least they were doing it pretty bad the first few weeks. Things have been better lately. But anything anyone can do to help me I’m going to appreciate!” (reaction roll: 11!
To the southwest was another big farm, the 164 acre Russel farm. The Russels were as concerned about the Fog as everyone, but were relieved that its proximity was doing nothing to their onion or corn crops. They did have a problem initially, though, because they employed three part-timers and two of them lived on the other side of the Fog Wall. But they had employed some new workers already, temporarily, to take their place. The Russels knew that Kim has been having troubles, and that the Fischers to the north have always been trouble. They suspected Bruno Fischer was running something illegal on the farm, and his wife Mattie was just as bad. They never took good care of their farm and were hoping Mattie would sell to them since Bruno died.
Mattie Fischer wasn’t answering the door when Blaze tried it. The Fischer Farm had not looked to be in good shape when he first observed it, but it was definitely looking untended these days.
Earlier in the week, everyone but White Knight had been interested in the map Blaze had produced from Joe Dreschler. They found that Joe had been doing a lot of digging around town, supposedly for his job as public works director. The only thing all the dig sites had in common was that they were near old oak trees.
Batman interviewed Joe at his home one night and got the whole story of why. There was a local legend in town about Stanley H. Pierce, an eccentric stockbroker who got rich in Chicago but insisted on living out here in rural Mount Prospect. When the government confiscated gold back in ‘33 after the Crash, Stanley was said to have buried a quarter of a million dollars worth of gold rather than hand it over. No one ever found the money…but Joe unearthed a piece of writing of Stanley’s that referenced an “old oak tree.” Joe thought it was a clue, but had no luck digging around all the oak trees.