germany ♔ and despite everything i'm still human

[behindcloseddoors]

♬ human - daughter

WHO || Gold, Faye, Emma, Astrid, Mars [closed]
WHAT || The Knights investigate a mysterious town with no magic
WHERE || Heimbach, Germany
WHEN || May 31st, 2014 [forward dated]
HOW || Actionspam

[The Knights have been tasked by Sir Hasmed to investigate accounts of a strange village in Germany where magic is rumored not to function whatsoever.  The town of Heimbach is located in the hills, close to a river, and is watched over by a castle on a rocky outcrop in the center of the town.  The village is peaceful and quiet, the weather serene, and nothing sinister whatsoever about the idyllic view as they pull up their car on the main street, in front of several small shops.]

Comments

[uncurse]

What do you think?

[ she climbs out of the car, leaning in the door frame and staring around at the altogether normal-looking town. she turns her head to glance towards the passenger side, where faye is in the front seat because faye is her gurl and emma has control issues and drove here. surprise. ]

Feel any different?

[undealt]

[If you think Gold isn't cranky as fuck after being shoved in the back with Astrid and Mars, you've got another thing coming. Luckily he claimed a window seat. He climbs out awkwardly, and glances around.]

I'm not sure yet.

[He frowns at the idyllic little town, a look somewhere between nostalgia and surprise on his face. Maybe he was expecting Evil McEvil town.] It might as well be Storybrooke.

[uncurse]

[

emma does a slow head-turn to look at gold like are you fucking kidding me. you're damn right it might as well be storybrooke because that place was fucking cursed-ass groundhog day what are you smoking. right. the veil. he is smoking the veil. her lips purse. ]

Well, you're not wrong.

[pathology]

It feels boring. [ASTRID CALLED THE OTHER WINDOW. sorry mars. she glances outside through her sunglasses, looked bored as all get out.] Why couldn't magic stop working in Frankfurt? We should go to Frankfurt.

[reallywicked]

[Thanks mom, for calling shotty for me. Miss Long Legs over here stretches out and takes a few steps. She's not at all excited about the prospect of stepping into a place where her magic will be shut down.]

So what's the game plan? Get in, get out, get on with it?

[please?]

team american tourist

[uncurse]

The Town Hall might have records of its history—we should find it and start there.

[ emma doesn't address faye and gold until they're away from the car and moving through the town. and while she's playing the 'if i were a city planner' game, she starts looking out for where that might be (navigate 16). ]

[reallywicked]

Sure, but those records will be in... German. [Which she might have a plan for but she's just going to point out the obvious as they walk.]

[undealt]

That's unfortunate. [Gold doesn't sound deterred.] We'll just have to borrow them.

[And by borrow them, he means steal them and then leave them somewhere.]

[uncurse]

You heard the man. We'll bring them back to the hotel room for Astrid.

[undealt]

[Meanwhile, Gold is looking around with... apparently eagle eyes, because he got a nat 20 spot check.]

team actual smart ppl

[pathology]

[astrid watches the trio walk away with a roll of her eyes.] Idiots. [she's going to group txt gossip to lila and adam later, but mars gets the earful now.] They're going to get so lost. Where do you think we should go to scope out info? I'm thinking a bar or something. There has to be one, and I bet it's where everybody goes because if I lived here all I'd do is drink and cry.

[charismapotion]

Of course they are, do they even have a map? Or GPS? [ He shook his head some, then just pushed his smile back up. Nope, cant be negitive. First missions a good thing.] A bar sounds best, for the very reasons you spoke plus if people are drunk they are more likely to be loose with information. Only one problem though.

I can read German, I cant speak it. But I can record anything I hear. [ he lifted his iphone. Voice memo app, best thing ever.]

[pathology]

[mars is trying to stay upbeat, so she'll ... try to do the same. sobs.] Cool. That's still better than nothing, I guess. [she almost wants to tell him to go switch places with faye or something so TEAM DUMBASS can have someone who reads german and she can hang out with faye, but she doesn't. she's already gossiped with mars and he's a cutie. her cutie now, bitches.

ANYWAY SHE STARTS WALKING. if there's a bar to be found, astrid is catching sight of it as she walks and heading inside. (spot 23) if not, she's ... just gonna keep looking???]

[charismapotion]

[ Too late for tradesies. Shes stuck with him. Mars figured the upbeat made him stick out less. Being six foot two kind of already made him stick out.

He nodded at how quick she found the bar. AWESOME. And he trailed in behind her, already looking around from behind her. (Spot 19)]

[pathology]

[she goes in the bar like she owns the place, immediately making (german) small talk with the first sort-of-attractive looking person she sees. gotta be shallow. her yuan-ti lisp comes out more when she speaks german, but she doesn't care. w/e. she also decided to say fuck it to gold's plan bc it was stupid. never should've split the party tbh.] My friends and I were roadtripping to Frankfurt and our GPS spell stopped working. Weird, right? You wouldn't happen to know anything about it, would you? [bluff 19 + gather info 21.]

[undealt]

[Thanks to small town Germany being full of dumbfucks, Team American Tourist arrive at the bar Astrid and Mars are currently staked out in with some information to share. Gold glances at the place in distaste.]

Let's hope the locals were forthcoming. [Not that they don't have plenty to go on now, but it would be nice to have an in-depth local perspective too. Something paperwork might have glossed over or outright omitted.

That whole "don't use magic thing" is getting under his skin as much as it is Faye's and he's determined to figure out why even more now.]

[pathology]

[astrid just … reiterates what she told mars.] I talked to a couple different people. The first guy said magic stopped working when a construction crew came in to fix the quarry. He made it sound like it didn't seem to need fixing to begin with? He told me that sometimes magic works, but weird stuff happens, like plants dying or the sky changing colors. He mentioned this guy named Franz going crazy, so I looked into that. And … ran into his dad, because there are only five people in the entire freaking town, I guess. Whatever. His dad told me that Franz has his little accident a few days ago when he was by the quarry with some friends trying out a levitation spell or something I guess? And now he talks nonsense and freaks out over everything. Which is why I'm imposing a magic embargo on all of you. We don't need Franz the sequel.

[uncurse]

Construction for a quarry. [ she looks over at faye, then pulls the folder out of wherever she's been hiding it—probably in the back of her pants tbh under her shirt like she wanted to get that shit out of the town hall and it's not jacket weather idk what you want from her—and hands it over to astrid. ] They outsourced construction on it. Faye found excavation orders. I'm thinking we should head down to the quarry and take a look for ourselves.

[reallywicked]

[Look at Faye and Astrid finding out all this shit. Go team. Faye still hates this magic ban. Ugh.]

Yeah they busted the arcane water main or something.

[undealt]

[bitterly] They most certainly busted something.

[and then, in his team leader voice:]

Once we've confirmed that the source of the problem is in the quarry, we'll send word back to the castle for further instructions.

THE QUARRY

[undealt]

[When the group arrives at the quarry (with Emma driving and Gold playing navigator- drive 21 and navigate 22, respectively), it seems like the crew has been hard at it. Several layers have already been dug down with worn dirt roads leading into the quarry, itself, and the walls are smooth, aside from the occasional large rock. Construction vehicles sit abandoned.

On the lower level, there's a huge entrance large enough to park a semi lengthwise in, with dim runner lights along the base of it as it goes down. The walls are all earthen, supported by concrete beams. Basically, a lot like this.

And as they arrive, Gold looks mildly uncomfortable. Hello, darkness my old friend.]

Remember, we're not here to engage. We're merely gathering information and sending it back to Wynn for now.

[uncurse]

How do you suggest we gather information without engaging?

[ she climbs out of the car and pulls open the back door for the others to get out. ]

We're gonna need to go inside.

[charismapotion]

[ As soon as Mars slipped out he streched his arms up a bit, being as tall as he was he hated being in the backseat but he wasn't gonna bitch. Popping his neck he looked to Emma and Gold. Without magic he felt kinda useless here.]

[undealt]

What I mean to say, Ms. Swan, is if we find anyone else down there, it might be best if we don't challenge them. Observe, record, but don't interfere.

[/highlander humor.] Subtlety.

[uncurse]

You'd rather we back down than push through and get the information we need? [ she's just wondering, ok. if the cost of subtlety is missing out on info, which road does he expect them to take? ]