Casual Conference with Counselor Perry

[Morgan Bellanar]

Morgan bolted across the street, justifibly not trusting the drivers to respect the crosswalk as someone barely missed her. The Beast was pretty sure they had actually sped up. None the less, she had finally reached Perry's address. She hoped their...discussion went well. She had been mentally steeling herself the entire day, trying a calming technique she'd read in a book recently. The Steepscrambler had no fear of the Fairest. She was more worried that she might have a emotional break down like she did when first speaking with Queen Katrin.

Hence, the calming technique she'd tried. Plus some roof hopping to make the trip here instead of a cab or walking. It took her some time, but eventually she found the place with the buzzers for asking to be let into the building. It had always confused her, these buzzers. She could never understand why everyone didn't react to the noise, just the right person. Shrugging, she looked over the buzzers until she found Perry's.

She pressed the button, hearing a buzzing sound, "Um, h-hello? Perry? I-its Morgan. Are you there?" She didn't understand that Perry needed to answer her before he could hear her talking. The Beast still had some hurdles with technology.

[Perry diCarto]

Thankfully, Perry picked up shortly after Morgan started speaking, so the Shadowsoul got the sense of what was what. "Hi, Morgan! C'mon up! I'm in 304."

BZZZZZZT.

The door unlocked, allowing Morgan into the beautiful apartment building.

[Morgan Bellanar]

The steepscrambler nodded her head in confirmation. The fact that Perry wouldn't see it didn't occur to her, "Um, o-okay, Be there." She entered through the now unlocked door. To the Beast, the building was most impressive. Just the hallways and even the stairs were a major step up in quality from the building her apartment was in. It was all better designed and cleaner. She was suddenly glad she had decided to wear some of her nicer clothes and to forgo her padded jacket. Quickly Morgan scampered up the stairs and found Perry's room. Knocking on the door she called into the room, "Um, h-hello? Per--erk, Mr. DiCarto? Um, heh, it's Morgan. Can I come in?"

Best to be respectful until told otherwise, right?

[Perry diCarto]

Sorry for the delay, Origins! Stupid finals are getting in the way...

Perry opened the door a moment or two later. He looked sharp, and was still apparently suited up from work. He had made one concession to comfort, removing the tie and undoing the top button of his dress shirt, but all in all the Shadowsoul appeared professional in his best Armani black. "Hey, Morgan. Come on in," he said with a little smile and a motion of his hand into the room. "Just Perry is fine." His eyes were kind as he regarded her, twinkling with just a little amusement. Why was she so nervous? There was nothing to fear here.

Perry diCarto's apartment. Hardwood floors, two bedrooms, a large, open concept kitchen with all the fixings, and a large balcony on which a small hot tub had been installed at some cost. He was on the third storey of three, and while the view wasn't outstanding, at the very least, it wasn't an eyesore. It looked out onto some trees and was at the back of the building. It was a balcony selected for its privacy.

[Morgan Bellanar]

Morgan was impressed with Perry's attire, and felt a little underdressed herself. On the plus side, she didn't have any duct tape on her current set of clothes nor were they too worn. On the downside: jeans, dirty sneakers, her worn padded jacket, and a t-shirt were much less...professional then what the Fairest was wearing. She wondered if she should have dressed better for the meeting. It started to make her self concious before something occured to her. Um, wait, I've seen Perry before, yes? Was he ever not well dressed?Um...nope. She just shrugged off that concern.

She smiled back at his friendliness, bowing her head, "Um, o-okay Perry, heh-heh, thank you for meeting with me. I really appreciate your help with this." She entered into his apartment and got a look at it. Her eyesbrow raised up as she got a look at the impressive dwelling. She slowly looked around, the look on her face made it obvious that she was impressed by the layout.

"Wow...um, heh-heh, nice place you have here, heh." she turned back to Perry and finished with a chuckle, trying to cover her near-gawking. At least she had not started babbling. That was a good sign.

[Perry diCarto]

Sorry about the continued delay! I'm finally done

Perry smiled pleasantly at the Beast girl and chuckled at her greeting. "No problem, lady - I'm glad you like it! Please, have a seat," he said, motioning to the couch. "Can I get you a drink? I've got everything you could imagine. Water, Coke, juice, gin, gin and juice, scotch...?" He looked over to see if any of those struck her fancy, but there was a fairly obvious bar-worth of alcohol set up on a side table near the glass door that led to the hot tub.

He started to pour his own vodka and Seven, as he liked it - one ice cube. "So, how would you like to tell me the story of these people you want found? Describe them, remind me of the timeline and all that, and I'll be happy to look into them for you if that is what you'd like done."

[Morgan Bellanar]

Morgan plopped herself down on the couch. It was a nice couch, pretty comfy too. She looked up when Perry asked if she wanted anything to drink. She considered it for a second, thinking about whether or not she should or shouldn't. After a moment she decided that water would be best. She wanted to try to be calm so booze would be bad. "Uh, water. Please, thank you Perry, heh."

At Perry's question she took in a deep breath in order to calm herself. It was an unpleasant topic but she did need to talk about it. "Um, descriptions are a little...hard. My memory isn't the best. For the ones I am looking for I can only remember that one woman was blonde, the other wasn't and was-is named Betty...I think, heh." she shook her head, there wasn't to go on. Her memory wasn't the best for before. A shiver of fright went up her spine at the memory that was quite vivid. There was a quiver in her voice as she spoke, "B-but I do remember...what happened when we were taken. T-that I do remember better. I...spoke with Queen Katrin about it. she, uh, t-thinks that there could be clues from that. Like, um, missing people or crime reports or...um, paper stuff?"

[Perry diCarto]

Perry drew her a glass of water from the Brita filter, handing it to her with a pleasant smile before refilling the container and sticking it back in the fridge. He made his way around with his drink and pulled out a legal pad and his laptop, figuring it would be handy to be able to take notes. As she explained, he took notes of the name and the blonde descriptor. The Shadowsoul looked intrigued at the fact that Katrin was on the case as well. He looked focused. "All right, great. Why don't we start there, then? Tell me everything you can remember and we'll go from there. You're definitely right in that I can access missing persons databases and whatnot - and the more information I have, the better."

Naturally the first telling of the evidence would not be everything, the recesses of a witness's memory often only being triggered when explored in more detail through light direct examination to help them prepare their evidence. Not that this was a case, but he intended to ask questions to expand on key points that would help him.

[Morgan Bellanar]

Morgan accepted the glass of water with a nod of thanks. She hoped it would help. When she'd met with Katrin focusing upon not spilling the lemonade did seem to help her at first before she had the breakdown. Morgan really hoped that only the former would recur and not the latter. As she mused this her eyes followed Perry as he collected a notepad and one of those flat computers. Morgan had to surpress the urge to glare at the machine. Technology often give her difficulties still, and computers were her greatest bane. Stupid computers. Should be more simple. But Perry probably knows how to use it. Perry must be really organized. Good good. His demeanor was also reassuring, helping put the Beast's concerns more at ease.

Morgan took a sip from her glass. Maybe telling the tale wouldn't be so bad a second time? Probably not, but if she didn't talk Perry couldn't help. Clearing her throat, she got started "W-well, there were five of us and, um, we were, I think on a gymnastics team or taking gymnastics in college. I d-on't quite remember which college but I think we were at college in maybe, perhaps 2003 or 2004, probably?" That hadn't been too bad. Her voice hadn't been quivering. Of course, that wasn't the bad part was it? Taking a deep breath, the steepscrambler continued, "I...I remember something from the news. About f-fires and people v-vanishing. M-my friends and I were...were driving somewhere in a van? Some big car on a dark road and a tire popped...um, b-blew out?" The quiver was now in her voice as a shiver ran down her spine. The Beast knew what was next, knew it was in the past, but it was still her most vivid and fully intact memory from before. And it was horrific and terrifying. "Th-that was when they took us. I...I didn't know what they were then. I-I know now they're c-called privateers. T-they tied us with thorns and t-took f-four of us t-through the Hedge to...to someplace." Morgan was shivering at the memory now, tears threatening as she looked into her glass. She could still remember what the thorny ropes felt like as they dug into her skin. And worse things then that had happened. Calm. Shake too much, spill water, ruin nice couch. Bad bad. But they killed her. Calm. I don't remember my friend they killed. CALM! Spill drink bad bad, calm. Pass it, better. She had to get more out, if she could pass it maybe it would be better, "T-they burned the van-car-thing. Fire. And her...Th-the fifth g-girl there. Burned her. Fire, they...s-sorry. I...sorry." The Beast was taking in deep breaths after she stopped talking. She rubbed her eyes with one sleeve, but she had kept from breaking into tears.

It was here clearest and most solid memory from before Arcadia. All others made a fragmented and disjoined collage, she'd been unable to draw strong connections with them. Often did she wish it wasn't. The only consolation Morgan had at all in the memory was that she was sure the young woman had been dead before being burned. It was not much of a consolation.

[Perry diCarto]

Perry was impressed by the level of detail. Not remembering things from the past were completely reasonable, with the trauma that being dragged kicking and screaming through the Hedge by privateers could bring. Had there even been fetches put into place for these girls? Or did that not happen when one was taken by a privateer?

So many questions, unanswered.

"It's all good. Take a minute. The first thing I need to know is an easy one - is Morgan Bellanar your real name? And if it isn't, do you remember your real name?" That would be helpful to determine if fetches had been put into place. An unhunted fetch had no reason not to be somewhere obvious like Facebook or be findable through Pipl or whatever. If there was no fetch, then a gymnastics team disappearing would've probably been national news....

Meanwhile, his fingers were working, writing down notes on what she had said before picking up the laptop to begin doing what he did. He had enough to figure some things out. There was a college sports team. They had an approximate year range (which Perry added two to either end of for the purposes of the search). There was a van. It was burned out. Inside it had been one woman. That was a distinct and obvious sign that would certainly have been reported; smoking, burning vans usually got found, especially if it had been left on or near the road. He began the search broadly, looking for burned vans found with a female dead inside it between 2001-2006 anywhere in the United States of America. Then he looked for any obituaries or news stories on that same subject involving a member or associated person with a college gymnastics team. Finally, he covered off the issue of missing gymnastics teams. He ran his searches through both the solved and unsolved crime databases, as well as Google, to see what he could find.

  3 sux occult to know if fetches get put into place when taken by privateers, 7 sux over 3 rolls to extended search for information

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2013-04-30 10:11:32		[03] Perry diCarto rolls 7 to Searching the Gymnastics Team (Int+Comp+2eq) (10 Again)		10, 3, 5, 9, 1, 3, 10, 2, 6		3 successes
2013-04-30 10:11:32		[02] Perry diCarto rolls 7 to Searching the Gymnastics Team (Int+Comp+2eq) (10 Again)		4, 8, 8, 6, 8, 4, 4		3 successes
2013-04-30 10:11:32		[01] Perry diCarto rolls 7 to Searching the Gymnastics Team (Int+Comp+2eq) (10 Again)		4, 7, 2, 4, 4, 6, 8		1 success
2013-04-30 10:11:04		Perry diCarto rolls 6 to Occult: Do Fetches Get Left When Taken by Privateers? (Int+Occult) (10 Again)		6, 10, 5, 4, 2, 10, 3, 9		3 successes

Origins, which ST was going to help you with this? We will need you to update one of the new storytellers so this can be interactive .

Selena Swift