A Place to Call Commons

**Evelynn East** · May 7th, 2016 08:18 PM

Light! There was light pouring in from somewhere above. Evelynn's head was still poked into the ladder-space, looking up, and she could see the sudden flood of it when Daniel opened the door. She could see the silhouette of his form disappearing through it, too. A grin lit up her face at the discovery, and she almost scampered up the ladder after him, too eager to see what had been found, when L'aire spoke, mentioning Rick and Terri. "Oh! Well, maybe I'll have to ask her about the brooch, then!"

There was a pause, where she found herself trying to decide whether to follow Daniel or stay with L'aire. The prospect of discovery was oh-so-tempting, but it felt rude to leave her behind... She gave an apologetic grin and a dip of her head. "I'm gonna, um, go see what Daniel found!"

And with that, up the ladder she went.

May 8th, 2016 07:15 PM

What Daniel could surmise from the small space he came from, that it was beneath some shelving inside of a very small closet. The only light was from beneath the door ahead and whatever light came up from the basement. All he could see and smell were cleaning industrial cleaning products and the strong smell of extra clean linens. If he looked closely, behind another small shelf on the floor was the hinges for a wall safe.

L’aire’s shoulders squenched with a soft grin. “It’s okay, go ahead. I’m going to go see if Malcolm found out anything from the owner.”

Will need a wits+comp roll from Evelynn if she goes up farther than Daniel.

Arthur

The old man heartily laughed. “I’m glad you do son. This place is more than quaint and charming. When my wife was younger and more spry, she’d like to play hide and seek with the little ones. But those passages haven’t been used in at least… phhhh 20 years or more.”

A few moments after Arthur finished his sentence, L’aire ascended from the basement. Her eyes were full of intrigue and she looked around the lobby where they were all standing. The Dancer’s brows raised in a thrilled manner. Of course the Onyx loved their passages and she wasn’t any different.

**Daniel Leto** · May 11th, 2016 07:27 PM

Daniel found the closet door and opened it a crack to peek out. Upon hearing or seeing his fellow Winters talking with the host, he smiled and called out in a gentle excitement.

“You have an awesome place here Arthur.”

And then he was back in the closet, ready to do some more exploring. First he let the fey magic of his kith bleed into his vision. The world seemed to shift slightly. Objects blurred around the edges and a soothing buzz of white noise played on the brink of his hearing. Then he bent down to take a closer look at the safe.

Yet another safe. Locked cabinets and briefcases. Emboldened by finding the secret passage, he decide to see if he could crack it.

OOC

**Evelynn East** · May 12th, 2016 10:04 PM

Evelynn scampered up the ladder and paused when she reached the light of the now-opened closet door. She paused, her interest drawn momentarily towards the safe he was cracking. She'd been planning on offering him a quiet greeting, but safe-cracking was a difficult thing to do and she didn't want to distract him. Though, she did file away in her memory the fact that he seemed to be capable of it. Maybe he was a good candidate for testing her lockboxes...

There wasn't enough space, really, to help him look into the safe, and she hadn't expected the ladder to continue upward. But continue it did, so she flashed him a smile from the murky light of the shaft and continued up, bright eyes wide as she kept an eye out from something interesting or surprising while she climbed.

Evelynn sees ALL THE THINGS!

**Malcolm Green** · May 13th, 2016 04:08 AM

"Twenty years! That long? You know... You realise that if. If. We buy this place, we'll want an accounting of what happened here in years gone by. You know, so the memories aren't lost. I really want to hear about these celebrities, yeah? Oh... Here's ah Sasha. You'll want to talk to her."

Green rumbled. Only reluctantly did he turn his feet back to the stairwell leading to the Basement.

May 14th, 2016 06:01 PM

Arthur

Suddenly caught by surprise, Arthur snapped, or as fast as an older man could, his neck toward the closet by the back door and grinned. "Oh, I see you found the escape route there son."

Turning back to Green, "Oh, of course. We've kept good records. Well, I should say, my wife did. She was such a great record keeper."

He pondered a few moments. "Some notables that came through were Rosemary Clooney. Hm, no probably not someone you'd remember. Oh, Jerry Lee Lewis, not to be confused with the goofy Jerry Lewis later turned into one of those telethoner guys. Oh, Anthony Perkins and Kirk Douglas. John Astin, man he was a hoot along with Don Knotts." Arthur chuckled and patted his thigh slightly. "That's just a few of the ones off the top of my head."

Grinning as he mentioned actors, singers, but not yet dancers, L'aire didn't want to interrupt too terribly much. "I love that sort of nostalgia. This place is really full of little fun secrets, isn't it Malcolm?"

Daniel

After successfully cracking the safe, it slowly creaked open as if rust was holding the hinges tightly shut, and revealed its contents. An art deco sapphire necklace, a pearl gripped colt 45 with a name sanded off the barrel, war bonds, gold coins, engraved fob watch, small black book, cipher book, art deco diamond engagement ring.
And that was just the safe...

Evelynn

The Wizened could see clearly now that there was a latch to the roof all the way up to the top. Just below that, was another outline of a door which was easily determined that was the second floor. Any of the latches or triggers would be easy for Eveylnn to find.

**Daniel Leto** · May 14th, 2016 08:59 PM

Jewelry, bonds, a fancy watch, gold coins and.. a gun. Daniel paused for a second. Up till now it had all been it had all been fun and games. But he knew enough to recognize items belonging to someone who intended to flee. Not only that, but some who might seek to escape with deadly intent. A bunch of money and valuable, and a gun. And it was the firearm that concerned the Gravewight. Constitutional rights aside, why was Arthur keeping a deadly weapon in a safe with age old war bonds? Did he even know about this or was this something set up before he and his siblings set up shop. The necklace and ring certainly looked old enough. With some more gravitas, he picked up the two books and quickly started to flip through their pages for information.

Evelynn had gone up a level or two, and Green and L'aire were talking with Norman. Hopefully there would be clues in the text to say whether they were in danger or not. The Darkling had thought this would be good spot for a new commons. However, if it was the home of Communist spies, that might change.

**Evelynn East** · May 15th, 2016 03:15 AM

Evelynn was a young woman who appreciated organization and order. If they were going to be exploring this strange secret passage, she'd want to check each exit in a sensible manner. Perhaps in order, from below to above? With that in mind, she climbed up to the next door - the one on the second floor - and worked open the latch. While she was pretty sure she wouldn't find anyone on the other side, she still opened the door slowly and cautiously.

"H-hello?"

**Malcolm Green** · May 15th, 2016 03:36 AM

"Heh. Yeah."

Green could only agree. The place certainly had character and a depth of history that made it a fitting place for a Freehold's Heart.

Given the enthusiasm spilling from his fellow Onyx, the mountain could only conjecture the site was all but sold.

May 15th, 2016 07:55 PM

Arthur

“Of course, not everything was sunshine and roses ‘round here. We had some troublesome people pass through but we weren’t about to turn anyone away. Not like I was about to ask any of them what their business was in town or anything.” His head gave an affirming slow nod.

“My favorite people who passed through here was Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. I’m sure you kids may not be familiar with them.” Arthur chirped a small chuckle. “Heh, Desi even played the second night he was here with a local band. I remember the lounge full of cigar smoke and the sound of his voice. Lucille clapped along and caroused with all the patrons. My wife and I danced to the music that night.” His eyes may have been looking at L’aire and Green, but the old man was definitely not there with them, caught in a beautiful memory. He snapped himself out of it. “They sent us an autographed portrait that’s in the files. We have a lot of those, just never got around to hanging them up. You all are welcome to them, to do what you’d like with them.”

His eyes widened. “Uh, that is, if you end up taking the place.” Snickering as he got ahead of himself.

L’aire was captivated by the story, wonderful, touching and the man seemed to shine as he spoke. “I personally wouldn’t sell them. But, I’d have them preserved. Maybe we’d hang them up?” Looking at Green with dazzling violets at the thought of all the wonders that happened.

Evelynn

Almost as if expected, there was absolutely no answer. Not even an echo, since the Wizened was staring at the back of something large and wooden. It opened forward after the latch was released into an ultra tight space. It smelled of linens and clean laundry. It was the upstairs linen closet and the ‘door’ was the shelf at the back. There was nothing else too interesting inside the confined space and the interior, if the shelf had been closed, gave no appearance as if there was a secret door behind it.

Daniel

Inside the ‘little black book’ were names of people, addresses and old phone numbers that still had MU-7897, 8-5976, or 6-5959 as their actual numbers. They spanned from one end of the continent to the other in major cities. Some of the addresses started with ‘turn off Route 66’. There was also a small list at the back. Keep clear of Bugsy’s district and Lucky Luciano’s part of town.

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2016-05-11 19:22:51	[04] Daniel Leto rolls 4 to Dex+Larceny (10 Again)	1, 9, 2, 6	1 success
2016-05-11 19:22:51	[03] Daniel Leto rolls 4 to Dex+Larceny (10 Again)	10, 5, 4, 9, 9	3 successes
2016-05-11 19:22:51	[02] Daniel Leto rolls 4 to Dex+Larceny (10 Again)	3, 9, 9, 5	2 successes
2016-05-11 19:22:51	[01] Daniel Leto rolls 4 to Dex+Larceny (10 Again)	6, 10, 8, 7, 7	2 successes

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2016-05-12 21:55:06		Evelynn rolls 5 to explore! (Wits+Comp) (10 Again)		10, 10, 10, 9, 8, 9, 10, 5, 9		8 successes

A Place to Call Commons

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