[Trail of Cthulhu] The Murderer of Thomas Fell

[OzCymru]

The most likely cause of the dust becomes evident as soon as one of the doors is opened. The kitchen walls are gone, leaving just a wooden framework that allows one to see right through from the living room in the front to the dining room at the rear of the house. While the living room and dining room seem relatively untouched, the same cannot be said for the kitchen. The floor is covered with a rich soil, from which sprouts the trunk of a huge, dead tree and a stretch of strange stone - solid, smooth, the colour of cement and bristling with brown, clinging vines. The kitchen ceiling is also gone, apparently taking with it the floor and all of the possessions of the master bedroom above; the bedroom walls are still intact - pictures hang on nails hammered into the floral wallpaper - but vines have already begun to spread from the rocks to the house and stiff, dead tree branches have torn through the plaster under the wallpaper.

It is as if the inside of the house has been swapped with a patch of some strange, rocky wilderness.

From what is left of the kitchen, a door leads down to the cellar, while in the living room the stair to the floor above seems to be in one piece.

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I'm going to ask everyone for a Stability test for witnessing what has happened to the house. To do this, roll 1d6 against a difficulty level of 4. You can boost your chances of success if you choose by spending points from your Stability pool to add to the roll. These points are lost regardless of whether you pass or fail the test, so it's not a good idea to spend more than you stand to lose should you fail the roll. Failing this particular test will only result in a 1 point stability loss so you might not want to risk spending any additional points to boost your roll in this case, but it's up to you.

[TerrickTerran]

"Okay, this definitely is not good." Roger tried to keep his composure from the sudden shock

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(1d6)[3]

[Galvain7]

"Dear God! I... This... Oh my..."

The professor's hands move mechanically, drawing a white handkerchief from his coat pocket to cover his mouth, the initial excitement of seeing the Professor's things long gone. "I've never seen anything like this before...", he stammers.

(I'll investigate the stone sticking out of the kitchen- see if I can remove some of the vines to get a sense of the thing. **Wait- is the stone sticking up like a obelisk or covering what used to be the kitchen floor?** Can I assume I've got a solid pocketknife? Also, I'll wrack my brain to try and remember if Tom had a study- somewhere he would keep his notes. I'll give you my dice roll as soon as I know how- check the OOC thread please.)

[DueceEsMachine]

Kenneth Fell
Character Notes

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Investigative Abilities:
Architecture 2; Art 6; Art History 4; Craft 4; Credit Rating 1; Flattery 4; Geology 2; Occult 1; Photography 2; Reasurance 4

General Abilities:
Driving 4; Filch 5; Firearms 2; Fleeing 12; Health 9; Psychoanalysis 8; Sanity 9; Stability 10 (-1); Sense Trouble 5; Stealth 5; Weapons 2

*Stepping into the kitchen, Kenneth feels something he has no words to describe as he sees the destruction and completely unnatural kitchen. He had spend his entire adult life working with the sight of nature, and yet it in no way prepared him for the sight he now beheld.*

*Staggering back a step to lean heavily against a wall, it would be a long while before he is able to speak, the words failing to escape his mouth, although it does it's best, opening and closing a few times.*

"Good Lord! Someone please tell me this is a bad drug trip, and not something I am actually seeing in my Fathers house..."

[DrakeRaids]

"Oh hells," Wright murmured, "Oh hells. Everyone... just..." Wright trailed off as he tried to pull himself together. What the hell had happened here? How could something like this happen right under their noses? It couldn't have happened over night. Could it? Growling he pushed his way forward and began examining the room, there had to be some clue in here, something at what had happened here.

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(1d6)[2]

I'm gonna use Evidence Collection to search the Kitchen

[Ella]

Jan peers around the room, looking at the oddities and unusual features she can see. She smiles, because the effect is impressive and even more impressive is the shock registered on the faces of the people around her.

"How very clever, but I can't help but wonder how dear old Tommy got such a realistic effect, when we find him I shall definitely be askign for him to produce a room like this for me. Just imagine the look on my fathers face Professor Makepeace. "

Jan walks towards the kitchen, looking closely at the plants, leaning towards them and running her hands along them, pulling at them a little to see how embedded they are.

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Jan is using outdoorsman to see what she can find out about the flora now in the house of fell.

[Galvain7]

"Well, Ms. Cleveland- I'm all for fun, and fun for all- but... this seems a tad extreme for a joke... Maybe you could get dear dad a nice banzai tree instead? Those little trees are more.... manageable. I don't like this tree. I think I'll head somewhere else.

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I am going upstairs.

[TerrickTerran]

Roger shuddered as the plant growth was so unnatural. He decided to step back and gather his wits. "Obvioulsy this can't be right. Something has occurred. I must investigate further."

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Roger will also go upstairs but will not follow Detective Wright for the moment.

[OzCymru]

Trying to comprehend the bizarre and almost otherwordly presence of the small section of wilderness that has supplanted Thomas' kitchen, Professor Makepeace and Ms. Joyce-Cleveland examine the stone and the flora. Despite its smoothness, the stone is clearly natural, but is unlike anything that anyone here has seen before. The same can be said of the vines, which are not even vaguely familiar; they contain a sticky sap that is oozing from fissures that have opened up in a few places, but seem as much like roots as they are vines.

Wright sniffs around the kitchen for anything that might give a clue to what has happened, but there is little to suggest where the strange objects may have come from or what may have happened to Thomas. Through the open wall, he does spot a pile of opened mail on the dining room table, much of which turns out to be from companies specialising in outdoor equipment and adventuring gear - backpacks, climbing tools, kayaks and so on.

Heads reeling from the unsettling discovery, Makepeace and Roger head upstairs, the steps creaking rather disturbingly, probably due to the radical structural change that the house has undergone recently. Where there were once two rooms upstairs, there is now only one - Thomas' den, a hardwood panelled room made up almost entirely of bookshelves, framed maps and decorative antiques. It is cave-like and dark, all of its windows hidden behind bookcases, and it smells like a bookstore in here. A small wood-burning fireplace punctuates one wall. The floor is covered in stacks of paper - newspapers, invoices, maps, condition reports on various artefacts, correspondence and all manner of other documentation.

[Galvain7]

"Maybe we can pick up were Tom left off."

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I'll examine the piles of paper on the floor to see if I can follow Tom's line of thought. First, I'll start with the letters, then the invoices, then the maps, and the newspapers, then I'll take a look at the artefact reports and see if any match the artefacts I find in the room.

If I find any similarity between information on the papers and information I might find in Tom's Library, I'll use the Use Library skill to see if I can uncover more.

[Ella]

Jan leans against the wall smoking her cigarette still, looking completel unphased around the room, she continues to look around the kitchen.

"You boys look around, I am going to just take a moment to absorb the view."

[DueceEsMachine]

Kenneth Fell
Character Notes

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Investigative Abilities:
Architecture 2; Art 6; Art History 4; Craft 4; Credit Rating 1; Flattery 4; Geology 2; Occult 1; Photography 2; Reasurance 4

General Abilities:
Driving 4; Filch 5; Firearms 2; Fleeing 12; Health 9; Psychoanalysis 8; Sanity 9; Stability 10 (-1); Sense Trouble 5; Stealth 5; Weapons 2

*Seeing a woman hold her composure so very well while he nearly grovels, Kenneth shakes his head, swollowing hard on a lump that won't seem to go away. Attempting to gather himself, he rubs absently at his forehead with a finger and speaks, shaky at first, but a bit more firm as he proceeds.*
"I uh... I'm just going to head to the washroom for a moment and.... do something.."

*Heading off to a washroom, he turns the water on, splashing his face and looking up into the mirror (assuming the water works).*
"Get ahold of yourself, man - your father needs you, and Roger will just think you more worthless if you break down."

[OzCymru]

Sifting throught the documentation in Thomas' den, the Professor is able to piece together a number of facts:

*The letters and invoices relate mainly to mail order purchases of expeditionary gear. Most are pro-forma invoices, indicating that the goods may not yet have arrived. There are also receipts for plane tickets, a shotgun and one for the conversion of $2,200 into various South American currencies.

*A little more digging uncovers the plane tickets themselves - unused and still in their envelopes. They are tickets for five travellers, with destinations including Chile, Ecuador and Peru.

*On top of a pile of photographs sits a camera, loaded and ready for use. The photographs depict some rocky location very much resembling the stones in the house. Several photographs focus on a tall obelisk covered with strange glyphs. Makepeace's knowledge of art history reveals a strange mix of styles in the obelisk - it has an almost Egyptian shape but is adorned with pre-Columbian, Incan-looking glyphs.

*One photograph in particular stands out; it shows Thomas and four other men - two nondescript white men, a tall man with a serious moustache, and a young Asian man - standing in the living room in front of the strange rocks that have displaced the kitchen.

*It is easy enough for Makepeace to work out where Thomas' attention has been focussed lately. The maps are all of South America, with circles drawn in red ink over various points along the whole length of the Andes. Books on Mesoamerican art and culture are open throughout the room, as are texts dedicated to stelae and standing stones throughout the world, from Stonehenge to Egyptian obelisks.

[DueceEsMachine]

Kenneth Fell
Character Notes

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Investigative Abilities:
Architecture 2; Art 6; Art History 4; Craft 4; Credit Rating 1; Flattery 4; Geology 2; Occult 1; Photography 2; Reasurance 4

General Abilities:
Driving 4; Filch 5; Firearms 2; Fleeing 12; Health 9; Psychoanalysis 8; Sanity 9; Stability 10 (-1); Sense Trouble 5; Stealth 5; Weapons 2

*Coming out of the bathroom after a moment, Kenneth seems to have gathered himself somewhat. Or maybe it's just that he looks a little cleaner. Regardless, he moves back into the kitchen and stretches a bit before moving towards the rocks*
"Alright, well, since this didn't disappear during my absence, I'll assume it is quite solid, and go from there. Miss... Cleveland. Would you mind bringing me a hand-towel and bit of water from over there, and something hard, if you can find it. Let's see if we can't learn a bit more about this."

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Okay, so, he's got a Geology skill of 2, with some water and a towel to clean off the dirt, and something hard to test it's resiliency, he should be able to get a pretty good idea what the rock is. Maybe that could give him a clue to where it came from.

[TerrickTerran]

Dr. Roger Fell

Roger decides that if the library and den are in use that he would check the bedroom. Alert that it might be as creepy as the kitchen was, he braces himself as he opens the door to search for any clues and see if his father was even in there or what else might await him.

[Galvain7]

"Right then- South America..."

A thoroughly intrigued Professor Knox J. Makepeace gathers all the relevant sources from the library and puts them in neat piles, based on the type of information they contain. Waiting until Rodger is out of the room, Knox slips down the stairs as best he can manage, before heading back the the kitchen to see Ms. Cleveland smoking.

"Ah! Ms. Cleveland- I see we are of one mindset. I think I'll have another smoke too." Professor Knox manages a conspiratorial smile before deftly lighting another of his own cigarettes. "I hope you don't mind the question, but where exactly did you plan on going with Tom for your expedition?" he says, before adding in a much lower tone- so that only he and Ms. Cleveland can hear- "South America perhaps?"

[Ella]

Jan nods at Kenneth and goes to get a glass of water, only to remember that the kitchen is missing completely.

She heads to the bathroom, and fills a glass from the sink with water, and then grabs a hand towel on her way out. She walks back over to Kenneth and hands them to him.

"You know, everything will turn out alright don't you. I mean, there has to be some sort of rational explanation, and even if there isn't all we have to do is do the best we can do so we have no regerets in the future."

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Jan uses reassurance on Kenneth.

Jan then turns to look at Professor Makepeace and gives him her best cheshire cat smile.

"Now Professor the destination was Peru, however they never left here, they didn't book the trip by either boat of plane, and you know. I actually don't mind telling you in the slightest, after all there is no need to worry about the expedition when there is no way it can go ahead now is there?"

[Galvain7]

Continuing in his lowered tone, the Professor purrs to Ms. Cleveland:

"Maybe you are not giving Tom enough credit. Please come upstairs, there's something you might want to see. I think the old boy may have preempted you..."

[OzCymru]

Despite possessing more knowledge of geology than the average person, Kenneth is unable to recognise anything about the rock, even after wiping away some of the dirt and grime from its surface. It is clearly natural, but unlike anything that he has come across before, even in books.

Roger opens the bedroom door and has to check himself to avoid stepping into thin air. As can be seen from the kitchen, the tree and stone have taken out the bedroom as well, leaving only the walls and ceiling intact.

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Apologies for the late updare, I was hoping to hear from the detective before posting. Sadly it seems he is lost to the game. Hopefully everyone else is still around?

[DueceEsMachine]

Kenneth Fell
Character Notes

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Investigative Abilities:
Architecture 2; Art 6; Art History 4; Craft 4; Credit Rating 1; Flattery 4; Geology 2; Occult 1; Photography 2; Reasurance 4

General Abilities:
Driving 4; Filch 5; Firearms 2; Fleeing 12; Health 9; Psychoanalysis 8; Sanity 9; Stability 10 (-1); Sense Trouble 5; Stealth 5; Weapons 2

*After a bit of time spent examining the stone, Kenneth stands, wiping his hands absently on his coat as he mutters and mumbles to himself for a moment, shaking his head. Finally, admitting defeat, he turns to the others in the room and shrugs*

"I really can't say what this is - I've never seen anything like it.... hey - where did the others go?"