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❅ SHITTY LITTLE TOWN ❅ PART 2
There's an article in the local paper, but word travels through the town hours before the first newspaper hits a doorstep: a man went missing down the mine, and they couldn’t even retrieve his body for his wife to bury. The official story is that there was a freak cave-in while the night crew was working, that no amount of preparation or technology could have prevented the act of God that left one of the arterials from the main mining cavern obstructed. Given that it was the night crew, there was only one witness, and he was violating protocol and too far down another arterial to hear or see what happened; because Goluboy has a zero-tolerance policy for breaking protocols, he fired the surviving miner. Goluboy has informed the newspaper that there will be no further efforts to recover the body.
Thus, two events are happening in town this weekend: Ms. Cygne’s debut ball, and a protest against the mining conditions outside the mouth of the mines.
Out in the woods, the fog has been thick to the point where subsistence hunters can’t venture in more than a few yards, and there seem to be strange sounds, almost like music, soft tank drums and ringing, emanating from the murk. It almost feels like the menace of the woods is...encroaching.
PROMPTS
a) PROTEST OUTSIDE THE MINE
The rage at Goluboy has been a long time brewing, but the people who live in his apartments wisely don’t appear at the protest. Instead, it’s all about twenty people who have just managed to avoid being dependent on Goluboy’s grace who have shown up with posterboards and a loudspeaker, rallying during the miners’ workday. This was all coordinated the day before my word of mouth, and it isn’t particularly well organized; people frequently end up blocking the mining equipment, and the foreman shouts at them to stay away from dangerous areas with marginal success. The three people with loudspeakers end up talking over each other and the chants are piecemeal and overlapping; however, the fact that people are upset about the perceived lack of safety for the miners and particularly for the abandonment of the missing miner’s body. Bring Him Home is the main chant and the only one that seems to get any muscle to it. The fired miner seems to be the person leading the most vocal chants.
The administrative staff from MineCorp have been asked to come field complaints from the protesters, armed with nothing but some talking points from the MineCorp mission statement (something something synergized comparative advantage for diversified innovative solutions something something labor is our most precious resource yada yada). One scruffy man seems to have hijacked the protest with his loudspeaker and is rambling about the animal maulings in the woods. At some point, Goluboy arrives in his armored Ford F-250. He calls over his foreman and has an annoyed conversation, and then he gets out, bodyguard looming behind him, to talk to individuals, putting on an evidently forced smile with gritted teeth.
The rage at Goluboy has been a long time brewing, but the people who live in his apartments wisely don’t appear at the protest. Instead, it’s all about twenty people who have just managed to avoid being dependent on Goluboy’s grace who have shown up with posterboards and a loudspeaker, rallying during the miners’ workday. This was all coordinated the day before my word of mouth, and it isn’t particularly well organized; people frequently end up blocking the mining equipment, and the foreman shouts at them to stay away from dangerous areas with marginal success. The three people with loudspeakers end up talking over each other and the chants are piecemeal and overlapping; however, the fact that people are upset about the perceived lack of safety for the miners and particularly for the abandonment of the missing miner’s body. Bring Him Home is the main chant and the only one that seems to get any muscle to it. The fired miner seems to be the person leading the most vocal chants.
The administrative staff from MineCorp have been asked to come field complaints from the protesters, armed with nothing but some talking points from the MineCorp mission statement (something something synergized comparative advantage for diversified innovative solutions something something labor is our most precious resource yada yada). One scruffy man seems to have hijacked the protest with his loudspeaker and is rambling about the animal maulings in the woods. At some point, Goluboy arrives in his armored Ford F-250. He calls over his foreman and has an annoyed conversation, and then he gets out, bodyguard looming behind him, to talk to individuals, putting on an evidently forced smile with gritted teeth.
b) DEBUT BALL
Ms. Cygne’s debut ball at her mansion is the event of the year, with all the lavishness than this sort of town can muster; beautiful dresses, a chocolate fountain, gift bags with expensive accessories and bonbons, fine sparkling wines, and invitations embossed with gold leaf. Plenty of the little treats are the sort that were presumed extinct in this town; no one’s seen a pair of Gucci sunnies or eaten a Ghirardelli’s in years here.
Most of the festivities take place in the massive ballroom that anchors the mansion, and they spill out into the lawn, where Ms. Cygne has insisted on a sit-down dinner rather than a “ghastly” buffet. The lady of the hour is quite active, making sure to check in with every single person at least once to make sure she’s getting praised for her hosting skills and getting a good look at every youth who’s appeared. The youths themselves have been pressured, by family members, teachers or Ms. Cygne herself, to present themselves as elegantly and politely as possible, and to make a “good showing” at their first event as a notable, respectable young person who may be a contender for Ms. Cygne’s prestigious scholarship.
At the table, people rub elbows with people they may not necessarily speak to otherwise, all brought together by the commonality of being someone Ms. Cygne has deemed noteworthy. Almost nobody allows themselves to get too inebriated, but one woman has a bit too much champagne and begins to cry at the dinner table; her friend, another woman in her thirties, ushers her to the powder room, where she composes herself while everyone awkwardly changes the subject. A few people do mannered waltzes in the ballroom, and out on the lawn, people mingle and make toasts.
Ms. Cygne’s debut ball at her mansion is the event of the year, with all the lavishness than this sort of town can muster; beautiful dresses, a chocolate fountain, gift bags with expensive accessories and bonbons, fine sparkling wines, and invitations embossed with gold leaf. Plenty of the little treats are the sort that were presumed extinct in this town; no one’s seen a pair of Gucci sunnies or eaten a Ghirardelli’s in years here.
Most of the festivities take place in the massive ballroom that anchors the mansion, and they spill out into the lawn, where Ms. Cygne has insisted on a sit-down dinner rather than a “ghastly” buffet. The lady of the hour is quite active, making sure to check in with every single person at least once to make sure she’s getting praised for her hosting skills and getting a good look at every youth who’s appeared. The youths themselves have been pressured, by family members, teachers or Ms. Cygne herself, to present themselves as elegantly and politely as possible, and to make a “good showing” at their first event as a notable, respectable young person who may be a contender for Ms. Cygne’s prestigious scholarship.
At the table, people rub elbows with people they may not necessarily speak to otherwise, all brought together by the commonality of being someone Ms. Cygne has deemed noteworthy. Almost nobody allows themselves to get too inebriated, but one woman has a bit too much champagne and begins to cry at the dinner table; her friend, another woman in her thirties, ushers her to the powder room, where she composes herself while everyone awkwardly changes the subject. A few people do mannered waltzes in the ballroom, and out on the lawn, people mingle and make toasts.
c) EXPLORE ELSEWHERE [Link]
OOC: Please feel free to thread with each other at any location in the town. Available NPCs are bolded. Please indicate in bold in your comment if you would like an NPC to tag in, or reach out to Em or Juliet specifically. We request that each player only request one NPC per character so we may respond quickly. Thank you!
OOC: Please feel free to thread with each other at any location in the town. Available NPCs are bolded. Please indicate in bold in your comment if you would like an NPC to tag in, or reach out to Em or Juliet specifically. We request that each player only request one NPC per character so we may respond quickly. Thank you!
There is gossip around town that characters can be handwaved as knowing that might drive some questions about the town and npcs:
- The spooky deaths in the woods that have been going on for ages.
- Mining disasters like this have happened before, always before the announcement of a big new mining vein opening up.
- Children who take Ms Cygne's scholarship never come back to the town, and their letters are very formulaic.
- Goluboy's wife died under mysterious circumstances, his girlfriend went to jail for the murder, and he is about town courting again.
- Cygne has a pond full of so many beautiful swans, aren't they lovely!
- The curfew sure is heavily enforced. Is it because the sheriff knows something about the monsters in the woods and is withholding information?
❅ Deja Vu: Characters may optionally start getting some very brief flashes of memory or deja vu but this will be brief, confusing, and alarming rather than revelatory and full memory regain will not be possible. Still, players can opt to have this cause a feeling of possible unease or un-rightness to the situation that can be used to drive characters to have questions or be suspicious enough to investigate areas and situations.
❅ Event Length: This part of the plot will involve an npcing stage. It will last approx. two weeks before the last part, part 3, though this end time may be shortened to match player pace if npc threads progress quickly.
❅ New Intros: If your character wasn't introed in part 1 you can handwave they've been there the whole time and just intro in part 2.
❅ New Characters: If you app a new character and want to intro them at this time, assume they arrived just in time at the location the plot takes place in to be caught up in the magic drawing everyone in. They would have gotten the Man in the Moon's spiel from the welcome page right before being magically sucked in.
no subject
Which is wild, because they really are just coworkers who know each other in passing.
"So there's got to be some uncrossed records out there somewhere." He chews his lip in thought. "If I can find out where, security might not bat an eye if his lawyer comes to take a look."
no subject
"Okay." he says. "Let's walk through this. Say they let you get the documents without a hitch. Then what?"
Miguel drums his fingers as he mulls over the options. One way or another, he has a feeling that pursuing this was somehow going to upend his life more than it has already been upended.
"Are you thinking of going public? Don't tell me you're considering us going down there personally."
no subject
But he can't just ignore this. Everything about the past few weeks has felt so wrong — Pursuing his client's crimes feels like the first right he could do in a long time.
"No. Even if I could safely make it down there, I doubt I'd be able to make heads or tails of it." He furrows his brow, considering his options. "But maybe I could send the info to someone. It'd have to be someone who isn't in MineCorp's pocket."
Someone comes to mind immediately, and a fond smile tugs at his lips. "Boimler. That scrappy little bastard has been a thorn in Goluboy's side for months; Imagine what he could do with actual ammunition." He raps his fingernails against his bottle of beer. "Maybe Lowell Keyes, too. He's been sniffing around for dirt on MineCorp. He's got the means to make this blow up."
no subject
He's annoyed that there's no easy contact to a reporter. The shitty little town had a more vibrant gossip mill than a local paper.
"Ask Lowell about his contacts with the press. If he passes the sniff test, I'd give it to him first. We can't have this story flouder and die here if we go out with this."
He finds himself strangely on board with burning it all down, once he is faced with the enormity of what it is they were taking part of.
"If anyone is going to go investigate to get proof, then I'll go. I'll have a better idea of what it is they're building down there."
no subject
He pulls out his phone — Personal, not his work phone — and scrolls through his contacts. "Keyes has the connections we need, and the desire to knock Goluboy down several pegs. But I'll check with him."
no subject
He supposes it can't hurt to have someone else spreading the news, but a guy with the right connections seemed like the better option to go with first.
Well then, guess that just left his plan to go into the mine.
"There might be someone else I could let in on this. Goluboy is right about one thing - if someone goes down to investigate, it should be in a pair."
no subject
He sighs and pulls out his phone, looking frustrated. "It'd be great if we could get some national news source to pay attention, but I haven't been able to reach anyone outside of town for weeks."
no subject
Miguel sighs, stumped with what to do. Who could they trust, if they had to bring more with them? Tentatively, he makes eye contact with Paul.
"Weapons are always an option, but I don't have any myself. We have some emergency supplies in case of the bears..."
He feels crazy as he listens to himself. Was he really considering going down there with a gun?