Realistic or Modern Welcome To Shearport

[Grey]

Lucas Hood





Departing with a nod, Lucas knocks on the inn door as he opens it. "Zach? Sage?" He calls, heading for the kitchen.

 

[Ragoza]

"6 fine mackerel," Liam announces with just a touch of pride. "Just at the end of their season too, they'll be migrating down South in the next few days." He deposits the bag on the table before collapsing into the old armchair he's been insisting on keeping near the stove. "Best put 'em on ice if y'aren't cooking 'em tonight." From somewhere in the depths of his coat a biscuit is produced and tossed toward the dog. "C'mon in, Lucas!"

 

[PixelWitch]

Zach


He observes the pile of fish brought to him with a lascivious grin, "Then dinner this shall be," he announces after gathering them up and hauling them to the huge crate freezer in the pantry, "Will go with a nice evening wine... something like salmon is better suited for breakfast. Less heavy..."


Now. To breakfast. Some eggs and pancakes need cooking, "Pass me the flour in the cupboard next to you, will ya?" he asks the fisherman.


Gus warfs quietly, licking his chops repeatedly after scarfing the biscuit with gusto and sniffing the floor tiles thoroughly for any escaping stray crumbs, just to be sure. *More? More?* His ears prick and he wuffs at Luca's entrance.


"...'lo Lucas," came his voice from underneath the counter, hands occasionally appearing to plunk utensils on the table. "Any requests for breakfast?"


He stands, finally starting on the mixture, catches sight of Lita in the hallway and immediately jabs a whisk in her direction, "Also, NO,"


He pouts, glaring at he muddy feet and hands like a parent scolding a child, "You are not setting foot in my kitchen with those. Not till you wash em! Out!"


The whisk threatens again.

 

[The Fuzz]

--> Red





The soft ground under you makes no noise as you pad through the paths of the Hedge. The path actually widens a bit, and you can smell salt on the air. Perhaps you've hit a part of the Hedge which is skirting the shore, in the real world?


The tracks seem to have been coming from this direction, that's true. They lead you into a small clearing, with a stream running through it. It burbles into the clearing from a dark patch of brambles, and then flows out of the clearing again. There's...yep. There's a tangle of prints beside the brook.

 

[Ragoza]

Only an older Irishman who's just been asked to perform kitchen duties can grumble the way Liam does as he fetches the flour.

 

[The Fuzz]

The Harringtons will probably be stirring in a little while. Older folks can try to sleep in, but when you get past your sixties, too many people find themselves only sleeping about four or five hours in the night. Must be dreadful. Herself will be having muesli, but if there's bacon, well, old Karl Harrington will have some please, thank yer very much.


There's a *thump-rattle* from the front. Mail. Mail? This early?

 

[risaphoeniix]

Lita the Magpie





Lita looks down at her hands, looks back at Zach, pouts in his direction, and goes off to wash her hands. When she returns her boots are marginally less muddy and her hands are clean and in the process of being dried on her jeans. "Can I help?" she asks brightly.

 

[Grey]

Lucas Hood





"Bacon, if we have it," Lucas grins. "Morning Liam, how is-" He sidesteps to avoid the Magpie, rolls his eyes. "L'il lady. Anyway, any of you seen anything of the tracks in the Hedge? Hate to make it business this early, but I'd rather get it out of the way".

 

[PixelWitch]

Zach


"Comin' right up,"


There is a a sizzle of the pan being fired up and copious strips being fired on. The smell is divine, wafting through the kitchen and into the dining area, little tables with their lace tablecloths and tea cosies.


"You can help by setting the tables," Zach chirps, wrestling with the saucepan and mixing bowl simultaneously, smiling at Lita, "A plate of bacon and pancakes will your reward~,"


Luca's question however prompts a scowl, "Nope. Least none have found their way into my garden I don't recall... come to think of it, I should check on the fruits..."


Plates. Plates. Plates...

 

[Ragoza]

"Mornin' Lucas. There's no trace of Hedge beasties down by the wharf, but it's early in the day yet." He collapses back into the chair, a bag of mints emerging from yet another pocket. "Stick on the kettle, will yeh Zach?"

 

[Inari]

Red


Red wondered idly if the clearing flowed to or from the sea. The prints didn’t look like they belonged to something that came from either, but he had hunted stranger things than fish that walked on land and pawed things that liked the water. The mess of prints at the water’s edge drew his attention, and he skirted the trail to get close, crouching down to investigate. Activity?


Scan the prints. Touch the muddy marks. Smell the air and where the salty breeze came from. Listen to the breeze and the burble and for the rustle of movement. Where did the marks come from? The other side of the brook, or had they come through the brambles or swam upstream? What went on by the stream side? Red didn’t burden himself overmuch with analytical thought; he trusted his senses to guide him, prowling about the clearing for clues.

Spoiler

Not sure if this qualifies an extended roll, but didn’t think it did. Hopefully Wits+Investigation is the right batch to use. If Red can find where the tracks came from before the water, he’ll set to following them unless they lead into the brambles. If they do, he’ll still have a look in there.


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[Grey]

Lucas Hood





Lucas leans against the wall between the windows, enjoying the smell, the atmosphere. Not quite home, but homely. He flicks the kettle on before Zach has to bother.


"Suppose we should watch out tongues here on; guests on their way." He notes, and carefully keeps out of Zach's way to hunt down the coffee pot. "Any hikers due in?"

 

[The Fuzz]

--> Red





Right. Well, now. Pawprint, pawprint, pawprint....shoe. Shoe? Yep. Print of a shoe, both shoes in fact, look, there's a right step, a left step, right step, and then what looks like a left step into the stream. Shoes are smallish.


The stream burbles on downwards. You suspect that if you follow it another mile or so, you'll find yourself in a forest of kelp, not bramble, but that's not where the prints go.


Undar the sea! (under the sea....)


Undar the seeeaa!





A fair few Changelings can occasionally be heard to make remarks about Disney. They're not usually very charitable.

 

[Inari]

Red


Red cocked his head at that. Left foot, right foot, left foot…Front paw, front paw, front paw, back paw. Small, too…Child, maybe, wandered into the Hedge? His nostrils flared. A lost cub was a simple solution, but these things didn’t like to be simple. Straightening up, he took a short retreat, before running forward to bound over the stream in an easy leap. Maybe it didn’t matter how one crossed the stream, if it was to blame, but no sense in pushing his luck.

Spoiler

Assuming the stream isn’t just narrow enough to be stepped over, in which case he’d just do that. And if crossing the brook doesn’t cause any notable adverse effects, he’d continue on tracking the shoe prints.

 

[risaphoeniix]

Lita the Magpie


Lita nodded, piling what looked like an inordinate amount of plates in her arms and wandering out towards the dining room, humming something unrecognizable. He After a moment she poked her head back in. "Maybe you should ask the wolf if he saw any tracks. He wandered out of the woods." Then she popped back out to finish setting tables.

 

[PixelWitch]

Zach


"I do believe we have a group in later, yeah," the cook announces idly, dishing out the bacon strips onto plates, the pancakes swiftly following, "They have the bunk room booked out..."


He had treated the bacon lightly with brown sugar, making sure the applewood chips they where originally smoked with to get the flavour across still remained. The pancakes dashed with salted butter and vanilla essence cloves. Good strong aromas. Lashings of thick maple syrup or honey will be needed.


"Ayeup," the plates are dolloped onto the table, "First come, first served~"


Sizzlesizzle

 

[Axelgear]

Sackcloth


The first plate ringing on the table summons Robert from his works like a hungry dog to the chime of a bell. As if by some precognition, he pokes his head into the room the very moment the last plate slips from Zach's fingers. The little brownie likes his breakfast, especially after a good morning's work. With the morning just getting started, he might even need a second breakfast later! Behind him, he leaves a small trail of dust, already slightly greyed from cleaning out the bunks.


"Food, glorious food!" He cheers, as he pounces into a seat, immediately drawing up fork and knife and carafe of syrup, and digging in without a second thought.

 

[Ragoza]

Liam


Now that's a smell worth leaving the chair for. Liam rises and pours himself a cup of tea strong enough to wake the dead, before joining Zack and Sackcloth at the table.


"Have we the bunkroom ready for 'em?" he asks between mouthfuls of delicious bacon.

 

[Grey]

Lucas Hood





Lucas sets his hat down on a windowsill, pours thick, black coffee with a dollop of maple syrup, and settles into a chair.


"What'd we do without you, Zach..." He says, digging in.

 

[The Fuzz]

--> Red





Stamping about in the brambles gets annoying after a while.


*stamp, stamp*


*scratch*


Your jacket has a load of burrs and thorns caught in it, you'll need to...what do you do when there's, like, all nature shit on your clothes?


You also have...a shoe. Specifically, a little pink running shoe. Somewhere out there, there's a child whose right foot is bare. Probably. After a minute, you find the other shoe, but for some reason, the footprints vanish.


(Roll, uh, Wits + Survival, please.)

 

[PixelWitch]

Zach


Zach beams. Well, apart from being on fucking fire and quite literally beaming but now he actually beams. Wide freckled cheeks pulled enough to crinkle his eyes. People, being human or changeling enjoying his meals never failed to lighten his day, "You'd all go hungry~"


He looks to the last strips of bacon and pancake after everyone else has a plate... and forgoing utensils altogether wraps them both together and scoffs them like a breakfast sandwich, "Phwar, I'm havin' you..."


Gus sits amongst everyone, slumped on the floor, doing the begging sad dog eyes to such an extent you'd think his face was attempting to melt.

 

[Alexandra]

Sage


Sage taps her way along the beachfront road towards the Black Lantern, using her long umbrella in place of a walking stick as always. She's fairly confident nothing untoward would have happened in the few hours between her night time duties and now; the staff may be young, but thankfully not incompetent.


She notes the clouds approaching over the sea, enjoying the slight chill that always heralds the onset of Autumn. The nights will soon be growing longer, too...


Hmm.


What to do today...what to do?


A check in with the young'uns first for a much needed cup of tea, then there should be time enough to have a peer into the Hedge and make sure nothing has changed too much, before back into town to open up The Shell for a day's business.

 

[Inari]

Red


Bramble. Burr. Thorn. Ow. After the dozenth time getting his jacket caught on some prickly branch, Red looked down to find a shoe lying amid the messy tangle. A wide mouth curled into a grimace, and he carefully disentangled himself enough to hunch down and retrieve it. A little hunting on hands and knees found the second, but no more prints. Without much thinking about it, he sniffed at the sole of one of the shoes. Little girl lost in the forest.


Where have I heard that one before?

Spoiler

Oh dang, didn’t quite realize previous post meant he was wading into the brambles…Oh well; guess it’s explainable enough.


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[Axelgear]

Sackcloth


Digging into his food as he is, it's little surprise that Robert is also amongst the first to finish. A tongue made of folded petals flickers between his pebble-stone teeth to lap at the syrup on the plate, glass eyes shining with the sunlight reflected off the plate. Once he's done thoroughly cleaning, he sets the tableware down before him and sets about the second amusement of the morning: Artillery.


"Younger hunger, fee and fi, fuller stomach now has I." Sackcloth rhymes, as he shifts in his seat. Bare cloth feet tucked underneath him, he squats so as to be able to reach across and steal some toothpicks from the middle of the table. Squishing up leftover bits of pancake together into two starchy spheres, he rolls them in syrup for binding strength, then begins to use one in construction. With the toothpicks, his fork, a napkin, the edge of his plate, and a tiny bit of bacon, Sackcloth builds not so much a makeshift catapult as a breakfast-themed micro-trebuchet. Pressing his finger down hard upon the lever, he fires the cradled ball of sugary dough in a parabolic arc, to land happily in Gus's awaiting jaws.


"Thank you for that," Robert cheerily concludes, looking up to the bright spark among them gladly, "it was just what I needed. Great way to start the day." He says with a smile, shifting to relax back in his seat.


"After our guests have had breakfast, it was being discussed that we might all head out to the Hedge, to do some investigating." He says cordially, floating the idea out there.

Spoiler

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[The Fuzz]

Dog goes Grompf.


The tasty thing mysteriously vanishes.