WEEK 03

[modmachine]

Preparation for the holidays continues at a steady - if slow - pace. Almost all traces of Halloween are gone by now, except for a few rotting pumpkins shoved into compost heaps, but with over a month until Christmas and the Day of Lights, nobody is yet in a hurry. Still, a few early holiday shoppers are out and about, usually in pairs if they aren't families with children, happily chattering about gift plans.

Weather forecast: The rain has passed, and days grow clear again for this week. Hex’s weather has been getting colder, and people are bundling up a bit more - even those who don’t need to, just in an effort to fit in. Hats and gloves are being prominently displayed in stores, even if they’re not strictly needed yet.

Moon phase: The moon is full on Monday the fourteenth, reaching peak fullness over the city at about 2AM. Afterwards, it begins to wane.

More employment: More decorations for the Day of Lights are going up, with some stronger-backed labor being recruited for the stockrooms in preparation for the incoming holiday rush. No one seems concerned about work history, a boon for people without a human paper trail. The park lights aren't finished yet, either, though things are on schedule to open next week.

Hitting the books: To prepare for the holidays, and raise funds for their community party, the library near the university is selling some of its used books. Most of them are fine, if an odd selection - you might find a cookbook, or you might find a book of poetry. There’s something weird about the books, though - a few of them smell faintly of mint. Watching over all of this is a sharp-eyed librarian. Don’t take a book without paying, or she’ll get up from her desk and try to block the door. She keeps having to chase away teenagers with dirty hands, too.

Bake sale: Some of the local schools are starting to take up donations for their holiday parties. One in particular in the residential district is holding a bake sale in front of the elementary school for an hour each day after classes let out. If you can fight through the sea of small children hoping someone will buy them something, you’ll find a variety of brownies, cookies, and tiny cakes. Many of them are lopsided, but a few look put together by expert hands. They cost more, of course, but it’s all for a good cause. A grouchy mother can be found near the cash box at all times, making sure no one steals the money.

Whoo are you?: Malin will notice that owls seem to be happening at her; they're hard to see, just shapes against the lesser-dark of the night sky, but they definitely seem to be watching her. They particularly seem to gather when she feeds. If she doesn't confront them, this will increase slowly but measurably throughout the week.

Time waits for no one: An old clock tower in the part of downtown leading into the Sixth has been restored to functionality... Mostly. The belltower stands empty, though there's a visible place where a bell should be hung, several stories above the floor. Ryoji might find the scene familiar. On Wednesday evening, there is some kind of reopening gathering at the church below it; the brief service and meet-and-greet is not particularly unusual, save that the young Acolyte handing out papers in the entry won't step into the congregation hall itself.

Like a dog with a bad...: In the Sixth, the construction is ongoing, still with the same handful of men, who rotate through almost like randomly generated NPCs. Lurking around outside is a thickly built man, who watches the whole goings-on with suspicion; strangely, he seems to be watching it mostly through the camera on his phone. On Friday morning, though it shouldn't be cold enough for frost, three of the strangely similar men slip on patches of ice and fall behind a half-finished wall... Where they vanish completely. They reappear after lunch, if it's even the same men, with no signs of injury. That afternoon, the man with his phone looks smug.

A touch of the season: And speaking of ice, passage into many of the city's Avernian Gates is blocked this week by a thick frost that seals the entries shut. An Unsettling Youth and his girlfriend can occasionally be seen investigating them; though they're constantly together, they don't seem much inclined to talk to each other. Occasionally, she'll drape her arm over his shoulders and giggle, while he looks confused; other times, she seems almost to shy away from him.

Comments

Nitou | Open

[infinitemayonnaise]

[Bake Sale, Open but an NPC would be Great]
There's a rather scruffy-looking young man with a mysterious squeeze bottle full of some white substance hanging around the bake sale. To those who can see through Changeling masks, he's not just scruffy looking, but some kind of chimerical Beast with a mane, small buffalo-like horns jutting out from his head, and claws. He doesn't care what the pastries look like--he only cares what they taste like.

He's also squeezing white stuff onto everything he eats. "Oh man," he says between bites, "this is great. Really great." And he grabs another brownie--did he pay for that?-- and adds a big dollop of his mystery condiment, adding, "you should really try this" and offering it to whoever might be nearby.

[Employment? What's that?]
So there are lights going up in the park...and there's also a tent that has gone up in the park. The tent is right in the middle of an in-progress work and is likely very much in the way. There also appears to be something inside the tent. Investigate?

Bake Sale

[modmachine]

Oh, she knows what that substance is, and the woman running the bake sale nods to one of her horrified assistants. She'll handle this. She reaches out to grab Nitou's wrist.

"You are going to pay for what you took, young man. If you don't, I'm sure we can go talk to the safety officer inside and get the police here. I'm sure they'd be interested in hearing about someone taking money away from children."

Her grip is tight, and her smile is thin.

[infinitemayonnaise]

"Hey, I didn't mean anything by it!" Nitou seems both bewildered and kind of alarmed by the sudden angry mom. "I was just hungry!" There's a very long pause. "I can pay!"

[modmachine]

"Good. Now pay up, dear." The woman lets go of the boy's hand, settling back into her chair and smiling a touch more genuinely. "Three dollars."

[infinitemayonnaise]

"Three dollars! Three dollars, right!" With his hand free, he's just going to start rummaging through his pockets. His jacket's got a lot of pockets, his pants have a lot of pockets...bits of change start emerging from said pockets...

"Hold on, I've got some more cash." Without any further explanation, Nitou yanks off a boot and starts dumping it out, producing more change.

[modmachine]

She sits, waiting patiently for him to finish his mission of gathering change. One of her assistants looks nervous, but she calms the other with a Look. Don't worry, she's got this.

[infinitemayonnaise]

"There!" Nitou triumphantly forks over a handful of change. "There you go!" In fact, it is far more change than needed--over five dollars' worth of assorted coins (and a couple of buttons and arcade tokens and a doubloon that must have come off a Mardi Gras float of some kind).

[modmachine]

She eyes the collection of crap that's accumulated... well, she can use the buttons for later and hand the rest off to the kids. "There. Now... here. Take one more cookie, and we'll call it even."

[infinitemayonnaise]

"Another cookie! Awesome!" He wastes no time in selecting one and absolutely covering it with mayonnaise.

[Employment]

[crazycatvampire]

Corwin does not remember that tent being there the last time he came through the park. He isn't working on the lights, but he does wander a lot, and the park is a familiar and usually safe place to do so. He's aware there are homeless people in Hex, though it dismays him every time he finds them, so he can only guess this is either a surprisingly resourceful homeless person, or a very eccentric college student.

Either way, he's bending over double by the tent flap and peering in. "Hello?"

Have a gawky, creepy giant with a heart of gold and waves of disquiet rolling off him, Nitou. Will that bother you terribly?

[infinitemayonnaise]

Nitou had been fast asleep. Nitou had not been expecting to be roused from his slumber by a creepy giant and his waves of disquiet.

Please excuse the yelling as he suddenly sits bolt upright.

[crazycatvampire]

Corwin falls back on his rear end in the grass, startled. "I'm sorry!" he exclaims, first thing, in the midst of the yelling. He might even crab-walk back a little bit from all the noise. He hates causing a fuss!

[infinitemayonnaise]

"Woah! Geez, dude, no harm done, but warn a guy next time!" Nitou at least recovers quickly, because his life is largely flitting from one loud thing to another in a series of events that might make normal people yell.

[crazycatvampire]

"I didn't know if anyone was in there," Corwin admits, still on his butt in the grass. "Or if you were all right. It gets very cold out here at night, you might not have been all right. Are you all right?" Because he realizes he's been rambling about whether or not he was all right, without actually asking.

[infinitemayonnaise]

"I'm alright! Are you alright? You wanna come in for something to eat? It's not cold in here." Something's off about this guy, though Nitou doesn't know what. Clearly the thing to do is to invite the guy inside. What is danger? Can you eat it covered in mayonnaise?

[crazycatvampire]

"It's only a tent, I would have thought it would get very cold..." But he does pick himself up and crouch-walk his way over, front ways instead of on his rear end, peering inside. "I don't need anything to eat, though, thank you." Considering he doesn't... eat, really. He can, but it's not necessary for him. "What's your name?"

[infinitemayonnaise]

"Aw, there are ways of keeping it warm." Magical ways, but ways nonetheless. "Suit yourself." He pulls a burger from his backpack, squirts a large quantity of mayonnaise onto it, and begins chowing down. "I'm Nitou! What's yours?"

Employment

[runs]

There's a kitten poking into said tent. She will totally try to sneak in on whatever food is lying around and steal it.

It smells like there is food in here, and you can never have enough of that when you don't know where to get the next food from. The food pantries only open much later in the day.

[infinitemayonnaise]

There are two immediate sources of food in the tent--a squeeze bottle of mayonnaise, and some weird-looking fruit poking out of a bag. Both might be a little large for a kitten to carry off, but the bag smells like there might be more food inside.

There is also a sleeping man in the tent--to those who can see through a Changeling's Mask, he's some sort of lionish creature, but to everyone else, he's just a sleeping young man...but since the Mask doesn't cover scent, he'll smell an awful lot like lion. He stirs slightly, but he doesn't yet wake.

[runs]

Does nobody here smell like they should? First Nogee, and then this guy here who smells like a big cat. Weird.

She'll just... circle around that a bit and sniff at the fruit some before using head and paws to try and get into the bag. If all else fails, she'll try and roll the fruit out and away, but maybe there's something more rewarding in there.

[infinitemayonnaise]

Nitou stirs a little, then stretches in a very leonine manner. There's a yawn, another stretch, and he lies there scratching at his side for a bit. Thusfar, he has failed to notice the kitten in the tent.

Inside the bag is a bag of potato chips, a half-eaten burger, a few various assorted candies, and several other very strange-looking fruits.

[runs]

...Sniffing at the strange fruit. Then she'll bat at it, just for good measure, but with this in-depth scientific analysis having revealed nothing, she'll move on to the actual goodies. The burger part of the burger she'll go for right here, and then she'll ...hm. Either the potato chips or the candy. She'll have a moment to decide this.

Looks like the guy's snoozing soundly, so yeah. She's gonna snack this patty first.

[infinitemayonnaise]

The fruit's got an odd sort of odor to it, likely one she won't be able to place unless she's come across Goblin Fruit before, and it feels normal upon being batted. The patty doesn't seem as though it's been in the bag long, and there is a great deal of mayonnaise all over the burger.

Nitou rolls over and snores a bit more. He remains oblivious to the fact that there is a kitten stealing his food.

[runs]

She'll eat as much of the patty as she can without ingesting too much mayo and then starts to abscond with the bag of potato chips.

It's a bit loud, pulling it out of the guy's bag and towards the entrance of the tent, but that's the downside to stealing crisps.

[infinitemayonnaise]

Kitty is fortunate--Nitou lets loose a very loud snore that completely causes him not to hear the noise the bag of chips is making when she takes it.