Tavern Yard, Danger Bend


Birds shrieked and whistled the day into being. The sun had seared the bright dome of the sky from molten bronze to a dulled copper-blue by the time those who dwelled at the tavern had pulled themselves into the land of the living. Heat filtered with the light through the outbuildings and shivering eucalyptus leaves, bringing the scent of warmed earth. The slim sinuation of a snake curved itself away around the tavern as the workers came out to wash at the horse trough, or at least cool the skin.

Brigitte stood in the tavern doorway, dressed and breakfasted long before to avoid the heat. She watched her maid Peggy bustle and sway her way over to the men who helped with the sheep with her tray of breakfasts and iron kettle, tea leaves brewing in its depths.

The day before yesterday, Brigitte had told Mary Ryan out on the squatter spread she would head over this morning with a couple of sacks of raw wool and a small cheese in exchange for that offered share of patterned cloth. The stuff was a subtle wind of printed roses that would make a fine light dress, and Brigitte knew Peggy was eager to set her hands to tailoring.

It would be good to get out there before the heat licked the land to a shimmering hell. Jack Duggan had some buisness out there with Mr. Ryan and barrels, she knew, and it would be wise to have company. A rider stranded by misfortune even on these relatively civilised trails had their odds of survival sharply cut.

---

Peggy Sullivan brought bread with salted beef fat, some precious grapes and a smile for Jack Duggan where he stood. Jack was feeling pretty fit and hale this morning, the dry air sweet with the scent of nearby water and the shade trees whilst the wind was from this direction. His right calf hurt for no reason he could remember, but other than that it was the top of a fine morning, and he had first pick of tea and breakfast whilst Swarbrick the Essex poacher was scrubbing about with cold water.

Dan Gallager the trader was still sleeping off last night in the barn somewhere. Since the man had spent the latter part of the evening demanding what everyone's problem was in a very strange fashion, without any intention of an honest good-natured fight, no-one was eager to wake him. A sheep blared her existence to the world at large from some undetermined point off on the land, even more discordant than the birds.



He remembered of a sudden that that party of fancy scientists and such that had ascended into the mountains a week ago should have been back yesterday. A kookaburra broke into cackling from somewhere behind the tavern and Jack noticed 'Countess' d'Anjou was looking over at him, perhaps wanting to talk.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:31, Fri 26 Feb 2021.

With a shrug Brigitte set to gathering together the equipment and provisions for the ride out to the Ryan's place. She started with the trade items she had mentioned earlier and then a few personal things for herself.

When she was done she went to find Jack and see if he was ready to go.


-

"Pegeen lass, y'r pretty as a Springtime morn on the dewy slopes of Slieve Aintey, so y'are. And is this victuals yer a-bringin t'break me mornin fast? 'Tis an angel y'are, lass, truly."

Jack takes his share of the bread, standing bare-chested by the trough to gobble it down, his eyes never leaving Peggy as she serves the others. She's a rare sight in these parts, pretty and young. He slips on his shirt and grabs the last sprig of grapes from Peggy's bowl.

"May angels guard y'r steps, pretty Peggy, until th' evenin falls."

As Peggy heads back to the big house, Jack turns to the cabin where he sleeps with the other hired men. In a few moments he's ready for the day's work. He goes to the barn and saddles two horses with the accompaniment of Dan Gallagher's snores. When all is done to his satisfaction, he leads the two horses up to the porch. Peggy is there with filled water bottles and a packet of bread and salted meat and hard cheese. He stows those and sits on the steps to await the Lady.

In reply to Jack Duggan (msg # 3):

"Good morning Jack, looks to be a fine day for a ride...." She walks towards her horse before again asking <rose>"Shall we be off before it gets to hot ?"

Mounting her horse Brigitte makes sure she has a bottle of water close at hand, having been the victim of heat stroke in  the past when she did not.



-

Jack holds the Lady's bridle until she is settled, then climbs up into his own saddle. Already the sky to the east is turning brassy as the sun rises white-hot on its journey.

"Aye, M'Lady, 'tis well we get there in the cooler time o' day, sure now."

He turns his horse to follow her fine beast, making their way off the property and down the dusty trail.

[Has her ladyship seen fit to provide Jack a firearm or has he merely the cudgel dangling from the horn of his saddle?]

The two ride off, leaving the sheep and the tavern to themselves. The birdsong quiets as they go, muted by the rising heat and the broader cleared areas. For the first part of the ride, the track is well-packed and hedged with bottlebrush, the strange, tendrilled red flowers of the young trees touching the horses' flanks and riders' shoulders. With the ongoing drought the dense flowering seems likely to be a last-ditch attempt to set seed before the heat withers every scrap of life from the leaves and perhaps the bark itself: fallen flowers, already crisp, dot the lane underhoof like so many blots of dried blood.

Beyond the hedging, the trails radiate towards fields and neighbours, each equine impact raising dust. They pass under remnant trees, mocked by kookaburras and avoided by lizards, over the ridge and into the squatters' fields. Though the house is visible the better part of a mile away, no-one comes in view.

The riders draw closer. The desiccated remains of the pea crop shiver in the breeze, waving thin, dry tendrils to nothing.

[[a Spot Hidden roll from you both, if you please]]

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 6):
Jack Duggan rolled 98 for Spot Hidden 50. Oh-ho-ho-ho!

Jack is largely distracted from the scenery by the tension rising in his horse and the ache in his leg. He still doesn't remember why that hurts.

Not pushing the horses as the heat of the day closed in around them. Brigitte sat up in her seat once the house came into view.

Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 44 using 1d100.  Spot Hidden = 25%.



-

A glance down at the offending limb at least confirmed Jack's right leg was where it should be.

[[GM edit: adding a moment's useful text to a PM]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:16, Sat 01 Feb 2020.

---

Squinting a little against the glare of the sun on bleached wood, Brigitte sees the squatters' farmhouse remain as still as a skull in the dust. Whilst by now the birds have largely quieted, the sun has woken the cicadas to action so that sound sizzles from the bushland beyond the house, audible even at this distance out in the fields. She sees the door of the dwelling lies halfway open, though neither Mary nor either of the children are working on the threshold. Another sweep of the fields fails to show anyone commencing their work out there, either.

As the riders draw closer, the horses begin to get tense, snorting unease to each other. Duggan's horse tries to pull a bit more free rein out of the youth's grip, ears turned back to judge the rider's reaction, then one turned forwards again to hear ahead. The cicadas scream. Heat shimmers at the horizon. Every hoof-fall leaves the track smoking with dust.

By the time they reach the fence that marks off the yard, the horses are decidedly skittish, requiring additional nudges to keep heading forwards. Brigitte's gray baulks at entering the yard, snorting and trying to turn until pulled under control. Seeing this, Jack's horse just stops, nostrils flared and ears flicking. A fly lands on Jack's hand and starts edging down it, perhaps seeking sweat. No call or movement comes from the house.

"Somethin don't seem quite right 'bout th' place, M'Lady. Horses don't like it.  Sure, I'd best tie Brass here t'th' fence an' approach th' house afoot. See what's what." He swings down and the big, bay gelding's reins tight to the rail.

"I'll be back direckly."

Slipping the thong of his cudgel from the saddle and around his wrist, Jack squares his hat and approaches the front door at a slow walk.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:27, Sat 01 Feb 2020.

Jack heads across the yard, accompanied by a warning snort from his tethered horse and the constant shrieking of cicadas from the bush. Small dried weeds and clumps of grass shiver in the warming wind as he crosses the packed earth. The horse snorts again. The house stays quiet.

[[would you like to Stealth up, or/and Listen nearer the door? If so, go ahead and roll a thing!]]

The man stops a half dozen paces from the front door.

"Halloo th' house!" he calls loudly, listening sharp for an answer from within.

Jack Duggan rolled 43 for Listen 50.

Watching him, Brigitte hears nothing over the racket of cicadas save for the uneasy sounds made by her own horse.

No-one calls back.

"We better take a look, this seems... out of the ordinary ?" If Jack is in the affirmative Brigitte would dismount from her horse, then wait for Jack before approaching the house.


-

Jack abruptly crouches, all his attention on the door, left hand extended back toward his employer in a warning.

"What was that? Sounds almost like sheep in th' house."

No sheep appear from the front entrance, at least. The open door swings fractionally on its hinge and comes to rest again, as though shifted by vibration from within the dwelling. The cicadas scream from the trees.

Crouched there, Duggan becomes aware of the tickling of a fly on the back of his neck. A couple more edge over his sleeve and another flits and resettles on his shoulder as he waits some moments more, the dark bodies providing the most definite movement in Brigitte's field of view.

Flicking his head to disperse the flies, Jack asks quietly, "So, are ye wantin' me t'go in there?"

His tone makes two things clear. He'd rather not. He will if he must.

In reply to Jack Duggan (msg # 19):

"Yes, let us both go in there." She will follow Jack into the house and help remove the livestock.


-

Jack steps lively to keep himself between the ominous doorway and the Countess. Stepping up on the porch he pushes at the door, wanting to see as much of the room a fully open door will allow before he or the lady steps in.

The door slowly swings open with a soft creaking almost lost under the insect noise from the trees; a shaft of light expands across and along the hallway beyond, cut by the shadow of Jack's arm. For a moment the shadows inside the house are almost impenetrable, but in the light it's clear the floor is splashed and smeared with old blood, dried at least a week ago and leaving little of its butcher smell. A fly lands on Jack's ear. They were here the day before yesterday, and the floor was clean.

A fly crawls across the back of Brigitte's neck, another alighting on her hand. The blood drags out of the parlour to their right and the children's room to their left, the door to the former halfway open and the latter mostway shut. The streaks drag down to the kitchen visible at the end of the hall where a line of brightness indicates the outdoors visible beyond the open back door. There are no sheep. There is the quiet of an empty farmhouse, indistinguishable as it is from the quiet of a hunter watching a trap. Two days ago Brigitte spoke with Mary Ryan, measured out fine cotton between their hands whilst Sean and Cara played in the kitchen. Two days ago they were all here.

A couple of flies spin and circle near the ceiling, passing out over the watchers' heads.


[[anyone want to give me a Listen?]]

Brigitte stopped dead in her tracks and brought her hand to her mouth. So much blood she thought as she looked on the scene before them.....


Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 34 using 1d100.  Listen 55.


-

Jack has seen animals butchered in his time, here and back home, but never has he seen so much blood splashed about. Slaughtering is done for a reason, to get the meat and hide and other animal things useful to man. Part of what's gotten is blood and it's drained into buckets, not splashed about the killing room floor, not splattered around carelessly and wastefully, the blood--

Jack shudders and shakes his head, taking a step back, almost bumping into Brigitte. He cannot go in there.

"We gotta... gotta go," he stammers out, "Go alert th' Guard so's they c'n... c'n look in them other rooms, so's they c'n...c'n see."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:19, Wed 05 Feb 2020.

Composing herself Brigitte says " Let us walk around the side of the house and check out back. I don't want to leave without making sure that the children are not alive or other people are hiding from whatever did this. Is that acceptable ?"


-

Jack is breathing in rapid gasps, his face pale and stricken.

"Ah, but... but..." He gulps and takes a deep shuddering breath. Blowing it out, he stands straighter, gripping his cudgel firmly.

"Aye, M'lady, as ye say." His voice is somewhat steadier now. He licks his lips, nodding.

Turning to face the house again, he begins to circle it to the left, his distance widening a bit perhaps, but his steps not faltering.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:09, Wed 19 Feb 2020.

Jack circles the house, a tense, certain feeling rising in him like prophecy, as though his fear of the blood were doubled by knowledge he possesses and yet cannot grasp. The cicadas scream from his left. The house sits so very quiet (so full of blood) at his right.

He passes around the side, and the shutters of the children's window gape darkly open, flecked with a constellation of flies. He passes under the shadow of the eucalyptus nearest the house, the shadows of long leaves like fingers sliding over his face. The sense of un-knowledge grows intense, and Jack becomes aware of his breathing; the heating air and the tin taste of unease.

As he's about to round the corner to the back, he recalls this is where the movement he likened to sheep seemed to flee to. There are more flies here, in the air and being bothersome about his neck and face, seeking his sweat.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:58, Wed 05 Feb 2020.

Following Jack around the side of the house Brigitte stays close but not close enough as to hinder a quick escape should it be needed. Could a wild animal do this, she was unsure and doubted a dingo would be up to the task, even a pack of them.



-

At the back corner Jack stops. He cranes his body forward to get a look along the back wall before he moves farther. He's still loking for those clattering hooves he heard leaving the house.

Carefully leaning to look around the house, Jack can see half a dozen emus warily regrouping near the back door, attention apparently focused inside. One hops back in as he watches, disturbing some of the flies that sit thick on the back wall. The ground back here is stained in patches, too, though the staining is sunbleached.

Out in the back paddock lie three lumps, thankfully smaller than humans (adult humans); Jack's guess is some kind of animal carcasses. The emus ignore them completely, clearly having inspected them long before and determined them neither food nor an indication of threat.

A bloody handprint by the back doorframe fixes his attention like a needle. It seems extremely, incredibly familiar. As though he knows that shape like the back of his hand.

"Just birds," he says to the Countess with some relief in his voice. He breathes a bit easier as he walks on around the corner of the house. He waves his arms, shouting "Gwarrraaaahh!" to startle the emus and send them on their way.

Then he walks over to inspect the stained ground before checking on the lumps in the paddock.

[Jack Duggan rolled 47 for Spot Hidden 50. In case it's needed.]
This message was last edited by the player at 15:58, Sat 08 Feb 2020.

Continuing to follow behind Brigitte breathed out with relief at the large birds as they ran off. She continued to scan their surroundings as Jack focused on the hand print. When he was ready to have a look at the dead livestock she followed as well.


-

Startled, the emus flee at great speed towards the treeline, ridiculous and graceful as a herd of ballet dancers. Walking out across the yard they had left, Jack inspects the stains (more drag marks, less densely clustered, as of something that had stopped bleeding some time before the dragging, and a dark spot as though a burden of uncertain shape had been set down, its base wet) and ducks through the fence to wade shin-deep in the dry grass.

Brigitte, using the gate rather than become entangled against the rough wood with her skirts, sees no sign of the Ryans' horse, but continues to be beset by flies, almost as much as Jack. Approaching him, she finds that the corpses were at one stage sheep, though none of the three bodies, spaced a few paces apart, possess a head. These are far fresher than the blood in the farmhouse, a few days old at most and scarcely scavenged. The flies have been having a ball, glad of the remnant moisture. The cicadas continue to screech and screech and screech. The farthest sheep is also missing a back limb.

Crouching to inspect the wounds whilst trying to ignore the smell, Jack takes note of how it was done.  As he looks up at his employer, he sees something else.



[[SAN check for Jack, please.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:23, Fri 26 Feb 2021.

"Jesus Mary and Joseph!" Jack blurts out crossing himself again and again as he stumbles back, away from Brigitte, staring above her head, almost tripping over one of the sheep-corpses.

[Jack Duggan rolled 82 for Sanity 45.]

Brigitte dove forward at Jacks comment thinking the emu's had come back for a go. It was strange his alarm at this give that a nasty peck or kick was all you could expect she thought.


-

Jack waves his hand vaguely, his eyes bulging. "Don't ye... can't ye... see it?! Th' child, th' poor wee babe. Ah, 'tis a dreadful thing." His voice is racked with fear and misery.

He falls to his knees in the dust of the pen, scrabbling in the pockets of his trousers to pull out a rosary of black beads and knotted cord.

"Hail Mary fulla grace th' Lord is wit' ye blessed are thou amongst women an'-- an'--"

His eyes roll up and he looks like he might faint.

Brigitte experiences a sudden piercing sound as she lurches to the ground, like a whistle or a high scream whipped on the wind. Though it makes her head ring and causes her muscles to tense from some ancient instinct, she sees nothing but sky above her, nor more than the fence on looking behind. The stench of dead sheep barely in front of her face fills her nose completely.

Jack seems to be having some kind of fit, waving his rosary at the air before him and shivering as though plunged into ice water. The cicadas, for a moment, hush, leaving all sound to the whispering leaves and the flies.




Jack's rapid breathing sounds loud in the quiet. The cicadas gradually start up again.

[[Jack loses a SAN point.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:29, Fri 26 Feb 2021.

Crawling to where Jack is while casting fleeting glances skyward she kneels by the man before giving him a series of shakes while calling his name. "Jack, Jack are you all right ?"

She will continue until he comes around and if that looks unlikely she will look to try and move him.


-

Jack shakes his head, then shivers all over. He turns his eyes and his head to the right, kissing the rosary's crucifix before returning it to his pocket. He draws his knife from its sheath and examines it closely, turning it over.


Lost in his reverie, he whispers: "so red...red an' dark an' sticky...sure, just a foul dream is all...but so red..."

The bush lapses back to its usual sounds as the flies resettle on the sheep carcasses and the humans huddled among them. The sky tells Brigitte nothing, high off and only increasing in its intensity of cloudless blue. The feeling of that high sound is in her like something cold, though her skin is heated and they're starting to sweat.

The bitter smell of dead sheep prevents those on the ground from smelling much else, though they can feel each others' tension through the contact like something laid on them, a shared congealment of the horror in this place. This close, Brigitte becomes aware of her own breathing in contrast to Jack's, right before he pulls a knife.

There are thin smears and flecks of dried blood on the blade, not a condition he would usually think of shoving it away in. A fly lands on the knifeblade whilst another crawls on Jack's thumb: Brigitte catches a blur of herself in the raised blade, the rust-brown flecks of non-reflection like insects on something already pale and dead...

Brigitte continues to help Jack as best she can, "We have to go Jack, we have to move...." She will try to get him to move towards some shade at least.


-

Jack plunges his knife into the sandy soil, taking his hand away from the handle as though he will leave it there. He takes hold of his trouser cuff and pulls the material almost to his knee, exposing his boot-top, a somewhat ravelled sock, and several inches of lily-pale leg.

"There was this dream," he says, his voice marginally stronger and more steady though still quiet, "A house. An' blood. An' I was runnin' away. With a bloody knife in me hand."

He turns to look into Brigitte's eyes. "I dunno what it means or if it means anythin' at all. But I'm that scared, I am." His eyes burn with sorrow and a plea.

The knife stays where it was stabbed, the curious fly taking the opportunity to crawl about the handle. The sky still makes no comment, though the cicadas yell.

Jack's working at the cloth on his right leg reveals what looks like a week-old stab wound to his calf, tender but relatively discreet and healing nicely. Brigitte recognises her own stitching.

She has no memory of doing it, nor Jack having been injured at any recent time. He may have got into fights without her knowledge, but this looks like he's been stabbed by someone already on the floor.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 43):

Brigitte stares at the wound and then at Jack before asking "Can you remember what happened ?" As he answers she again looks around their position in the field.

"Perhaps we should return to the house or home and send the authorities out ?"


-

Jack looks at her in confusion and misery, shaking his head, " 'Twas a dream..." he falters. He stares at the house.


"They won't do anythin', but I dunno what else..." He looks down at his hands, then rubs them down the front of his shirt. In a quick motion, he snatches the knife from the ground and stands, looking down at Brigitte with the knife exposed.

Then he slips the blade into its sheath and extends his hand to her.

"C'n I help ye up, M'Lady?"

In reply to Jack Duggan (msg # 45):

"No, no I am fine." Getting up off the ground she again looks at the house. "We should leave, something has happened here and I fear there is nothing we can do about it."


-

The house adds nothing, the back door lying still and open like the gaze of a skull. The handprint beside the doorway, Jack's height, his span. Quite what they might tell the Governor's men isn't immediately clear.



[[Heading back to the tavern?]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:30, Fri 26 Feb 2021.

Jack points off to the side a bit. "Can ye not see 'em, then? Two wee tykes wrapped in their bloody windin' sheets, danglin' there plain as me hand--" He stares at his hand for a moment, then whips it down to his side.

"Ye're right, M'Lady. We'd best get back then, alert th' neighbours. It may be th' danger isn't past or confined t'just this place."

He walks back to the horses and stands ready to help Brigitte mount.

In reply to Jack Duggan (msg # 48):

"I, I don't think I can see them Jack ?" She looks to were he is pointing and then follows him to the horses. She thanks him for his help once they are mounted.

As they ride off she asks "Did you see some sort of bird in the field Jack ? I think I was facing the wrong way ?"


-

"Not birds," Jack says in a strained voice, "Tash. The restless spirits o' th' Ryan kids. Oh, I wish ye'd seen 'em, too. I fear 'tis me they'll haunt, like as if they have some cause. I don't know how I can make amends."

He grabs his water bottle and takes a deep draught, but his throat is still dry. He feels like he could weep.

Glancing back showed the farm's front yard bright and empty, just as it had been behind the house. The breeze gently rattles dried crop remnants and shows the silvery sides of eucalyptus leaves as they pass, but brings little relief from the heating day.


The horses are palpably keen to get away from the place, jostling their passengers a little with a tense stride just short of breaking into a trot, ears frequently flicked back to listen, listen to a house that has no-one stirring within. Giselle spooks a bit at a lizard darting under the trees on the way back, swaying Brigitte suddenly sideways, and does trot until reined in, blowing air nervously from her delicate nose. The incident does little for Brass' nerves, the bay feeling like an animal ready for flight.

As the riders emerge from the lane of bottlebrushes back to the lightwashed pasture of Brigitte's holdings it seems there are some early visitors to the tavern, shadows that move out of the yard towards them as the pair heading homewards watch. Squinting into the glare, Jack and Brigitte see the foremost visitor halt at the sight of them, then mount up smoothly to kick his horse into a run towards them.

The distance makes direct identification of the rider tricky, but the two at the fringes are pretty sure that dust-coloured dun belongs to Charles Murphy, the man who hunts thieves and killers out of the hills. Charlie's voice confirms it as he heads towards them, the dry road smoking up horse-coloured dust in his wake.

"Duggan!"
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:30, Fri 26 Feb 2021.

Jack restrains himself from turning Brass around and kicking the gelding into flight, so awe-inspiring is the manhunter's thundering approach (but only just). Instead, he pulls the reins in tight and sits as tall in the saddle as he can.

When Murphy is in talking distance, he calls out, "Good day t'ye, yer Honour."

"Don't give me that," Murphy says, watching where his horse's feet draw up and jerking his head to indicate the other visitors, who seem to be halted, watching the scene with intense stillness. Both are in red and white. "-I've got two lickarse Saxons come out from Sydney who're about set t'put th' blame on yourself for Adam Ryan and his weans, for sure they'd love to be judge and executioner. Did you get him, then?"

Charlie finally looks up, irritation fading to puzzlement and then just raw concern on his ill-favoured and much-freckled features as he looks from Brigitte to Jack. He belatedly touches his hatbrim to the lady, noticing the paleness of them both. "What's come to you?" he asks, almost gentle. "Why is it you went back?"

Brigitte sat upright in her saddle as they neared home, even more so when the man raced towards then from the front of the tavern. She remained quiet as the rider spoke, sure that Jack can fight his own battles should he need to.

She gave a curt nod when the man acknowledged her, but at that comment about returning she spoke up "Returning Sir.... what do you mean by going "Back" ?"



-

Eyeing the older man warily, Jack squints in puzzlement.

"Sure, we just come in from Ryan's. There's blood all about an' no sign o' th' family, sheep slaughtered in th' paddock. We had in mind t' send t' Sydney fer th' soldiers. Has someone else already reported it then?"

He watches Murphy's hands. If the man reaches for a gun, Jack'll be off and away for the bush.

Murphy looks hard at the pair, then turns to look back at the redcoats, who're still undeniably there. His left hand rests the reins against his pommel, his right hand loosely at his thigh. His pale green eyes lock on Brigitte's.

"You did, ma'am," he answers both, looking at her. "Over a week ago whilst I was busy at Coal River. Word that came to me was that Duggan'd found it so and hared off after a fella from th' Calder expedition - not that we've had any o' them back aither. Tom Cleary's man Gill said the rush was on account of this fella'd stolen a girl, some convict lass from downriver, an' how another of th' ticket-lads had joined th' hunt at that, only Gill went back and found Mary Ryan just barely alive. Which is when you promised her, as you came t'her bedside at th' doctor's, that you'd catch the short, dark fella that killed her children and her man as well, and sent on word that if your party wasn't heard from in seven days they were to send myself or soldiers."

Murphy gestures at them, perplexed. "An' here I came up because we heard nothin' and you're going about like it didn't happen, or you thought Macquarie would forget. It looks bad to the English, can't you see that?"

Clearly he doesn't know what to think. He looks at his horse's shoulder and then from Jack to Brigitte, eyes held narrow. "...what day d'ye think it is?"

Jack blinks at the question and counts on the fingers of his right hand, his lips moving as he does.

"Why, what d'ye mean? Sure, 'tis Friday, man, first Friday o' Adent, if I can count a'right." He turns to look at Brigitte.

"Isn't that right, M'Lady?"
This message was last edited by the player at 23:21, Sat 15 Feb 2020.

In reply to Jack Duggan (msg # 5

Brigitte was shaking her head and mumbling something as he mind raced  she stammered somewhat in her reply to Jack and the agent.."We only saw them yesterday and set out this morning to trade for the cloth.... I, I don't understand..." She was still shaking her head when she asked "Where is Mary now ?"


-

"It's the fourteenth of December," Murphy replied, just as perplexed. "-an' a Tuesday. Them back at the tavern seemed confused, too."

He looks back at the redcoats again. "For sure last week was real, I lived it...she's at the doctor's house by Parramatta yet, ma'am. The word is she'll likely live, so long as the wound doesn't take sour."

Murphy looks at both of them. "You're sure it's nothing you remember? Tell me about the sheep at the house - I hadn't heard that there was livestock killed before. Just killed and left on the ground, was that?"

"Their...uh... their heads..."

He's pale and looking like he doesn't want to complete this thought, "Their heads were gone. And th' back leg o' one."

"And Mary was the only survivor ?" Brigitte knew the answer and it was to horrible to contemplate. She racked her memory for something else while she looked at the dirt track in front of them.


-

"That's how I understand it, ma'am, though I don't think we have th' bodies. Missus Ryan says she heard sometin in th' hall with her husband in th' parlour, an' about then she was struck down wit' the skillet or sometin the like o' that. Th' fella set in wit' his knife but it must have been the husband came out an' drew him off. Says she remembers someone tried to move her before Gill, but she was fadin' in and out there," Murphy says, contemplative.


Brass rumbles unease at the tension in his rider, shifting his weight. Charlie squints at Jack. "Gone how? Some beast, dingoes? A man takin' them? Was there anytin else?"

Brigitte again shakes her head as if trying to comprehend something. She waves away a fly with her hand before answering "Let's go down to the bar and discusses it there, Jack ?"

She gives her horse a nudge to send it further down the track.


-

"Was a man did it, sure, a man with a knife. Clean cuts, not worried through by teeth an' jaw. I c'n unnerstan' takin' a hind leg f'r supper, but three heads? Don't seem natural, Murphy."

At Brigitte's words, he nods and turns his horse to follow her to the bar. "Aye, M'Lady."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:01, Mon 24 Feb 2020.

Murphy leans his weight back, letting his mount know to wait, eyes narrowed and undecided whether to follow or go out and see the house for himself. Light rounds and roils on the baking pasturelands as he sits there on his pale dun against the dark of the trees behind.

The horses pick up the pace a little without asking as they near home, keen to be in familiar surroundings without the trace of blood. Still keyed up from the incident with the lizard, the animals do listen and flare their nostrils, though it seems the yard they make for is the same they left, without eleven days' sudden passing to stain it dark and strange. Dust puffs and swirls away under the constant beat of their hooves.

The NSW Corps troops step forward as the riders draw level: a rather dough-faced private who lifts his hat to Brigitte and a hard-looking sergeant who should probably be doing anything else. The latter only deigns to nod to a Frenchwoman, regardless of Brigitte's family's service, and catches Brass' reins under the chin left-handed. His body is tense but without fear, simply ready for action at need - someone who's accepted more than one surrender.

"Awlright son, get down from there, yer under arrest."
This message was last updated by the GM at 00:18, Tue 25 Feb 2020.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 65):

From her saddle Brigitte addresses the sergeant, "Please let Mr Duggan dismount Sergeant and we can all go inside out of the heat and sun to discuss it." She swings her leg over her horse and leads it to the fence to hitch the bridle or to hand it off to someone else if one of the employees has come to help their mistress.

She will then move to the door and holds it open for everyone to enter.


-
This message was last edited by the player at 06:59, Tue 25 Feb 2020.

Knowing that it doesn't take much to provoke these soldiers to violence, Jack offers no resistance. He relinquishes his reins to the sergeant and swings easily out of the saddle. He stands uncertainly in the dust of the innyard, hoping Brigitte or Murphy can talk reason to the man.

His cudgel dangles (he hopes unobtrusively) at his side from the thong about his wrist.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:24, Tue 25 Feb 2020.

"We'll be pleased to accept yer hospitality, Madame," the sergeant says, then jerks his head to indicate that his subordinate should attend to Jack. "Get 'is weapons, Cookson."

Cookson does so as Brigitte hands her horse off to a hand and Peggy comes out to see what's up, her usual smile struck down by alarm. Cookson relieves Duggan of his club and knife, slowly frowning at the condition of the latter. That doesn't escape the sergeant's notice. A glance out to the land shows Murphy heading back this way after all, albeit at a leisurely trot that gives him time to work out quite how to get his countryman out of this fix, though he's ready to kick on fast at any sign of trouble.

---

Murphy hasn't quite caught up by the time Jack's been taken inside and sat at a table, the sergeant opposite, Peggy sent to get drinks. A couple of flies circle the ceiling in the hot air, though the tavern is clean as usual. This early they have it to themselves. Jack's weaponry sits on the table to the officer's right where he's leant forward, resting his arms against the wood. His sandy hair is plastered to his head without the hat, every inch of him an irritable itch of sweat and boredom.

To the sergeant's left lies the iron collar for restraining suspects, its short tail of links echoing the lines of a more permanent necklace. The knife on the table is dirty, as is the sergeant's sash and the creases of his fingers and the dull blue of his eyes. "Well now my lad," he says, nodding to Peggy's approach with a jug and earthenware cups for liquour, "-where are the bodies?"

At the sergeant's question, Jack can't keep the alarm out of his eyes as he shakes his head.

"This is naught t'do with me, sir. Th' only bodies I ever seen at th' Ryan spread were sheep. I take me oath on't."

He's certainly not foolish enough to give the soldier any edge of admission to any crime.

Brigitte took the cups and jug and arranged them out across the table. "Peggy make sure the men outside have water as well." Taking a seat she does not know where to begin.
"As we told Mr. Murphy we only left this morning to trade some cloth though it seems for some reason we have been waylaid, how I don't know.... As for bodies we did not venture into the house and only came across some hastily butchered sheep in the field." She raises a cup to her lips and drinks.


-
This message was last edited by the player at 00:10, Thu 27 Feb 2020.

The sergeant listens, but gives Brigitte a 'hold on' gesture, not yet touching the rum. The flies circle and circle the ceiling. He fixes a stare on Jack.

"Can you tell me why we're out 'ere, then, if we aren't to understand that on the second of December you did so find the Ryan family slaughtered and, as you said to one James Gill from the next farm in passing, took to the hills on the trail of..." the pause there speaks volumes, "...'some other feller who done it and run away.' "

He turns his attention to Brigitte, though without the full-on gaze, a marginally more honest patience to his tone. "What do you mean by 'waylaid' there, Madame? None of that, private-" he snaps the last at his own man, who had been reaching for Peggy's behind with intentions he probably thought jocular though the barmaid had been moved to swerve to avoid. Cookson straightens, chastened, and steps back to guarding the area between the table and the outside door.

The sergeant settles. Murphy slips in, listening and gauging the room before making any interventions. "-all right, and who were you trading this cloth with? Natives? Some friends up in the hills, perhaps?" The slight soft hint of menace in his voice is back, too calm.

""Mary Ryan, we were to trade the sacks of wool and the cheese that are still on my horse for the cloth. We seem to have been away for days though I swear we only left this morning in our own minds."


-

"Had I anythin' t'do with any murders an' got away inta th' bush, then why would I come back and walk right inta yer arms, Sergeant? I'm not soft in th' head." He breaks off and stares at the table for a minute. He has a powerful desire for a drink, but figures he'd best keep his wits about him.

"Still, I can't explain how I've lost a week an' more of time any more than Lady D'Anjou can. 'Tis a mystery to us all, like disappearin' inta a fairy mound, y'know?" he says quietly without looking up.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:55, Thu 27 Feb 2020.

"I've found guilt makes a man unpredictable in 'is actions...it's not many of yer 'ardened criminal types nor even in the depths of war finds it easy to kill a child while in their right minds. Some kind of instinct sayin 'no, don't kill the little ones'. A man gone mad on the drink who's already 'ad at the parents over some piddling little argument, now, maybe he starts cutting and he doesn't understand to stop until there 'e is alone, starts to realise what 'e's done." The sergeant leans back, watching Jack watch the table.

"Conscience is a terrible thing. Makes a feller work against himself, say the convicts," he adds, tone soft but no mercy in it at all. "Come to me to sell us a bluff, you think, like a clever lad, but there's that conscience worming away in your brain, that Papist inclination to confession pushing in your chest with pressure - pressure of lying, pressure of sin. You want to tell someone. Stuck up there in those burning hills without a human voice or ear you might as well be an animal. Losing your mind from what you did and no soul to tell it to."

He leaves that theory where it is and picks up the knife, looking keenly at the blade. "Been digging, 'ave you? Spade would be easier, but I 'spect you were in an 'urry - what were you diggin for, out by the Ryan place? Looks like some flecks of old blood up by the hilt...was there blood about it, that thing you were digging up? Seems like some very fishy potatoes, my son."

"Al-ter-nate-ly, I could believe your claims of 'aving conveniently lost the week, and say you'd come unto the bosom of the law because you bleeding forgot you were a murderer. Don't know what Madame's stake in this is, save that the Governor's Office might grant that squatter land to her, it being cleared and all." Brigitte gets a look of dull suspicion before the officer puts the knife back down.

"We ought to go over and talk to Cleary's men," Murphy broke in, as though there was already a decision. "I've asked those working about the place, they all think it's no later than the third day of December. Some tinker who'd been sleepin off the drink had the right date, makes me think it might be somethin in th' water if not a witchcraft."

The sergeant gives Murphy an annoyed and perhaps slightly disgusted look at the last, but the convict hunter only stands and fans himself with his hat, waiting for a decision.

"Problem with that argument is that I have been with Jack the entire time and do you really think that we both took part in whatever happened up at that homestead ? As for the land why would I want it ? To far from here and I don't have the men to work it even if I had the inclination."

"As for the knife I saw Jack use it to inspect the sheep carcases and then place it in the dirt blade first while we had a better look."

"Ask my staff and those staying, it would seem we have all lost the same amount of time.............."

She takes another sip.


-

The sergeant takes his cup and knocks back the entire contents without a flinch, turning his attention briefly to Brigitte. "Can't 'ave it both ways, Madame: either you don't remember what you done the past few days, or far as you know you've only been with the boy for the morning. An' the Ryans had sunk water, don't play me like I don't know what a well's worth to sheep or a brewer in times like this."

"She promise you something for the 'elp, hm?" the sergeant asks Jack, refilling his tot and pushing rum a bit commandingly at his suspect. Murphy looks like he's going to step in and insist in a moment, but watches for his spot, not wanting to spark violence.

Jack feels a (perhaps unreasonable) surge of confidence. He's got nothing to hold against me, save I'm an Irishman like a lot of boyos hereabouts. They can hang me like anyone else, but they can't prove anything against me. He looks up and into his questioner's eyes.

"I'm naught but an Irish workin'man, Sergeant. I tend M'Lady's sheep an' go about me other duties. I ain't hurt nobody nor killed man, woman or child. Not my whole life long. An' you'll not get me t'say otherwise. I'll take me oath on't."

His eyes and voice are both steady, his palms flat on the table on either side of the untouched drink before him.

Jack's confident stare hits the redcoat sergeant's. He has enough time to consider the exact similarity in colour between that dirty blue and the shade of smoke against the stark summer sky; to consider burnings and cannonfire in daylight; to think of a raised sabre over frantic limbs and to know this man has killed, perhaps not only men.

Then, too late though instinct is giving him enough sharpness to see it all, he notes the dangerous flush in the little vessels of the man's face, the slight flare of nostrils and shift of balance that bodes action...then the sergeant has struck him open-handed across the face.

Jack's skin jolts with shock rather than pain, though somewhere beyond the charged interpersonal confines of what might become a fight he hears Murphy's voice, harsh with urgency: "Duggan, don't."

"You'll tell me what's true, you blackguard," the sergeant says, low and too level to be a snarl but only just.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:42, Wed 04 Mar 2020.

Jack's head rocks with the force of the soldier's slap. He tastes blood and knows his teeth have cut the inside of his cheek. He slowly turns his face back to look at Sergeant Wilkins. He swallows the blood in his mouth rather than spit on Brigitte's clean floor.

"Th' truth is what I tol' ya. I'm glad t'join any search f'r whoever did this foul deed. But it weren't me."

Brigitte stands and directs her comments to the sergeant. "Sergeant I would ask you and your men to leave my property immediately, if you return please do it with a senior officer of the magistrate as you seem to be incapable to conduct yourself in an orderly fashion."

"These discussions are at an end, for today at least."

She rises from her seat to show the sergeant out.


-

Murphy, who had started to breathe again when Jack didn't add assault on a King's officer to weigh against him in court, took in a lungful and held it a moment, stepping between Brigitte and both redcoats. Duggan had felt the jaws of Empire relent and drop the tiny morsel of his life at his show of obedience; the effect of the broken line of sight between landowner and soldiers had something of the same slackening, though the violence in this case was merely dispersed. The vast metaphorical beast of the system was sniffing around, seeking to crush bodies to pulp.

"He'll be away soon enough, ma'am, let's not bring up the judiciary-"

Murphy was interrupted by a short laugh as the sergeant got up, picking up and dragging the criminal collar across the wood of the table. "As you like it, Madame, I will take my suspect off your property, and Cookson 'ere can finish up questioning your staff proper-like to get it down in paperwork. Collar 'im, Private," the sergeant jerks his head at Duggan, pours himself another shot of rum and downs it like the first.

Cookson goes to do as he's bid. Murphy watches, his body still kept between Brigitte and the direct stare of the sergeant, his right hand resting very easy, very casually on that pistol. Brigitte remembers her maid Peggy is afraid of soldiers. Jack remembers Murphy has killed at least one man, too.

"Y'ought to let him go unchained, Wilkins, at least until we hear from th' neighbours here. Y'heard he's willing enough."

"Lady wants me to take my buisness elsewhere, Mister Murphy, I got to take it. In 'and, as it were. In an orderly fashion. An' I tell you what, my lad-" here he rounds on Jack again, not with the focus of an avatar of imperial domination this time, but just that of a man who is sweating, frustrated and angry: "You know where my little girls live? Up in Birkenhead with the wife's old lady. That's just a skip across the Irish sea to your peat bog of a country. I find you've lied to me and so help me when my two years' is up I will find yer mother and tell 'er what you looked like when they cut you from the gallows, an' fer what."

"No need for that," Murphy says, his voice soft and mostly tired. "Look, Mme. d'Anjou, will you not come across with us to show faith in your man here, an' to show the sergeant proof to his own eyes you're not conspirin wit' the others here? Gettin in a palaver about sending to Sydney is only more time we're giving killers to dig in or get away."

In reply to Charles Murphy (msg # 81):

Watching the sergeant Brigitte decides she does not like the man. Turning to Murphy she gives a simple answer; "I will."


-

"...you can leave 'is 'ands," Wilkins mutters to the private, gathering up the weapons and his hat and levelling an irritable stare at Murphy until the convict-catcher backs a step and nods to Brigitte that he'll follow her out.

The neck iron fits loose on Jack, its touch a little cooler than blood. There's time to catch up and drink his tot of rum should he wish it between the sergeant turning away and the other redcoat giving him a steady push to usher him out.

Despite the tavern walls being little more than wood, clay and plaster the heat outside hits like a blow. Those exiting become aware of their first indrawn breath out there, the taste of dust and sheep and dry trees pulled in with the sluggish air. The staff hang around, anxious. Murphy stays close to the prisoner, an apology with him but not spoken. Cookson ties the links of the collar to the rope on the officer's horse with a firm knot.

Jack's seen captured natives tied like this, both at the docks back home and last summer in Parramatta, though their hands were bound: this is more about the show and snub to Brigitte's assertion of her rights than containing him. As yet. Peggy looks fearful for him, or of the soldiers, likely both. Swarbrick watches frowning, fanning himself with his hat. Distantly the cicadas racket away unceasing in the bush.

"Took the goods off your 'orse, milady," Swarbrick tells Brigitte, coming close enough to do so. He does not dare go too near the sergeant.


[[pause for any thing/word you'd like to add or leave with the servants here, else I'll move along tomorrow night.]]

Jack suffers the collar to be fastened round his neck with no more outward sign than a gulp and a twitch of his shoulders. Inside though, the weight of the iron feels like the settling of guilt. ...but I  never...

As soon as Wilkens is at the door, he snatches up his tot of rum, raises the glass in a toast to the private, and drains it off.

Out in the baking heat, Jack gives Murphy a nod of thanks. He squares his hat on his head and walks with measured steps to Brass, who shies not at all as his rider swings aboard.

Aware that he's creating his own legend--what Irish man isn't?-- he leans down in his saddle to smile at Peggy. "Gi' us a token then, lass," he says with a grin, taking the scarf she's twisting about her hands. He'd kiss her, too, but the bastard sergeant gives the chain a yank that pulls him up short.

"So long, lads, I'll be back in a week's time!" He turns his eyes to the horizon as he tucks Peggy's scarf under the already-despised collar and waits to ride off.

Well this day had not gone as she had thought, well at least the heat was constant. She gave out a series of quick orders and got together a few things before she made her way to her horse. She mounts and continues to give off a series of edicts to her staff as she tries not to watch as Jack is secured.

She looked around her saddle, did she have everything ? Who knew and probably not...

Brigitte would stay close to the Murphy riding just behind his mount as they set off.



-

Hooves lift from the ground, the sun looming up towards noon as though seeking an absoloute apex from which to strike. The heat is a taste and a smell as much as a sensation, though sensation it is as well, crawling into clothes and sliding along skin with swathes of sweat.

"Jack!" Peggy calls, of a sudden galvanised to action as they're headed out of the yard. Brass stands square with a grunt: Jack feels the maid heave up against the saddle to reach him a moment, sees her quickly kiss her fingers...and then those same slim fingers trail over his lips as she sinks back, something in her eyes a moment there that's more than play. The scarf smells like her, kitchen embers, flour and a little lavender.

Todd catches her for steadying as she returns to earth, wedging his back between her and the private who thought to help; he nods to Duggan as Brass walks onward, obedient to the general motion and tension on the rope.

Brigitte casts a glance over her things and finds the wider sun hat hanging ready for her, and that her water's been refilled. Something's odd, though. Murphy notices Brigitte staying close by and makes sure he can keep her more or less in his peripheral vision should she want to talk to him, his stance easy in the saddle, one freckled hand drifting idly through the dust on his coat. The sergeant ignores her, staring straight as though he might outstare the horizon heat-shimmering in the sun.

They cross the sward beside the river, dry and almost crisp-barren after years of drought. The horses sweat, too hot to remember the morning's spooks or keep up much pace, though the riders do pick up speed at times, snapping the journey shorter between trotting hooves. Kangaroos watch them from the shade of trees, lying flat to wait out the late morning and noontide straight-down spearing of the sun.

Cleary's border fence appears and drops behind, and the stands of tall eucalyptus left to shelter cattle bless them with shade along the way, if never quite dense enough. A few years ago a dense knot of trees might hide too many spearmen and quiet women armed with bladed sticks and heavy stones, ash-dappled for raiding and shadow-coloured in the dusk. The intricate snarl of tiny wars up on the Hawkesbury had barely stretched their reach this far but there was tension. Those dark eyes that had known an eon's age of stone did not see cattle and farms as the settlers did.

It is in fact Cleary they first meet, down in the dapples of what was once a tributary to the creek. Now he was letting his horse suck up what it could from a damp trickle across shaded rock. Wary at the sight of uniform, he tipped his hat to the newcomers, addressing Brigitte first:

"G'day to you all and Madame d'Anjou, would you happen to have seen our 'natural' on your travels? The girl's run off again, with clothes or no we're not sure."

Sergeant Wilkins is a quiet roil of tension. The landowner can only go so long without acknowledging the situation, though he tries to do so lightly.

"Ah, Duggan, are you in more trouble than usual?"

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 87):

Brigitte asks Mr Murphy to accompany her to Sgt. Wilkins "Excuse me Sgt. Wilkins, but it appears a mistake has been made as we mounted our horses and you appear to have my fathers sabre and I yours ?" she holds the sword and scabbard up for the sergeant and anyone else taking an interest to see."


-

Distracted, the sergeant looks at the sword Brigitte's holding out and shows her with a wary movement of his hand on the hilt that his hasn't left his side. "Mine's right 'ere. That looks to be an English officer's sword right enough."

He shrugs, suspicion in his flushed face as to what she's playing at. "If it ain't your father's, I can't help you."
Murphy addresses Cleary, though keeping an eye on the situation. "I'm afraid we've not seen Miss Janey, sir," he answers, and looks to Wilkins to ask the question they're there for.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:03, Wed 11 Mar 2020.

Jack plods along on Brass, or trots when the sergeant decides to pick up the pace. He lets his mind wander over Peggy, though they chase back to his predicament often enough, seeking a way clear of it.


Jack looks Cleary straight in the eyes and stiffens his spine that had been wilting in the heat.

"'Tis none a my doin, Mr. Duggan, an' that I take me oath to afore God and afore you, th' most honest man I know. Wilkins here has no evidence t'lay 'gainst me, save that I'm an Irish man and he needs t'bring in somebody t'save his stripes."

Even more confused then she had thought possible Brigitte placed the sword back in the saddle and said no more until they came across Cleary. She rested somewhat in her saddle before replying that she to had seen no one.

Completely out of sorts she adjusts her hat to better shade her face from the sun.



-

The sergeant twitches his head a little but doesn't really glance back at Duggan, his voice taking on the same kind of growl of any veteran pitbull testing out which of the pack of curs he'd been thrown in to fight with would be first to flinch. He's outnumbered, but the confidence in the loose set of his shoulders is not to be trifled with.

"No evidence save we 'ave the surviving witness that would put you at the scene of the murders, ain't sure about the one that got 'er save 'e was your height and dark and didn't say a word in the attack neither, like maybe 'e thought she'd recognise the voice - you want me to count on my fingers 'ere, son? - that the only word we 'ave for the existence of another suspect so far is yours, and then you come 'ere to me with suspicious weapons on your person and an explanation of doing God-knows-what to dead sheep. Such as is apparently your normal run of buisness in France, since Madame finds it a reasonable excuse." He breathes in through his teeth, discomforted by the taste of his dried mouth but unwilling to waste the moisture in spitting.

Tom Cleary has become very still and very serious, attention on the sergeant. "It's murder, then?"

Sgt. Wilkins frowns. "It is, that Ryan the squatter and 'is two kids, little younger'n mine, poor mites. It's your man Gill might untangle it for us, since Duggan 'ere ain't so talkative with me, says he's had a lapse of memory."

"Gill's out looking for Janey," Cleary says, looking at Jack now, but only with level perplexity, seemingly still trying to absorb his neighbours' deaths. Brigitte's anxious movements bring him concern, increasingly aware of a world not at rights. "You're welcome up to the house to wait for him - Margaret's there if you'll go on ahead of me a way, for I have to check up the ridge there. For what it's worth I wouldn't believe Duggan could go so mad as to do anything the like of that. Break someone's jaw, perhaps, but not with the knives."

Murphy shifts in his saddle and asks before the sergeant cuts in or Cleary can turn his horse's head away: "A moment, Mister Cleary - what date would you call t'day?"

Cleary's brows twitch as he works an answer out a moment. "December third, a Friday and th' expedition surely back tomorrow," he replies, and looks from the hunter to the redcoat with concern at the latter's stiffened back. "Why, what of it?"

Brigitte said nothing more as the exchange between the sergeant, Cleary and Murphy went on. She looked to the sergeant when Cleary said the date in reply to Murphy's prompting but she did not add anything to it, just watching the man and his expression.


-

"Aha! That's what I say, too, an' th' Countess," Jack cannot keep the triumph out of his voice, "But Murphy an' th' sergeant say 'tis th' fourteenth an' a Tuesday," he faces Wilkins, his tone turning plaintive, "'Tis not a lapse o' mem'ry we have, Sergeant, 'tis a lapse o' time!

"There's somethin' wrong here in th' natural order o' things."

He stops talking, a bewildered look settling on his features.

Cleary looks as confused as Brigitte feels. "What are you all talkin about?" he asks, then as though he hadn't really heard the first time: "What?"

"'Tis the fourteenth, and I can account for every day 'twixt then and now," Murphy answers, looking out through the scatter of trees to the baked and shuddering landscape beyond rather than have Cleary search his face for answers.

Cleary looks to the others, taking in Jack, then Brigitte and the sergeant, who looks like something with its hackles up, no more able to comprehend the situation than the rest. "If that's true...I can't understand that at all. How can we all be livin the same eleven days over again, and no memory of it?"

The breeze clatters the dry leaves around them. Cicadas screech from nearby and Brigitte's horse tests whether her rider will let her step nearer the dribble of moisture across the rock, thirst tugging stronger than obedience.

"I don't like t' think on it," Murphy responds, tone soft and honest. "If it's sometin that's happened to time from here to somewhere on Mme. d'Anjou's land, and we've come into it...would it repeat again, and would we know if it did? Could we ever get out?" He stares out at the land, seeing no boundary and no visible cage. A kangaroo hops past on its own errand, unheeding under the rise of the hills and the vast blue sky.

The hunter of men looks back to Cleary. "I'd rather believe 'twas sometin in th' water," he finishes.

Cleary crosses himself, seemingly unconscious of the gesture. He looks at his horse, then the visitors again. "There's a ticket man, Thomas Daniels - a strange fellow, I let him sleep in the feed store for his nerves and that he has dreams sometimes that keep the others awake - he keeps a journal of notes by the day; he'd have dates on those. If you'd go along to the house, there's more we might get from them."

"Yeah, and I ought to talk to 'im, too," the sergeant says, finally finding he can get his mind's teeth into some part of the discussion. He glances back across at his prisoner. "Might turn you out of irons when we get there."

Murphy shoots a flash of a glance across that's a warning not to bolt in such circumstances, since the sabre isn't the sergeant's only form of armament. He looks with more leisure to Brigitte to see if she has anything to add or is set to move on following Cleary's suggestion.

Jack blinks and his face clears a bit. He shrugs the collar up around his jawline and lets it slide back onto his shoulders. It would be good to have it off for a bit.

At Murphy's unspoken warning, he nods his agreement.

Brigitte pulls her horse to the side before adding "Yes let us move to Cleary 's place for a rest from riding and the heat and we can see if anyone else may be able to add to our mystery."

She removed her canteen and took a drink before wetting the scarf around her neck and the following the others. She thought over Murphy's words on what was going on unable to grasp how or what would have caused the time to delay.


-

Since Cleary has a few more minutes of duty and search to attend to, it's Murphy that leads the way down to the freeholding. Cleary calls after them that they should "Break that news easy to Miss Maggie," though that's easier said than done with three known neighbours dead and only confusion in place of leads. Trapped or not, the sky stretches above them deep and punishingly cloudless blue from arc to arc.

A handful of drought-lean and unhappy cows amble out of the barn's shade as they ride up on the place to stand stupefied in the sun a few moments, tails flicking at flies. The horses take deep breaths for the moment of relief in each inhalation. Margaret Cleary looks out before coming into the yard to greet them, bobbing respectfully to Brigitte and the sergeant and looking concerned to see Duggan bound with unyielding metal.

Murphy goes and talks to her whilst the rest rub down and give their horses some relief from saddle and thirst, helped by a ticket-of-leave convict who'd drifted across from some duty among the far trees to attend to them. When the others catch up with Murphy in the kitchen Miss Maggie is busy setting out water and a plate piled with quarter-cut potato scones for the visitors, though the earthenware crockery rattles against the table with her trembling and she seems to be barely a hair's breadth from crying. Murphy looks helplessly to Brigitte in the hopes that another woman might know how to comfort the lass better than he.

As yet, the rope attached to Jack's collar remains around the sergeant's fist. "Sit," he gets told, the soldier distracted and a little riled by the situation, perhaps thinking Margaret Cleary was a daughter. Perhaps thinking of his own daughters, and perhaps of a stabbed corpse. "'ands in front of you, nice and careful-like."

Jack makes sure Brass has water and a measure of oats before he slaps the big bay's withers in a comrades fashion and goes into the cottage.

He sits when he's told and places his hands side by side and flat on the table.

Wilkins puts one foot on the bench beside Duggan and pulls the collar about so that it can be unfastened from the back. Almost as soon as the hard and uncomfortably heated metal is taken from him, however, the sergeant pushes his hand over Jack's scalp, forcing him forward and dislodging his hat to the table.

He grips Jack's hair, not hard but just enough to demonstrate the strength in that one hand and his current state of control. Jack has no doubt his forehead would rapidly meet the scoured wood if he tried any clever remarks at this point. "I don't necessarily believe yer, but I don't necessarily disbelieve the 'ole of it. Unnerstand, 'owerver, that if I come to think you're a threat or you try to hie off into the bush, I will chain you, give you the 'iding of your life and be sure your name is Dog until I've dragged you back to Sydney."

He lets go and moves a cup of water closer to Duggan before moving fully away, watching the situation between Maggie and the rest.

Brigitte follows the others into the cottage once she has seen to her horse. Once inside she helps Margaret set out the various food items and cutlery having given her a quick hug when she had entered. Once everything was set Brigitte took up a cup of water and drained its contents.

She remains standing next to Margaret and watches as the collar is removed from Jack before the Sergeant yet again tries to prove his position.


-

Out of things to busy herself with and intimidated by the redcoat in the house, Maggie tries to fish out a handkerchief to bite before the urge to visibly grieve overwhelms her. "I-I'm sorry, I...it was me lost Janey this mornin and now...oh, she's out there, and someone who tried to kill all of the Ryans is out there, too, and poor Missus Ryan, I can't think how hard it is on her, and...you found them?"

The young woman looks to Brigitte, haunted. Cleary's approach can be heard outside.

In reply to Margaret Cleary (msg # 102):

"It is all right and nothing can be done about it now." Brigitte tries to give a reassuring smile though she was certain it did not have the desired effect. "I am sure that Janey will turn up when she is hungry. The Ryans well that is beyond comprehension and evil.. I, I've tried not to dwell on it and we were smart enough not to enter the house.... so there is that saving grace for our own minds, but let us hope that the people who did this are caught soon."



-

In reply to Sgt. Wilkins (msg # 100):

Jack slowly raises his head until he is sitting up again.

"Unnerstood, Sergeant," he says evenly, tamping down the anger he feels at being so treated, and in the Cleary's house, "An' thank ye, Sergeant."

With the hated weight of the collar lifted from his neck and shoulders, he feels as though he could fly. He picks up the cup and gratefully drains it, the coolness and moisture slaking his rough throat.

He pats his mouth dry with Peggy's scarf, then ties it loosely around his neck. A trifle of her scent still lingers in its folds.

"I hope she will, ma'am, only there's so many things are poisonous in this country if she decides to try a thing for fruit, and snakes in the trees, and if she gets upset and takes off what clothes she had...she'd be terribly obvious." Maggie nips a folded wedge of her handkerchief, eyes bright. "-and if you think it was bushrangers killed the Ryans, and they caught her..."

"There's none I've heard tell of coming up here," Murphy assures her on that point.

"You say 'people', Madame d'Anjou," Sgt. Wilkins cuts in, helping himself to water and setting the jug near Jack since he's out, albeit not without a narrow look of suspicion at the thanks. "Was it your impression there was more than one miscreant, then?"

"Do you think 'twas the Aboriginals?" Miss Cleary asks, her gaze drifing to the window and the broad landscape, any part of which might hide a mob of silent natives stealing nearer, patient crawl by patient crawl. "We've thought there might be a band out in the ranges for a while now..." she trails off, still trembling a little.

In reply to Margaret Cleary (msg # 105):

"I have no idea who many people that were involved Sergeant, as I said we did not enter the house and I have never had experience of such events to know if it was one or twenty. As for bush rangers I have not heard anything."

"Why do you think a band was up in the ranges Maggie ?"



-

"My uncle and the hands have seen tracks sometimes - James Gill said he caught a smell of smoke a few mornings ago," Maggie answers.

"Whatever that would mean," the sergeant mutters, then sees he's drawn the young woman's attention. "I 'ope it's not the local indigenous inabitants...whatever Macquarie says, you kill one of them black fellas, you better hurry up and kill 'is whole tribe, else you got a war on your hands. Nasty buisness, is a punitive expedition, I tell you."

"Or you could try talking to them if indeed they are even there ?" She drank some more water and took something to eat.


-

The sergeant actually seems amused at that, seating himself along from Duggan and helping himself to a potato scone quarter. He nudges the plate along at Murphy, since he's eyeing it. "Well, given I'd probably 'ave to shoot one of them wild blacks to get 'im to stay still long enough for me to catch up with 'em, I don't know he'd be all that conversational. Not that I could follow, given that my command of the drowning turkey sounds they call a language extends only so far as finding water, dropping weapons and some things I can't repeat in company," he nods at Miss Cleary, as though excusing himself from instructing Brigitte in aboriginal profanities. Maggie just looks fragile and uncertain.

"I could maybe get us translation," Murphy offers, "-but I never heard the bush people would raid and leave headless sheep, nor a homestead standin' unburnt if they'd killed the folk in it. B'sides, from what we heard Duggan said before...whatever happened here an' at th' tavern, the killer was a fellow from the Calder expedition."

"Who 'ave also, I should point out, vanished," Wilkins says. "You certain there 'asn't been a gang slipped past you, Murphy? Fellow countrymen, perhaps?" He leans back to have Jack in view, seeing how he takes that.

"As sure as I am that we're havin this conversation on a Tuesday," Murphy responds levelly, keeping the redcoat's gaze until the latter glances away as though the stare had been nothing but casual.

Jack takes a piece of scone, eating it slowly, almost nibbling between sips of water, keeping his eyes on food and drink. Relieved of the collar--how can a man come to hate a thing so quick?--he doesn't want to say or do anything that will put it back around his neck.

Besides, he's still so confused. And as frightened of the misplaced time as he is of those phantom kids.

That sense of prophecy reversed returns with the tension, memory and fear wound together and boiling closer to the surface, though nothing takes shape enough to grasp. Brigitte remembers the neat bars of her stitching in Jack's leg. Time moves past them, invisible and intangible whether right or deeply wrong.

The farls are a good distraction of wholesome taste: buttery, well-textured and still warm, expertly-applied salt balancing out the strong taste of potatoes struggling with drought. Murphy approaches to claim one as Cleary comes in; Maggie sees her uncle and sweeps up to fall against him like one storm-hit tree tangled in another's branches.

Cleary hugs her and pats her back. "It's all right, dove, y'don't have to try'n act woman o' the house all the time," he assures her as Maggie dissolves into tears against his shoulder. He holds her as he looks about, a man of enough presence to be there for his niece and present in discussion at once. "No sign of Daniels, then?"

"No, but perhaps you could 'elp me mark off the members of the Calder expedition, just for 'avin the knowledge of who it is 'as got lost," the sergeant breaks in before Murphy can put any question less bluntly. "There'd be Lieutenant Mollingsbroke and one of 'is troopers, Lewry, I think, then Calder 'imself, a native-?"

"Budyirikaranga, 'speaks a lot of languages' or sometin like that," Cleary supplies.

"-and two apprentices from the survey corps, is that it?"

"There was a convict helping with the gear, but one of those apprentices stayed here - took a fever and couldn't go up. He's out with the searchers now. Henry Cotton."

Maggie manages to peel herself off her uncle, muttering "...he was sick here the whole time, as I remember, but...I don't know if I remember, if it's later...I don't understand..."

"Cadlow was the name of the one that went. D'you remember the name of the convict, Maggie?"

"Llewellyn Bowen...he'd been a priest, or whatever Protestants have in that wise," Maggie murmurs. Her uncle nods.

"He was, I remember that. Priest and a wrecker, only he wasn't the one that held the light."

"Could any o' them pass for Duggan, given a woozy head and a bad light?" Murphy asks, putting the pertinent question.

Cleary considers Jack's general outline. "T'be sure Cotton or Bowen could, Cadlow at the outside," he answers. Murphy and Wilkins exchange a look.

"Might we 'ave look over Cotton's possessions, then?" The sergeant angles his head to half-observe Jack. "See if that lad's been doing any strange gardening of late?"

"He took most of them with him, in case they should have to stop out the night," Miss Cleary puts in, palming away the remnants of tears. "I...could see if he left anything to wash..."

"You do that, Miss." The sergeant leans forward on the table. "Mister Cleary, I think we ought to consult the notes of your note-taker right presently, seeing 'as 'e might be out until nightfall and I'd rather get on with making some sense from this situation."

Cleary hesitates. "You'll forgive me if I watch the proceedins, sir - he's a criminal and a little touched, that lad, likely one on account o' the other, but I'd have him know I was responsable for anything moved or taken." The sergeant nods understanding.

"I have him set up in the feed store," Cleary says, and if not delayed by act or question will take them to the storehouse and the ladder up to the small, quiet space where salt licks and the horses' precious grain is stashed.


[[All right, assuming no-one had things to add there...Jack, you're with the sergeant because he won't let you out of his sight. Brigitte, do you want to head along to search Thomas' room, or investigate the wash with Maggie?]]

Brigitte stand as they other depart and follows Maggie to check the wash and then she will ask where Thomas room is. She will go and have a look for herself to see if anything is a miss.


-

Maggie leads Brigitte back into the scullery and over to the basket of things to be washed, still intermittently brushing away tears and taking swipes at her nose with her handkerchief. The sun catches brightly in the sheets she moves off the top of the pile as she sets it on the counter; a gentle flare of reflected light that halos her as she digs about.

"Oh, here, these are his...aah!" Maggie startles and drops the shirt she was about to pass to Brigitte on the floor like it's a snake.

The shirt lies there on the hardpack. Hidden at first by the folds, it's now very clear the front is stained a rusty brownish colour. Dirt, not blood, though by Maggie's wide eyes and hard breathing it takes her a few moments to realise that.

"I don't remember him putting that in," she says thickly. "What on earth was he about?"

Brigitte picks up the shirt and takes a closer look at the dirt to see if it is covering anything else. She will then give the room a look over before adding, "Right let us have a look at his quarters."

She leaves off the consoling side of things to get done what they need to. At some point once they were done she would try and give some comfort to the woman.


-

Maggie watches Brigitte give the shirt and then the room a hard stare, about as spooked as Brigitte's horse was earlier. The shirt has dirt scuffs down the sleeves and along the sides, but only the cuffs are stained like the front, as though in contact with dirt and water at once.

It's a bizarre pattern of staining, like Henry Cotton had been wriggling about in the dirt on his belly, or scooping up some damper earth to devour it or pour it over his face. The room around shows no trace of loose earth.

"He...was in the guest room," Maggie offers, and leads out back and into a side door as a shortcut. The landscape shudders with heat around them, causing distant trees to lose their outline and dapple into an uncertainty of sky and solidity like the periphery of a dream. Inside, the parched floorboards creak softly as Maggie moves over to the pertinent door and pushes it open. "Be careful, for it was not so long ago he was sick," she warns, then stands frowning once she's stepped in, since Time is no longer a certainty.

The room is dim, the window pane stretched muslin rather than glass. A single bed sits against the wall under it, the coverlet and oversheet pooled at the bottom as they'd been left. To the left behind Maggie is a simple dresser with a built-in washstand, a sprig of herbs and a shrivelled half of an onion attesting to recent sickness. Another half-onion is wedged between the top of the wooden bedstead and the wall, and it looks like Henry's nightclothes are shoved beneath the pillow. Opposite the bed is a small and slightly uneven chest of drawers.

With her hands on her hips Brigitte surveys the room looking for anything obvious or not right. If nothing jumps out at her she will begin to search, starting with the small chest of draws. She removes each of the drawers contents and the looks under the drawer itself to see if anything is stuck to it. Then under the main chest before moving onto the bed, looking under the mattress and the bed itself for anything pushed under the bed.

She will leave the wash stand to last, checking it over as she had the other pieces of furniture. Lastly Brigitte will stand back and look the room over for any other small hiding places she might have missed.


Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 67 using 1d100.  Spot hidden = 50%.


-

Maggie watches Brigitte turn their guest's room upside-down in a state of frightened bewilderment, neither trying to help nor stop the Frenchwoman. Brigitte finds that the top drawer contains a bit of months-old correspondance from Henry's sister, the opened seal brittle, some blank folded paper clearly set aside for a reply, and underwear rolled into sausages in the batchelor manner of a student who's learnt to pack efficiently and that a heap of smallclothes does not lend itself to giving a visual warning of the necessity of an impending laundry day. The second drawer has spare trousers and socks, which she also dumps on the bed, and the third nothing more than a lining of gum leaves to discourage moths.

Maggie fiddles with her dampened handkerchief, deeply uncomfortable. She watches closely, however, and once stifles a shriek and siezes the drawer just discarded by Brigitte to trap something hand-sized and sideways-moving on the bed. Maggie looks a bit foxed as to what to do next, but carefully takes things off the bed whilst Brigitte confirms Henry was not in the habit of nailing things to other people's furniture and makes a nervous bundle of undersheet and drawers whilst Brigitte pokes about the mattress.

"I'll...just be takin this outside a moment, with the spider," she lets Brigitte know. "Please don't break anything of the lad's - as far as I saw it all he's done is be laid out sick..." she trails off, since that doesn't explain the shirt, or how it got to the laundry. She takes the spider out.

Though Brigitte is halfway sure something smaller scuttled away under the bed, it's quite possibly just dust. The local wood gives off a pleasant smell while she's under there, better than the old onion and faded soap-broth-sweat scent of the room in general, but the most she sees is what might be a partial heel-print on the boards, as though the youth had sat on his bed and brought the washbowl over to wash dirt from bare feet. The washstand doesn't tell her anything new, though the posy of herbs is dry and brittle like it's been there for weeks.

Maggie returns without the large spider, clutching the sheet and drawer to her chest. She looks at the mess with some anxiety. "If you've not found a knife or some thing the like of that, I think I ought to set this straight again..."

In reply to Margaret Cleary (msg # 118):

"Of course, of course. I was going to all along." She gave Maggie a smile as he begins to put everything back as she had found it. It was a bit of an anti-climax, but it was what it was so when they were finished she followed Maggie out of the guest room.

As a by she asked ""Can you think of anywhere else he spent a lot of time ?"


-

"He was only here because he was sick, else he'd have gone up with the expedition...I only remember him being up and in his right mind yesterday, before that he was just lying there, all burning up and weak as a kitten, sometimes hardly knowing I was there," Maggie says, leading out the back door again with the intention to head over to the grain barn and catch up with the rest. "Yet I don't know what I remember anymore, if we're eleven days ahead of what we ought to be, I really-"

She stops: following her gaze Brigitte sees the same convict who helped with the horses (his name is Scorsey, she thinks, a Matt or Martin) havering in the middle distance, unsure whether to approach his master's niece and Brigitte. Having unintentionally got their attention anyway, the well-tanned fellow pulls off his hat and fiddles with it. "Ay, um..." he trails off on getting close enough to notice Maggie's been crying. "...oh, are you all right, Miss Cleary?"

"I'm...I got some bad news. Do you need someting? There's farls kept warm in the stove for all of you working but you'll have to fetch out the dry meat if you want it."

"I, ah, found a hole, Miss Cleary," Scorsey blurts.

Maggie doesn't quite manage not to stare at him. "A...hole?"

Scorsey turns his hat round and round in his hands, squinting against the light. "I don't know how to explain it right, but it's...it's not right, that hole. It's peculiar. I ought to show your uncle."

Maggie glances at Brigitte, then back to Scorsey. "He's busy at the moment. Does it...does it look like someone dug that hole, lying on their front as it might be?"

"It does, Miss Cleary," the ticket-of-leave man says, relieved.

Maggie looks to Brigitte to see if the older woman thinks it worth going out to take a look.


[[let me know if so and I'll get you a sneaky new sub-thread to do it on.]]
This message was last edited by the player at 01:06, Mon 23 Mar 2020.

"Ah... yes let us have a look at this hole you have found." Brigitte was unsure where this next line of enquiry would take them, but she followed along all the same.

[[GM edit: Brigitte moved to Thread 1a]]
-
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:16, Wed 25 Mar 2020.

Meanwhile, the search of Thomas Daniels' room had so far proved fruitless. The space was relatively airy, if crowded: a long loft with boxes and sacks of salt, bran and oats up on the shelves lining it, tight barrels of grain and apples under the unglazed, screen-tacked window at the far end. Daniels' pallet was adapted from a shelf, some stumps and planks at the near left corner of the room, near the fixed ladder that served as a steep stair. The shelf just above and behind it served as a bedside table, with a half-used taper stuck to a dish for a light. A washstand of local wood with an earthenware jug sat across from it and a pail from which the stances for a handle had long broken was visible under the unmade bed. A particularly large, fat fly threw itself with intermittent insistentcy at the window screen.

Cleary had warned them that Daniels should perhaps have been given over to the wardens of Bedlam rather than the tender mercies of the law, though he spoke well of the fellow's capability to work if given the leeway he seemed in need of. The official story was that having become mutually obsessed with a string of strange murders, Daniels had decided to re-enact one of said murders on his friend whilst intoxicated on an unknown substance. Given Daniels' detailed journalling and insistence that he was the innocent victim of a sinister yet vague great conspiracy among the Derbyshire gentry, Cleary suspected the only substance involved had been the poor blood of a lunatic ancestor making itself felt.

The space under the pillow had turned up nothing, nor had Daniels' box of meagre possessions (the ticketer convict seemed to spend his personal allowance mostly on implements of writing and provisions for making notes with little thought for materials for the upkeep of his boots and clothing). Cleary had started to look behind the biggest sacks on the loft's floor and Wilkins was trying to turn up the straw matress when an object previously caught up in the sheets rattled to the floor.

The sergeant caught it and held it up to what light there was. "Now what is that?"

It was a collection of small sticks tied together with obsessive little knots into a form that seemed to carry intense meaning in their precision, though it did not resemble anything. For some reason it made Jack's skin crawl. A little knotted end of grass twine swung with recent movement, back and forth and back and forth, the tip stained with something greasy or viscous of a dark uncertain hue.

If not for the sergeant, Jack would back to the door and flee down the stairs. Instead, he gritted hi teeth and looked away from the somehow insidious tangle of sticks and twine.

It just seems wrong, like so much else today.

The spike of fear brings memories with it, knowledge or nightmares trailing that sudden stab of terror like venom from a snakebite.

"'Scuse me there," Murphy breaks into Jack's thoughts, returning up the ladder with whatever he'd been fetching from his horse. He gently steers Jack aside.

"You make anything of this, Murphy?" the sergeant asks, handing off the object. "Some native gewgaw, is it?"

"Not that I've seen...looks more the sorta thing an English witch might make. What, are you findin' wax poppets up here, too?" Murphy looks from the object to the sergeant, curious.

"He's not so bad as that," Cleary says with some warning. "Though maybe Daniels has taken all his books with him, they're not back here with the apples to be sure," he adds, bemused.


[[if you'd like to search anywhere in particular or roll a general Spot Hidden, let me know.]]

"What's it all mean, though, Murphy? Is it witchcraft then? This is far beyond my knowing."

"I wouldn't be an expert on that, would I?" Murphy says, a little disturbed by the attention on him and whatever thoughts were scratching about his head. He tosses the strange object back on the bed.

---

Content that at least one of those in charge was aware of the existence of the peculiar hole on the property, Scorsey had excused himself to get his due of food whilst the ladies caught up with Cleary.

The storage barn smells comfortingly of hay, grain, starch, and heat-dry wood. At the bottom of the fixed ladder serving for a stair Brigitte is lit by the brightness from the open door to the outside and looking up into a dimmer space where the men seem to be talking about witchcraft. Maggie gestures that Brigitte might head up to join them first, should she wish.

Brigitte climbs up the ladder and tries top catch the last of the conversation as she get up onto the level the men are. She moves forward to take a look at what they are talking about giving a nod to any who acknowledge her presence.

"We found a hole that someone had been digging in a rather disturbing way and it looks as if it was Henry. Perhaps under the delusion of illness, but there is something not right about it."


[[GM edit: name error]]
-
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:49, Fri 27 Mar 2020.

"-and 'ow does one dig an 'ole in a disturbing way, madame?" Wilkins asks, peering into the washjug as though he hopes that might tell him something comprehensable.

Murphy silently offers Brigitte the weird and strangely horrible collection of carefully-tied little sticks she seemed to be looking for, seating himself on the bed and looking carefully around from that angle.

"Where was it he was digging?" Cleary asks. "Surely he's not had the boards up in the guest room, has he? -and is Maggie all right?"

"I'm...here, uncle," Maggie says, coming up to join them.



[[Please see room description above. If you'd like to search anywhere in particular or roll a general Spot Hidden, let me know.]]

Brigitte takes the tied sticks and looks it carefully over in her hand. Then she takes in the small room before them looking for anything the others might have missed.

She then begins to search the bed/pallet and then the bedside table.



Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 73 using 1d100.  Spot Hidden = 50%.

I have yet to roll a success with this dice roller.

Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 89 using 1d100.  History 54% for trinket.


-

The bundle of twigs is exactly what it appears to be, though there's something disturbing about the precision of the knots, and the staining at the loose end of the string.

Having been seated on the bed with his thoughts elsewhere, Murphy is a little startled when Brigitte decides to lean right over him in that narrow space to examine the pillow, not having anywhere to escape to. "Ah, ma'am-" he has the grace to do it gently, but he plonks her on his knee like a cat. "Nothin' under there, but look-"

He nods upwards, a small movement but easy to follow with their heads so close.  Charles Murphy might not be handsome, but he's certainly astute.


[[00:36, Today: Secret Roll: Charles Murphy rolled 36 using 1d100.  Murphs, notice things. (60) if you were wondering.]]

Brigitte stood up rather to quickly and nearly hit her head as she stepped away with an apology to Mr. Murphy. She had been to transfixed on her search to realise how inappropriately close she had got.

If Mr. Murphy does not move to the books Brigitte would, taking them down carefully and looking them over.



-
This message was last edited by the player at 09:46, Sun 29 Mar 2020.

Jack's eyes dart here and there in the small space, careful to meet no one else's gaze, almost in a parody of searching. And yet--


Jack Duggan rolled 36 for Spot Hidden 50%.

A scrap of a smile catches at the side of Murphy's mouth with a slightly wistful cast, though he clearly speaks in jest: "Any time, ma'am." Having the room to do so, he shunts aside to let her get a foot on the bed and lean over the sacks on the shelf above to fetch the books down.

Jack, meanwhile, spots that the loop of string heading under the makeshift lamp does not actually belong to it but rather to something underneath: drawing it out shows a little tin disc. There's no saint on there, however, just the legend 'bakewell watch' and '23' impressed with a nail or knife. A mockup of a badge for a sheriff's constable, shinier at the base like it's often been worn suspended by the string, close to its owner's heart. Wilkins had come over with the intent to take the object, but on seeing what it is just gives a mixed frown of perplexed pity and turns his attention to Brigitte and the books now laid on the bed.

One is what might be expected of an obsessive nature, a precious journal volume visibly stuffed to bursting with notes on notes. A brief flick though the latter part shows sketches of stick-assemblages, parts that look like they were scrawled almost without light, a thick, crawling, desperate mass of words. The last entry ('Must catch him') is for the 12th of December, but more distracting than the date is the sketch made on the inside of the back cover to give room for details: it shows a series of concentric circles, off-centre, like a halo around a blot of darkness from which spring seven flames, or tongues, or snakes or handless limbs, reaching in a radiant pattern as though to embrace.

Daniels has written a quote below reading "...so let the flesh be open as mind and hand to the Task, for we are already known to Them." The last word is circled and annotated in a more normal hand 'angels?' cf. t.d. pgs - 1 of Them talking back.

The other volume, the one whose brownish cover is marked by spots of what appears to be blood, has a label pasted to the front. It reads: