Fourth Investigation

[bathymetric]

It's hard to tell that - of if - the motive has passed. The radios are the same, there are no missing powers, the day begins like any other. But there's something heavy hanging over you, the knowledge that, well... it's Friday. And unpleasant things happen in New Rapture on Fridays.

While we would love to say it's remotely quiet and peaceful, we can't. Helios Suites and the grounds around them are body-free, at least, but... there's a series of booming noises coming from somewhere else in New Rapture, echoing through the empty halls.

Looks like the game is afoot, citizens.

Comments

cw: breathing difficulties

[inaclearing]

[Brett coughs a little, pulling up his shirt to cover his mouth and nose. His eyes are watering, and not only from smoke - his heart's already racing, and his breathing probably wouldn't be steady anyway. Earlier in their time here, this kind of panic might not already be creeping up on him, but now? Now, he knows.]

We can't get close while they're still going off...

[He follows Rossiu to the garage, rather than separate. Maybe it'd be wiser to cover more ground, but...]

cw: breathing difficulties

[onemillion]

Come on, let's take a look in these two first.

[He means Swimmin' and ???, that will maybe give us some time before the fireworks die down...?? It'll definitely be easier to breathe here and that will help.]

[howveryglib]

[aw shit here we go again. Time to get the personal space reminder and a sword and head to the—-oh. Hm.]

…

Let me double back a moment and get my helmet.

[it’ll be helpful!!]

[onemillion]

Thank you, Gaius, but please be careful.

[You probably won't die to fireworks, but you will definitely get some vuln stacks.]

[howveryglib]

I will, of course.

[he’s pretty fast so it doesn’t take long before he’s back and helmeted up! That gas mask looking thingy on it has to be useful for something, right?

Anyway, he’ll go and check by the roller coaster if he can get close.]

[bathymetric]

[ If he can keep a respectable distance from the fireworks, he should have no problems checking out the roller coaster! Might be a bad time to ride it, though. That's the only real thing to do, because the roller coaster is clear. ]

[howveryglib]

[cool!

…he’ll just pop on over to the other thread unless like something’s up with the bumper cars that he can see if he stays away from the fireworks.]

[bathymetric]

[ Bumper cars are looking fine, nothing to note! ]

[howveryglib]

[actually wait hang on. Is anyone being dead in the dark ride.]

[bathymetric]

[ What an interesting question.

As Gaius enters, the fireworks start to die down. It seems you've all been looking for long enough. He'll notice some things immediately off, that being that the dark ride isn't so dark right now. The overhead lights are on and the water on the track is drained.

Want to follow the track? ]

[howveryglib]

[I mean, technically he doesn’t want to, but he’ll do it anyway…]

[specialyellthing]

[dont worry gaius, you've got friends now! She's going after him.]

What's the story, Boss?

[fuckingguy]

[ Okay, he's drawing a sword and doing the same. ]

cw breathing difficulties cont

[buriedstar]

[ Coming up a bit behind them is Seo Dawon. As soon as he sees the smoke he takes his suit jacket off to hold in front of his face, in an effort to afford him some metric of clean air and vision. ]

There's a penguin back there. [ Someone think of the penguin because it prolly shouldn't do smoke either. ] Can you see anything?

cw: breathing difficulties

[inaclearing]

[No worries Blake Bortles is probably lost in the Founder's Hall or something]

[bathymetric]

[ Hello, little group. They'll notice as they approach that the smoke gets heavier. In fact, as the door opens, smoke billows out from a source that becomes very obvious, that being a still burning fire, centralized in the middle of the storage area and quietly burning the maintenance supplies for the rides.

The fire isn't out of control...but it is definitely not burning down. ]

[inaclearing]

[Okay well Brett is the most regular person here so he's just gonna like, scan the walls for a fire extinguisher.]

[bathymetric]

[ Smart man! He'll find one, we are all civilized people here in the city of New Rapture. ]

[inaclearing]

[Emergency preparedness! We could sing a song about it but right now, we're just gonna take this thing down - hope that it's the right kind of extinguisher for the sorts of fire you might get with the materials in here - and spray the flames!]

[bathymetric]

[ Extinguish away, Brett! He can put out the fire on the materials pretty easily, though he'll have to do a little more work the closer he gets to the source of the fire.

There's some things to say about that, but they'll have to wait for later, because as he puts it out he'll be able to discern whatever's burning is not the right size for a body.

Keep looking. ]

[inaclearing]

This is - well, I don't know what this is -

[His point is, this isn't a body! He'll be here spraying it until the fire's out, though!]

[onemillion]

Thank you, Brett.

[Best to put it out just to be safe!! And honestly, it's good it isn't a body, that'd be fucked up—]

I'm going to check the other ride nearby; please be careful, everyone.

[So he's off to Swimmin'! Anything up anywhere in here?]

[bathymetric]

[ Nothing but a lovely simulation ride. Clear and undisturbed. ]

[buriedstar]

[ Squints with at mystery not a body. Glad Brett has the fire extinguisher since he usually has spells for that. ]

The upstairs is usually locked, right? I can check up there first just in case. [ Order is chaos but let's see if the upstairs of ??? is still locked and in one piece? ]

[bathymetric]

[ Still locked and undisturbed! Which is a shame, if someone was gonna commit arson they might as well have gotten the whole building, right? ]