M. Toombs @ 7:58PM
[Intelligence 3 + Investigation 2: Researching Leads, +1 Diff for time crunch]
Roll: 5 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
M. Toombs @ 7:59PM
[Intelligence 3 + Investigation 2: Additional Research]
Roll: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )
M. Toombs @ 8:00PM
[Intelligence 3 + Computers 1: Internet!]
Roll: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
M. Toombs @ 8:00PM
[Wits 4 + Occult 4: Interpreting that Addt'l Research]
Roll: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
M. Toombs @ 8:01PM
[Stamina 3]
Roll: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 7) ( success x 1 )
vampires
As Molly puts her mind to the problem of finding a Nosferatu (and a city applauds, with condescending benevolence, her sticktoitiveness, her optimism), it does occur to her that while she does not know all of Jack's haunts, she is familiar with his haunts in the guise of Harald. He might be found at the Riverside Cemetery. He had mentioned to her before a bookshop called Black's which carries rare occult books and has a deal with the city's warehouse proprietors at first crack should the items in any storage unit be suddenly put up for sale. He might be found at the donut shop he brought her to on more than one occasion, and whose delicious coffee he brought her too, friends as he is with the owner. It occurs to her too that she might try to contact some of her vampiric pals or even that a ghost might be able to find a Nosferatu where human beings and other vampires fail.
It's a trick, finding Jack. The reflection was pretending to be him (or it was him, truly), as if Jack himself were caught on the otherside now, so finding the Nosferatu might well prove to be even harder than it would under normal circumstances.
Going over her notes and the occult books she has managed to collect, one thing becomes remarkably evident to Molly, and that thing is: Her resources are limited. She needs a better sort of library, because it's the same information over and over, again and again, but what is this? A scrap, a hint, a ritual, something to summon a familiar from another circle, something which might do the summoner's bidding if only a deal was struck. Another scrap, another hint at a ritual, or a rite, something local involving a crossroads outside of town, a certain time of night, a specter which can be impugned to grant desires.
Molly is certain that she can very creditably try either of these courses of action and see whether or not they're true whether or not they're real.
But there's nothing that looks specifically like it would convert to summoning up the reflection.
The stress and the truncated sleep makes her more tired than usual toward the end of her shift when that finally comes, but she's Molly Toombs, so she manages and her body does what she tells it to.
Molly
Finding a Nosferatu that seemingly didn't want to be found was no easy task. Molly was a clever woman, an occultist by passion so strong that she couldn't just call it a hobby any longer, but her day job wasn't that of a detective or private investigator. She was a trauma nurse. She could diagnose injuries and a plethora of illnesses, and she could provide life-saving first aid in many different medical emergencies as well. What she lacked distinctly, though, was background in tracking people down, in particular those with tricks to keep themselves hidden and unnoticed for as long as they were willing to be patient. That could even be as long as it took for the last breath to rasp its way from her lungs, be that prematurely or of old age (the latter seemed less and less likely as weeks and months passed by anymore).
But a valiant effort Molly did put forth, and the day following her uncomfortable and binding encounter she set down to make her plan of attack for the rest of the week.
First she would try to track Jacky down at the haunts she'd frequented with him before. She'd visited and gone out with him more times than she bothered to keep track of, to plenty of locales, but a few stood out when she strained her memory. These locations were jotted down on a list and stuck to her fridge with a flower magnet:
- Black's Bookshop
- Riverside Cemetery
- Doughnut/Coffee Shop
She wouldn't have the time to check them out today. She'd need to be into work in the mid-afternoon and intended the day to be one of research, of planning and plotting and drafting. She'd paused to refill coffee and pull something together for breakfast, and during this time the energy drink bottle that she'd abandoned on her kitchen counter last night was stared at. Stared down. Analyzed. Challenged. It was a puzzle with a contract, there were rules that she could not-would not break. <i>If information about the encounter is forced from you, drink from this bottle.</i> It wasn't outright said that the contents were poisonous, but Molly could just assume so. The contemplating continued while she fried sausages in a pan and made toast to go along with them. The staring kept up while waiting for the food to finish, and a decision was made while sipping her coffee and tapping her fingertip on the lid -- a lid that she unscrewed so that she could dump the contents down the sink. The bottle was then thoroughly rinsed, washed with dish soap, and then by compulsion (because <i>something</i> had to be in there to drink), refilled with water from the tap.
With that done, she sat down to breakfast with a trio of books she'd pulled from her shelf to scour and search for thoughts on her back-up plan if no leads on Jacky could be found at the locations on her fridge list. She had the distinct hunch that the reflection who'd come to visit her, who'd called upon her to go to the woman with the cards in the first place, was still somehow connected to Jack. If that were the case, perhaps it could lead her to him instead. So, she needed to find a way to summon him to her-- it's not like the reflection had a cell phone that she could text, and she couldn't just stand in front of a mirror and chant "Monster-Jack, Monster-Jack, Monster-Jack!" and hope that he'd come peeking in through the corner of the glass.
The books didn't hold much that was new, as she'd read through them numerous times before, but there were tidbits here and there that she'd jotted down as inspiration, possibilities that could maybe just perhaps maybe work. She'd next turned to the internet, placing her long-since-finished breakfast plate in the dishwasher and moving to her couch with her laptop, where Lucy the Cat would keep her company curled up against her hip. Molly never left traces of herself beyond a visiting IP address when doing her research-- she wouldn't post questions or comments or queries onto websites or sign up for any subscriptions. There was no interaction with other people interested in the same things, but Molly could still glean from their insight when she found evidence of it left behind in forums and on websites and blogs.
Between the books and the laptop, instructions and concepts were drafted together to summon forward a reflection (hopefully the one she sought specifically) if her foot-hunt failed.
It was around this time that Molly looked up bleary-eyed to the clock on her wall and realized that she would need to be in to work in the next 50 minutes. With a sigh and a rub of her eyes, Molly readied herself and went into work at the hospital. The night there would be long, but Molly was an E.R. nurse. She knew long hours and exhaustion like they were close friends, and though the night before had worn her down and the morning had been mentally exhausting to match, she managed to make it all the way through her shift without wrecking any procedures or performing below her standard stellar expectations for herself.
Tomorrow, she'd advised herself while sipping her third cup of coffee that evening around eleven at night, she would begin the real search.
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