Getting Settled In America (Candice Morgan's story)

Candice seeing the tape and the place being covered by the police, decides just to be sure to go outside the cemetery and look from the exterior fence. At least by doing that she can get a closer look at the scene and confirm once and for all if there was any magical event that occurred here. If not, it was a worthy investigation nonetheless.

Candice leaves the graveyard and goes around the exterior fence to the location and looks through it at the scene.

As Candice walks around the exterior of the fence, she can see that the police apparently haven't been here- there's no caution tape or signs of their evidence collection team. Perhaps they could be right behind her?

Yet as she moves around the exterior, her eye catches on a small copse of trees. Long shadows hug the trees, the moonlight seems to elongate them into bony fingers stretching out to her.
Lowering her eyes, she notes loose cods of dark, rich dirt clumped by her feet. It leads towards the trees.

John picked up the piece of rope and looked off in different directions to see if he could find any tiremarks or anything of that nature.

Spoiler:

Candice follows the trail of dirt, taking out her penlight and following the marks, investigating the scene for any disturbances. (Making an investigation roll, to investigate the marks and follow them to their source)

2010-07-13 00:14:27 Candice Morgan rolled 4 dice to "Investigation" 7,2,6,4 (0 successes)

As John looks around, he can not detect anything supernatural. Looking down, however, he does detect several loose clumps of rich, earth. It looked like unearthed soil, but the grass at his feet was rich and undisturbed. Cast off from the coffins, perhaps?

As Candice follows the trail of dirt towards the tree, her pen light highlights an open, outstretched hand. Moving the flashlight down reveals an open coffin set awkwardly against a tree. Darker shapes and shadows in the trees summon of terrible mental fears of childhood.

Was that one of the missing coffins, dead body inside? Were other ancient corpses left disrespectfully behind this one? Could the culprits have disturbed and left them here for a reason?

The trees cause a flash of memory, of a childhood memory. Of her parents one night taking her out into the forest near her family estate one evening. Of a circle clearing with hanging branches and a circle of stones where a blue fire burned lightly and the moonlight Shawn down from the sky. The shadows of the nearby trees seemed to reach toward the center and their shadows seemed to ebb and flow in the moonlight and dance around the flickering light of the blue flame.

Her mind flashes back to the present and she blinks to get her bearings. She continues on to the coffin and examines the exterior. She then carefully opens the lid, but taking a good position to balance opening it in order to avoid causing a possible occupant to fall out of the coffin. She opens it enough to flash her light inside and take a look what is inside the coffin.

John walks back into the cemetery and follows the path along the fence till he can see where the coffins were moved over it. He then would look around for any trails indicating where they came from.

The coffin was once a fine coffin, of some dark wood. It gleams under the moonlight, at times spotty where the dirt clings to it. Even now, the earth seemed resistant to let go of its occupant. An alabaster arm extends out of the coffin, sprawled lifelessly. Within, a young girl lies wearing a white dress that would have been flouncy in life, but seems flat and dull in death. Curls that would shine in the light lie flat against the white silk of the cotton interior

Spoiler:

As John walks along the fence, he notices an indentation in the ground beneath a section of fence. Three yards away, a copse of trees stand, shrouded in shadows. Looking along the ground, the trail of loose sod leads towards the trees in small clumps.
As he follows the trail of dirt towards the tree, the filtering, half hearted light reveals an open, outstretched hand. As he comes to grips with this, he notices a woman standing beside the coffin with her back to him. She is shining her light around the interior of the coffin.

John slowly walked up as he removed the fake Chicago PD badge from his pocket and had it in his hand. He also opened his jacket just in case he'd have to get his gun.

He came up behind the woman and spoke.

"Who are you? Slowly show me your hands."

2010-07-13 12:53:11 Candice rolled 6 dice to "Resolve+Compsure" 5,2,10,7,7,5,5 (1 successes)

Candice is of course surprised and unsettled about an arm coming out of the coffin and about a about the little girl in the coffin, but is able to keep her composure although somewhat shaken by the motion of the corpse.

Candice rolled 5 dice to "Perception Check" 2,2,1,1,2 (0 successes)

Candice doesn't notice anything unusual to start with, somewhat distracted by the sight of a body in a coffin and concentrating on keeping its contents from spilling out.. A more through investigative look might bring more information but unfortunately a voice calls to the darkness making her jump away and let go of the coffin, letting the contents of the thing spill out onto the ground (If they do so).

She turns and looks to the man, seeing the badge and thinks ("Oh hell, this isn't good.")

She says to him, "Now look and what you made me do. Don't sneak up on me like that, I'm already jumpy as it is. As for myself, I'm Jenny Erngard, I'm doing an investigation of the grave robberies for a net article I'm writing for the Leyland Guardian. I required more more facts in order to write my article so I was checking out the graveyard. I found this coffin sitting against the tree and I found it suspicious, thus I was investigating until you came along."

Candice's voice definitely doesn't sound American, she's not from these parts as far as you can tell from her voice. Her English is far too trim and light.

(OOC: The Leyland Guardian is a REAL British net newspaper BTW)

[In case of a Lie Detection, here is the roll (Spending WP as its important that she doesn't give away her real identity. If you search me, you won't find any ID's on me, I left my purse at home and my Drivers license in the car.)]

2010-07-13 13:20:29 Candice rolled 7 dice to "Cover Story Roll" 4,4,1,3,10,1,2,5 (1 successes)

(Dammit 1 success, I just can't get lucky can't I?)

"'Don't sneak up on me like that'", he mocked. "Where do you do you get off talking to a cop like that?"

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Something didn't seem right. John looked the girl up and down. "What the hell paper is that?" he said to the Brit condescendingly. "I'm going to need to see some credentials ma'am. You know, ID, press pass. Something like that."

"Without that, you don't belong here," he said to her. "So why don't you tell me why you're really here before I make a big deal out of you snooping around a crime scene. You know that makes you a damned suspect right?" John did his best to make himself look bigger and more menacing to the girl.

Spoiler:

John stands at 5'5" and a 143 pounds. He has short black hair and a perpetual five o'clock shadow. He typically wears jeans and a t-shirt as they're easy to carry in a duffel bag or messenger bag. He's got green eyes and a square jawline. He's athletically built with his shoulders slimming down to his hips. The left side of his face is covered with burn scars.

2010-07-14 00:15:35 Candice Morgan rolled 3 dice to "Wits+Empathy Lie Detect" 1,3,10,7 (1 successes)
2010-07-13 23:41:42 Candice Morgan rolled 6 dice to "Resist Intimidation" 3,5,2,8,4,7 (1 successes)

Candice is somewhat unnerved by the man, but not more than other times in her life. She's somewhat resistant to mundane forms of intimidation when far dangerous creatures are out in the world. Still despite the pickle she's got herself into, she decides that now that she's fabricated a story she needs to stick with it. Going back on her statement will only make him more suspicious.

"Well... umm officer. the thing is I do freelance work and occasionally post stories on the Leyland Guardian website. Because they are a news organization based on the web they accept story submissions from users. I'm not really an official journalist, although I hope to be in the future once I've cracked a good story and got some experience in the business. I wasn't involved in any of these events. In fact I just learned about it today on television and thought it might be an engaging story to look into. There wasn't any police tape blocking my way so I was merely looking around until I saw this suspicious coffin against the tree and went to investigate. Anyway since it appears that I'm not allowed here, I think I'll just be on my way out of here, sorry for troubling you officer."

"Where is this website based out of?" He asked her taking notice in the girl's accent.

"Why Leyland, England of course." She says with a smile on her face

"It is a town south of the city of Preston in the county of Lancashire. Leyland was quite well known in the past for its production of busses and trucks, but much like Detroit, the business went bust in the 1980's. I am from there if you can tell by my accent. I've only recently come to the City of Detroit, getting all settled in and adjusted as I am going to take some courses at Detroit University in the fall. I'll of course be doing a good deal of varied courses and electives during my first year, but I hope to major in Journalism while I am there."

"Lady," he said to her, "I don't need a damned history lesson or your gods-be-damned life story. I asked you simply where the paper was based because I never heard of the blasted thing," John huffed. "Now why the hell does a paper all the way in England give a shit about what happens outside of Detroit? That makes about as much sense as two monkeys humping a doorknob."

"Really kid," he said, "why are you here? And don't give me another term paper of an answer."

John was tired. He didn't want some kid sniffing around something where she could get hurt. This stuff killed people. It wasn't a game or like that terrible show with the two teenybobber heartthrobs that poured salt all over the place and played with Holy Water. This was real life and real life was mean and evil. This kid was going to get herself killed.

"On the contrary good sir, the paper doesn't just cover local events in Leyland. True, it might not hold too much consideration compared to local events, but nonetheless if I can get to the bottom of the events here I should have a remarkable story to present. It might only be a blurb on some web page, but it will gardener popularity for my journalistic works nonetheless."

Wondering if this man might be inducted into the vigil, she decides to use a code phrase in order to leave out an olive branch. If he doesn't know it, he's probably just another cop.

"What other reason would I have to be here? Fishing for Potters? Imagine the irony if that were true." She chuckles.

John raised an eyebrow at her statement. Fishing for Potters.

Interesting, he thought. Where the hell did she learn that term?

"Well," he said, "that would be ironic, but I doubt that was the case. It's dangerous out here kid, I wouldn't want you to have to hit any grounders."

If she caught that term, then she was on the Vigil. If she was on the Vigil, she was probably a danger to herself or others.

[his interest in the term perks her to play along. Grounders sounds something like an analogy for Zombies or undead. Might be good to throw out a few more terms and see of he bites. ]

"I can handle myself. And dealing with "Grounders" is the least of my worries after the things I've seen in my days. When graves are being robbed in ways unexplained, its definitely a dark day for Detroit."

Yeah, she's on the Vigil, he thought to himself.

"I wouldn't think keeping watch around here would be something a kid like you would be doing. Anyway, it's probably some kids who listen to His Infernal Majesty and read one too many Gothic horror novels or role playing games."

"I may be young, comparatively speaking but I know my way around. Besides I'm here to get the facts on this situation and see if the events here are something real or just a bunch of goth kids looking for some graveyard nookie. Its not my job to act as the next grave-warden. That's your job I presume."

"Sweetheart," he said in a patronising tone, "don't tell me in one breath that you've seen some shit in your days then tell me how young you are in the next. That makes you sound dumber than Anna Nicole's corpse on a roofie. Your only job is to go to school and hit the books. I know you want adventure, but this is dangerous shit. See that," he points to the hand sticking out of the ground, "that could be you soon. Do yourself a favour kid," he paused looking at her.

"Go back to England."

Candice thinks clearly this man won't take her seriously and if he's letting her go she might as well take the invitation before the other officers arrive and make things more complicated.

"Very well, then I'll leave this to you then as clearly you think this is over my head. Have a good evening officer."

With that she heads out of the cemetery but paying attention as she's going.as to make sure she does not bump into any other patrols. She is somewhat suspicious of the man though considering his demeanor didn't seem much like a cop, but as she's hasn't met many, and none from this country she chocks it up to inexperience.

Candice is forced to step off of the path once to avoid the pair of police officers heading around the perimeter of the fence. She'd guess that that the other man had about five minutes before he rendezvoused with these two officers.

Either way, she had learned that the corpses had stayed by the cemetery. Why was that?

John, however, was left alone for his own investigations...

"It is above your head kid," John said to himself while shaking his head as she walked away.

"Oh kid," he shouted to her as he walked away, "work on your cover stories next time. You can tell the paper that!"

She'll be pissed, he thought, but this way she'll probably live a little bit longer. Plus, if she is on the Vigil, then she's not very good at it. She was too easily deterred. She must not be a hunter.

He squatted down and looked at the corpse to see if anything looked out of place, beyond a corpse being removed from a grave.

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