Babadon't Room Crawl

[piper90npcs]

[OOC: Please tag in to the assigned room. There will be at least one NPC tag to the thread per day. Remember that your characters can still use the network to communicate findings or questions to those still in the living quarters.]

Once word is out that the victim was dragged to the Rewards Lounge, the hires who’ve been cleared head are given permission to enter that rare knock-off paradise. Somewhere along the line, someone suggests splitting into groups, an idea that gets all the more appealing when they see that the Rewards Lounge has at least five suites to investigate, perhaps in case Corporate ever decided to enlist a stable of bootlickers and snitches to feed them intel on the other hires in exchange for feather beds and middle-shelf scotch.

It becomes clear that the intelligence they got was likely correct: there are streaks of black goo along to doorframe to the lobby room between all the suites.

Comments

[myagents]

"Hm." Price squints at the clothes that Michael found "I am not familiar with shapeshifting creatures, but I had figured that once assumed the form of someone else they would not need to acquire their clothes separately and get rid of them. It is quite strange."

It would be funny if there was no shapeshifter at all and this was a distraction, actually, but who can tell in this insane structure?

"I will try to put together the pages." he points at the shredded paper "Perhaps we could find out something useful from those."

With that in mind, he starts to reassemble them.

[fromfryingpantofire]

"Depends on the type of shifter." Sam makes an 'ah' sound under his breath, plucking the key from where he spots it. "The kind I'm most used to usually takes the clothes of whomever it's impersonating. Then again, considering they change shape by literally shedding their skin, nails and teeth, so..." He shrugs, like this is a normal thing.

It was, for him.

"Anyway, the hat and other clothes do seem to point toward it having been here. Possibly using the area as a changing room." He looks at them for a moment. "I wonder if the people it was impersonating were in here as their own rewards? Would make it easy enough to grab them, isolated from the rest of the crew."

He considers the key for a moment. "Anybody want to take bets that this fits the filing cabinet?" Which he goes to check, because it makes sense to check the obviously locked thing, first.

[piper90npcs]

It'll take Price a very long time to assemble the pages; he may be better off taking them with him and doing them in his dorm.

The key does not match with the filing cabinet, although it looks a similar size. Perhaps it fits a cabinet in another room.

[notvulcan]

Michael checks the tops of the cabinets while Sams's checking the key, continuing with her method of working the room from the top down.

"You expect something that can shape its shape to at least need to change," she agrees with Sam.

Once it's clear that the key fits none of the cabinets, she decides to check all the desk drawers and any other drawer in the room that she can find for locked drawers.

[myagents]

"This is taking a long time." he stuffs the shredded paper in his pockets "I shall take these with me after we're done here and update you if I find anything important."

His glance goes back and forth between the unmade bed and the untidy carpet "Someone must've left in a hurry."

He kneels on the floor and looks under the bed.

[fromfryingpantofire]

Only the fact that they're pretty certain the shifter is stuck in the dorms keeps Sam from snapping at Price not to do that without back up. There are too many things that hide in the dark for him to be comfortable with a civilian doing that when they're dealing with monsters.

He does hand the key off to Michael before going over to the bed, careful not to block Price's light while still being able to grab him if something reaches out for the man. "Yeah, I'm not surprised, really. It had to have a clue that Corporate are onto it. Shifters don't tend to like to hang around in one place too long, but given everything? It's a lot harder to just head off from the Rig than it would be in any of our worlds."

[piper90npcs]

Under the bed, Price and Sam will find something somewhat sinister: a utility box full of nothing but duct tape, pairs of handcuffs and a box cutter.

In the drawers, Michael will find the usual contents of an armoire dresser: socks, neckties, underpants, etcetera, etcetera. There's also a generic, unsigned "Thank You" card to a woman named "Gretchen" that has a sticky black smear on it.

[notvulcan]

"This is what's on the doorway," she says, pointing out the sticky junk on the paper.

Price and Winchester seem to have the bed situation in hand, so Michael leaves all the items she's collected on the file cabinet and goes to check the bathroom for any clues.

[myagents]

When Price spots the utility box under the bed, he pulls it across the floor and opens it carefully so that Sam can see as well.

"These must be what they used to restrain the person they are currently posing as."

He reluctantly picks the box cutter and hands it to Sam. Price is weak but he still has lasers that he can fire at any given time, Sam is the biggest and probably the physically strongest of the three, he'd probably be more capable of using a knife. At least, more than Price.

"Here. It's better than being unarmed. I have lasers."

Then he gets up, glances rapidly at the clues that Michael left on the file cabinet and follows her into the bathroom.

"Did you find anything?"

[fromfryingpantofire]

"Either that or there are some folks into some kinky shit around here." More because those are regulation handcuffs, not the 'safer' sort. "If there's handcuff keys in there, grab a set. Handcuffs usually all use the same keys, so having a set around can't hurt."

Don't ask how he knows things like this.

He takes the box cutter, shoving it into a pocket on the uniform and making note of the fact that Price has lasers. Which feels a little unfair. "Thanks. I'm not entirely defenseless, but I prefer having something I can use on hand."

Sam goes back to the desk, taking a look at the card before rifling the desk. Less for clues and more for things like paper clips or maybe a letter opener while keeping an eye out for anything that might not have caught Michael's eye. Nothing against her, but she's not used to the same sorts of monsters that Sam is. "I don't think it was expecting to get rumbled. A lot of this is feeling very...trying to stay one step ahead. We don't know how long it was hiding among the Rig crew as it was."

If he finds anything, he'll have a go at getting into that filing cabinet. Anything could be hidden in there.

[piper90npcs]

The filing cabinet is...incredibly hard to pick. It seems that there's some electronic component to the lock. However, depending on how much Sam jostles it, he might notice that the bottom of the cabinet feels very heavy, as if it's stuffed full of reams of paper, yet the top two layers of the cabinet feel empty. A very bottom-heavy cabinet.

Michael has found everything of interest in the desk, so Sam won't find anything.

The bathroom has a huge gold-rimmed tub and a shower the size of a bedroom, with large wicker hampers to hold towels, either clean or used. There's a bathroom cabinet, a long counter, and both a toilet and a bidet.

[notvulcan]

Michael begins to check everything in the bathroom, beginning with the medicine cabinet and then working her way through the shower and tub. She even checks under the outside of the rim of the tub, running her fingers along the seam. The hampers come last, and she checks among the clean and dirty towels in each for any evidence.

[myagents]

Following Michael, Price opens the drawers of the long counter in search for clues. In the meantime, as he sees the wicker hampers, he speaks to Sam:

"I believe we should wait, but if you still want to burn something, we could use these."

He still has burning lasers, after all.

[fromfryingpantofire]

"I'll keep it in mind for those damned locks."

Bathrooms are small enough that two people in there is already more than enough. So while Sam glances in for a moment, he goes back to searching the room, checking out bedside tables before turning his attention to the bed: stripping back the sheets, checking under the pillows and even going so far as to lift the actual mattress. People hid a lot of things between the mattress and box spring in his experience. A lot of them forgot what they put there, too.

[piper90npcs]

[The hamper does, indeed, have something of interest - dirty clothing. But not just any dirty clothing that one would find in a hamper: discarded Jorgmund uniforms of too many different sizes, and a plush red and white Santa coat and matching pants.

The bed yields nothing, unfortunately.]

[notvulcan]

[ Michael takes the dirty clothes to the now-stripped bed and lays each piece out—jumpsuits, and the Santa coat and pants. ]

We've definitely found the place where it changed each time.

[ She looks over at the paper shredder, which has had the top of its contents removed by Price. ]

Did you check inside the shredder's bin?

[myagents]

Not yet. [He closes the door of the long counter] Let's see if there is anything.

[He walks back to the paper shredder and opens the bin. While he's at it he checks the printer as well.]

[fromfryingpantofire]

Sam mutters something under his breath in a language that sounds both beautiful and terrifying, only half realizing he's even doing so. He stands back, letting Michael take over the bed with the outfits while surveying the room.

It doesn't hit him until the second look around, a slower one as he half listens to Michael's report on the comms. Then he walks over to the bearskin rug, to the place where it isn't laying flat before flipping it over.

[piper90npcs]

[There's some paper still jammed in the shredder, but nothing legible on it. Some of it can probably be fished out and slowly reassembled. Nothing is in the printer.

And under the rug, Sam will find a smear of black goo with a few strands of blonde hair stuck in it.]

[fromfryingpantofire]

Sam crouches down next to the smear, frowning as he looks from it to the rug and back again. Then he stands, heading to the bathroom to get some water. Only about half a glass. Then he comes back, crouching again and judging some distance before pouring out a little water about six inches away from the smear, then continuing around in a circle.

It might have been there just from kicking the rug. But the rug might have been there to conceal something more.

[notvulcan]

Michael comes closer to the rug, noticing the smear of black goo.

"What are you doing?"

She's concerned whatever it is, it's going to disturb the evidence.

[myagents]

[Price, once he's carefully fished out the paper from the shredder, tries to read it without success so he shoves it in his pockets with the rest of the paper he took before. He might as well reassemble two sheets in his dorm, while he's at it. He too, gets closer to Sam.]

Huh.

[He doesn't really understand what is this for, but he's interested. He'll watch and find out.]

[piper90npcs]

[While Price is digging out the paper, he may notice that the reason it's jammed is because someone tried to shred some credit card-sized pieces of plastic. If he fishes those out, he'll find four Jorgmund employee IDs, none of which made it far enough through the shredder to be destroyed. One belongs to a technician named Paul in the department that pulls people from other worlds; the others belong to three of the workers in the cafeteria, whom the Hires may have all seen hanging out together at the employee table after dinner had been served last night. All four employees have dark hair.

Sam's attempt to find a door isn't successful, but he does find a little bit more blonde hair caught in the black smear - some with blood at the base.]

[zerg_rush]

Kerrigan knocks on the door frame to avoid startling anyone. She's still cleaning monster goo off her hands with a purloined towel.

"Hey, my team finished our sweep, you guys need an extra pair of eyes?" It's just a total coincidence she picked this suite to help with. Nothing whatsoever to do with the presence of a locked filing cabinet.

[fromfryingpantofire]

"Well, that's not entirely a waste." Sam puts the water aside, taking a better look at the hair. "This is...recent, I think. You can still see the blood in the roots." He doesn't poke it, but more because there are people around who wouldn't understand so well. "That's been torn out of the victim's head. You don't get roots like that otherwise."

Kerrigan entering the room gets him to look up, then stand. "Wouldn't hurt. I was hoping there was a trap door hidden beneath that rug. No luck, though."