1899 - Under the Sign of the Lock and Feather

[Klear]

I'll probably won't have time to play this evening, so waiting for her is fine by me. She lost her forum password? Hmm.. worst case, she can make a new account, I guess.

[LuckyDee]

She lost her forum password?

Nah, I'm just taking a stab at valid reasons why she hasn't shown up yet.

[Esther]

Sorry I'm late. Kids just wouldn't go to sleep.....and I couldn't find a hammer....

[Esther]

Put in the missing background story. Hope this helps everyone understand her a bit more.

[Esther]

I do have time to play tonight. How about it?

[LuckyDee]

I'll be around.

[Klear]

I... might be around. Not sure yet.

[LuckyDee]

No big deal. At this point I can easily split you two up for a short while. We'll see.

[LuckyDee]

For those unfamiliar with it, use InvisibleCastle.com for dice rolls. Enter the total number of dice in your dice pool under "Number of rolls", and under dice, use "1d10.extra(10)". It automatically re-rolls any 10 you roll (on the first roll at least...).

[LuckyDee]

There, back from the dead. Re: this:

She gestures To Hugo that there's a rat in the room and that she needs his help.

This is crossing line of what's feasible. If Josie knew actual sign language and if the Wizard of Oz had gifted Hugo with a brain, this would be no problem. The cards being dealt as they have, though, there's just no way for this to be communicated between the two of you - at least not in the space of a couple of seconds. The level of detail is too high.

Since it makes no difference in the current situation, and I do believe that Josie is able to make clear to Hugo that she needs him inside the room, we'll proceed as is; in future situations, I'm going to keep a closer look on this and start imposing rolls to see how it works out.

[Klear]

That's pretty much how I (Hugo) interpreted the message - Josie needs help with something inside...

[Sereg]

While I really have no idea how any of this works, I have been reading along out of interest.

[...]yet another black rat[...]

What I got out of this line here is that this particular event is not especially uncommon at this inn. Maybe it's related to the storyline(Portralis, anyone?) or whatever's happening here, or maybe it's not, but in either case, it happens frequently enough that I wouldn't be particularly skeptical if there was some specific kind of signal to communicate that.

Just in case I'm not supposed to be speculating about stuff

Although I don't think that would be needed, since as far as I can tell the guest saw it too, or he wouldn't be having such a difficult time keeping his composure.

Those are just my thoughts on it, and as I've stated, I really have no idea what's going on here, so take that with a grain of salt.

[Klear]

There have already been two strange encounters with large black rat(s?) during the storyline, so I think that's what that refers to.

In any case, good to know we have audience! Maybe you'll even join the fun at some point...

[Sereg]

There have already been two strange encounters with large black rat(s?) during the storyline, so I think that's what that refers to.

In any case, good to know we have audience! Maybe you'll even join the fun at some point...

Hmm, have there? I thought I'd read all of it, but I guess not, lol - anyway, that would certainly make sense. "hey, we have a rat problem, we need a way to deal with this if it comes up again without alerting the patrons".

As far as joining, I think I'd need to read a lot more before I felt comfortable joining a storyline, but who knows? Maybe at some point ;)

[LuckyDee]

Nice to see others getting involved as well, feel free to ask or comment on the story. To clarify:

What I got out of this line here is that this particular event is not especially uncommon at this inn.

1) Since the Lock and Feather is a a higher-middle-class establishment, rats are actually very uncommon; the owners take a lot of care not have any varmints scurrying around.
2) Even if they were common, at least 9 out of every 10 rats showing themselves would be brown, not black. Hugo won't know this, and owners probably can't be bothered to tell the difference, but Josie will know.

As for joining in: since bfg9001 hasn't shown himself ever since volunteering, and a certain someone seems to have nerfed himself out of the playing field, I'll be glad to take on an extra....