Welcome to Hemlock Falls

[Atrus]

((Lourdes's story continues in The General Store. This thread will stay open a little more since Kermit and Klaus still haven't said what they're doing.))

 

[Marcos Medeiros]

Marcos wanders back over to where he had last seen Molly and Sarah. As much as he doesn't want to get whacked in the face by more branches, there's a full house at the diner, and there are many more leads to follow. At least he has a cup of coffee and a few sweets to keep him company, now.

Marcos nods a greeting to Sarah and smiles winsomely.

"Are you still giving tours? I'm ready to go," he says, holding up his coffee cup.

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

Sarah heads dinerwards, then stops when Marcos comes out. She looks at Marcos, then lifts a hand. "Idea. We'll give the others an hour to sort themselves out, while I give a tour of what I can within that time frame." She unhooks her backpack. "And I'll leave this with Rosie."

She slips into the diner briefly, and says something which appears to involve Marcos, an hour, and a walk around town. She comes back out without her backpack. "Okay. We have a number of sights within range."

(( I'll stick a related post into the diner thread. ))

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

((Added as a separate post cause people are likely watching the thread))

"So. We can do a tour of the really close stuff, or I can take you to one of the places further away." She gestures to the buildings right nearby, which either have signs (eg Hemlock Falls School and Library) or look like family houses.

"The slightly further away stuff are ... well, there's Mandy's, it's a trout farm, and they have fishing and a real restaurant. And there's the hotel, where you guys will probably want to stay. Um..." She looks at Marcos. "Though you probably don't want to sightsee a hotel." A self-deprecating grin, then she asks "Any interest in local industry? We do farming and wood mill stuff, mostly."

 

[Klaus von Richter]

((Oh god, so sorry for vanishing -again-. I had to help family for the entire week, so I never got a real moment to think for emotes!))

Klaus nervously followed the group for a moment longer. He was unfamiliar with his cohorts in crime and did not know where he would best fit toward the investigation. People made him very, very nervous.

No matter how much he wanted to engage in glorious Poké-chat, the sheer number of people going to the diner was overwhelming. That is too many people in too enclosed a location struggling to hear each other and shouting just to make conversation. It sounded like chaos, chaos and torture of a sort Klaus did not have the strength to deal with.

However, there was one person asking about Pokémon who wasn't going to the diner.

Carefully following behing Lourdes, Klaus crept over to the General Store.

"Hallo!" He greeted from behind her. "Group-groceries will be better with more than one person, yes?"

He didn't think himself the best shopping-buddy, but he wanted to do something productive that didn't set him into a panic.

 

[Kle]

Completly confused by the pokéchat James was tempted to just beat information out of the kids but decided against it. Instead he wandered along in the background with a gloomy face.

They had better come up with something useful.

 

[Mathewsen]

Mat comes back out of the diner, half-eaten apple pie slice in hand, looking around for Sarah and Marcos. It's not like they'd be hard to find in the non-existent crowd.

He catch up with them "Mind if I join you? Too many people in there actually. Yeah, I know, it's partly my fault." He grins.

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

Sarah shakes her head to Mat. "Doesn't bother me as long as Rosie doesn't mind you defecting." Besides, how far could the guy get, on foot, if he did decide to skip on the tab?

So who's coming with? Hoodie guy (Marcos), accent (Mat), and gloomy face (Kle).
(( OOC: Anyone else? And Kle, is she right? You coming on the tour, or just hanging around being gloomy?))

Get into tour guide mode, Sarah. Think of what you love about this area. Think of the history. "Hemlock Falls is named after the two major features of the town." Oh god, do I sound like Generic Tour Guide? I sound like a generic tour guide, don't I?

"It kind of grew up around this beautiful old tree here, which became the centre of the town kind of by accident." She gestures at the tree the teens had been sitting under. "As you can see, the crucial buildings are all near it, and just beyond them, the oldest of the houses."

(( Pause to allow people to get a word in edgewise ))

 

[Mathewsen]

Mat chuckles "It's okay, she didn't have any time to complain actually. And I left plenty of money to pay for the food and all that" He shrugs, then listens to Sarah.

He cants his head "You told us there was some kind of legend about that tree, mind telling us more about it?"

 

[Marcos Medeiros]

Marcos nods in agreement with Mat. "And about any other local legends and campfire stories? The spookier the better." A mischievous grin splits his face. Whoever's rooming with him is in for an... interesting night.

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

Sarah laughs. "Aren't campfire tales better told around a campfire?" She lowers her voice a little. "Spooky strange noises in the background, you're not sure if the snap of a twig is another person, or a wolf coming to eat you. Smoke in your hair and your nose, darkness beyond the campfire's light, the flickering fire making friends' faces strange."

"You want that to make a spooky story ... really spooky."

 

[Mathewsen]

"Is the tree's story also a spooky one? 'cause it seems inappropriate for a guide to not mention the history of what we're seeing" Mat grins playfully.

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

Sarah tosses her head back and laughs at that, then looks at the tree from several angles. Once she's picked a spot, she walks to the tree, stands there, framed by her chosen foliage, and - with gestures - invites Mat and Marcos to sit. And KleJames, too, if he's still hanging around.

She lowers her voice slightly - not melodrama, more a formal 'storyteller' kind of mode.

"This story starts a long, long time ago. Before the town existed, even before any Indians - sorry, First Nations - ever came to this area."

"It was the time when the Animals could talk, though of course they talked in Animal, not in Human. Not that it mattered, there were no Humans here. The Animals were suffering under the actions of a tribe of evil spirits, beings invisible to our kind, but full of mischief and malice."

"Each of the Animals had its own plan for solving the problem. Wolf wanted to form a Pack and harry the Spirits, biting at their legs and tails and making them run. Bear wanted to hibernate and ignore them. Spider wanted to spin webs to trap them."

"And they tried their techniques. The Spirits stung the sleeping Bear, waking him every time he tried to hibernate. They evaded the Pack, and came back to foul the hunting and destroy Wolf's dens. They tore at Spider's webs, laughing at Spider's attempts to trap them."

((Pause. Words. Edgewise. Etc.))

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

((Resuming))

Sarah is storytelling, with gestures and changes in tones of voice, and all the things that make a halfway decent amateur storyteller. She's in no way a great actress, or even a great storyteller, but she has heart.

"But humble Chipmunk had an idea. "Let us ask the plants for help," he said. And he chittered off, and spoke to each of the plants whose seeds he spread. Fir and Pine would not help, nor would Oak. But the Mountain Hemlock, whose seeds are small and frequently eaten by the small animals, made a deal with the Chipmunk."

"And so Chipmunk took four seeds from the Mountain Hemlock, and searched for just the right places, and planted each of the seeds in a special place. Chipmunk was careful, and brought water in his cheek pouches to the seeds for a year, until the young hemlock trees were old enough to get water themselves."

"The Spirits didn't realise what was happening, at first. But when they did, they searched and found three of the trees. But they searched in winter, and brave little Chipmunk was able to cover one of them in snow."

She pats the tree she's standing under, and smiles.

"Once the tree was a sapling, the spirit of Mountain Hemlock infused it, and now Chipmunk lives in the Hemlock in perfect safety. The other Animals can also be protected by the Hemlock, but only if they are kind to Chipmunk."

 

[Mathewsen]

((Damn, I was gonna post after my shower!))
Mat follows her invitation, and come sit on one of the tree's roots, looking up at Sarah with a smile as she starts the storytelling. He checks the tree, trying to gauge how old it could be, but he is no botanist. His conclusion is: Old.

After she mentions spirits, Mat slightly rub his obsidian bracelet hidden in his sleeve, checking its temperature. As a reminder, the closer you are to a ghost or spirit, the colder it gets.

During the rest of the story, he listens to Sarah with dreaming eyes, and just slowly runs the tip of his his fingers along the root's bark. His relationship with Gaia has always been weird: He cares a lot for anything that is of Gaia, like guardian trees, faery folks, ..., but can't stand Gaia herself. He knows Gaia is made of all of those, but he never pretended it was logical.

When she mentions the other animals have to be kind to Chipmunk, he laughs slightly, and slowly claps his hands if Sarah is done.

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

She does appear to be done.

 

[Atrus]

The obsidian bracelet didn't seem to be any colder than it was before. If there were any spirits in the tree, they weren't making themselves manifest right now.

 

[Mathewsen]

Mat claps at their storyteller.
"Poor Wolf and Bear! I don't care about Spider though, 'cause it's a bloody spider, ugh!" He grins "Just to be sure, are there any wolves or bears around? Like in the forest or something?"

 

[Sarah Whittaker]

"MMmhmm. Grey wolves, black bears, coyotes, bobcats, pumas, foxes ..." She shrugs. "It's wilderness. We also have some rattlers, but thankfully the cottonmouths are usually further east, in wetter, flatter terrain." She pauses, then adds "Also, we don't often get copperheads, so if you think you see one, please get me to identify it? We lose far too many milksnakes that way."


((OOC: Oof. Get the Aussie to provide information about the animal life in a specific small zone in the USA! My resource is a website off the Virginia dpt of Game and Inland Fisheries. ))

 

[Mathewsen]

"So that mean we might encounter wolves or bears while camping out there, huh?" Mat frowns a little "Sounds like fun." he chuckles "And I know, they rarely attack humans and are more afraid of us than we are." He nods with a smile "Don't get all boyscout-instructor on me."

((Haha sorry and well done ))