(Sweet Dreams) I Had a Bad Dream Once...

[Thomas Land]

Thomas does, indeed, show Ingrid the messages. And anyone else who would like a look. A frown on his face.

The Secret Garden... That blog again. It's troubling to the Mole-Man, finding evidence that Mark had visited that page.

He lets Ingrid do the talking, he's no help on that front anyway. And while she does so, he opens up a web-browser, checking Mark's history, trying to discover just what he was looking at on The Secret Garden.

Let me know if I should roll anything to continue searching Mark's computer!

[Seraphina]

Guilt, sounded like a of guilt on the sister part.

“So a personality change.” Says the Nix, interesting.

And no food. Lots of coffee, but nothing else.

A student, personality change, and was never superstitious. The dream catchers were intriguing, and for some reason, reminded of the kid from the boarding house. When it was a boarding house.

But she couldn’t really bring it up with Catherine here. Talking about going into someones dreams and defeating a crazy book paper monster would be a bad thing. Was this similar? Could he have stumbled upon whatever that kid had?

“This is going to seem weird, but did he ever mention having weird or bad dreams? Or that he's started getting them?” she asks looking to Catherine. “The dream catchers, if memory serves me right, they are supposed to help catch bad dreams and nightmares.” But she could be wrong.

She then listens to Ingrid, who thankfully was a whole hell of a lot better at this stuff then her. But then again, she was a PI…it was kind of her thing.

“If the weapon is still here, it would help to know what we’d be looking for. And I don’t want to sound insensitive,” looking to Catherine with an apologetic look, “but there doesn’t appear to be an obvious sign of death.” Unless Ingrid was meaning something wasn’t mundane. Something that Catherine wouldn’t understand and couldn’t see. If he wasn’t a social butterfly, and suddenly had the attention of an attractive girl, he could have lowered his guard. Inviting in danger and his murderer.

Her Contracts weren’t going to be much help here.

So she walks over to Thomas, to see what he was finding.

[Thomas Land]

"Hm-hmmmmmm," Thomas hums instead of answering Catherine. He's deep in the throes of research now, trying to figure out Mark's obsession with this particular blog.

The Mole-Man hunches over the computer, tapping away at the keys, seemingly oblivious to the world.

  1 success

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2017-08-27 10:41:39		Thomas Land rolls 3 to Wits2 + Computer1 (10 Again)		1, 9, 4		1 success

[Ingrid]

Bad dreams?

Ingrid's eyes flash briefly. Then her attention is turning back to Catherine.

"Um. What do you mean... Things went sideways? Did you two have a falling out or something?" Her soft voice belied her desire to question the woman further. Oh she wanted to. She also knew how much they were pushing already. So she schooled herself to silence and asked this one last question.

  

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2017-08-28 03:32:41		Ingrid to memorise the evidence rolls 5 to Intelligence + Composure (10 Again)		10, 3, 7, 10, 9, 3, 9		4 successes

While she did she memorised the contact details she had found.

[Seraphina]

Went…sideways? A weird statement to say the least.

Turning her head to look at Catherine, “Sideways?” hopefully she would elaborate on it.
So he didn’t have much experience with girls, which would mean he could have been too trusting.

“Did he mention this one? Had he met her before?” she asks. Cause if his first time meeting her was here at his apartment, perhaps she murdered him. How she did it was a whole new problem.

Not getting any sleep could have been for a whole lot of innocent reasons. School, a new girl in his life, those type of things. But it could also be from bad dreams. It was hard to say if this was connected to the other guy, and it probably wasn’t, but you never know.

Seemed Thomas was intent on whatever he was doing with the computer. So Sera looks around the computer. Sometimes people wrote things down like website address, names, passwords, you know, the stuff they wanted to remember. Maybe there was something, maybe there wasn’t.

  1 success

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2017-08-28 11:54:11		Seraphina rolls 3 to Looking around(Wits+Inv) (10 Again)		7, 8, 4		1 success

[Ingrid]

"I see," Ingrid replied quietly. "That must have been very hard for you." A little bit of empathy. The fact that Catherine was here and clearly agitated, meant that the changes observed in Mark's habits and personality must have been jarring indeed.

The Darkling took a breath.

"I can't make promises, but I will do what I can." This was spoken directly to the woman. She deserved some answers - not necessarily the full truth - to calm her and give her closure. Mark had crossed into her strange half world, either by his own hand or by being duped and drawn in. It had cost him his life. Somewhere, someone, needed to make amends for that.

Another breath.

"Now I'd like to start tracking down some of these leads. And... Someone needs to call the authorities." She spoke to no one in particular. It was the double bind they were all in, after all. There was a body and they were the first group to come upon it. It was that they could all slip out and hope no one else called it in; that would give them time and an awful secret to bind them all. But she didn't want to be the one to say it.

So she played her part; that of the P.I. hired by concerned parties. Technically, it was true. Kind of.

[Seraphina]

Still a lot of unknowns going on.

And the papers were not any help. Unless she could figure out what he was drawing, and she highly doubted that.

Turning to look at Ingrid she nods, “I was thinking the occult shop would be a great place to start. Maybe someone there remembers seeing him come in, or maybe they remember if he ever went in with a girl. Or anyone at all, cause someone had to spark his interest in this.” Maybe. Hard to tell. “Though I’m curious if we could contact this girl with his computer. If she wasn’t the one who murdered him, maybe she stopped by, saw something and ran. Or if she was the one who hurt him, maybe we can get a dialog going with her and draw her out. Might work, might not, but I think it’d be worth trying.” Her thoughts on the matter. But she wasn’t much help here and would probably be more useful at the occult store or something. Batting her eyes and trying to get information.

As far as calling the cops, she wasn’t going to do it. They’d probably remember her voice and she’d rather not have to hangout a bunch of cops answering questions. And making up a story as to why she was there. That could get awkward.

[Thomas Land]

Thomas frowns at the computer. The blog is dangerously specific on some matters, but just plain wrong on many others. Still, the list of subscribers, with their university email addresses could prove useful. It won't be hard to track down those users from Sacramento State. He works there, after all. Yes, quite useful. For the matter at hand, and in general. He makes a mental note to check it out later, shutting the laptop.

Wait. Did someone say occult shop? Color the Mole-Man intrigued. "Why, yes," he replies to Sera, "That seems as good a place as any to start."

And calling the authorities? Not Thomas's thing. He looks to Ingrid, and then to Catherine, not willing to press the issue. Already wondering how he might make himself scarce if the police are called.

Ready to move on when others are!