Welcome to Hemlock Falls

[Atrus]

In a startling gasp of originality, the general store was actually called "The General Store", probably on the basis that there would be no need to distinguish it from any other one until the next town over.

In the front half of the building were a few roomy aisles holding food, beverages, and the most common household wares. To the back the aisles got narrower and more jam-packed with all sorts of assorted tools, clothing, cheap electronics, batteries, and physical and metaphoricals nuts and bolts.

Right by the only entrance and exit was the cash register, safely manned behind a counter by a twenty-something girl with hair parted on the side and a bored outlook on life. By the side of the counter was a cash machine, squeaky clean, bright purple, and the only part of the store that seemed to have been there by less of a decade.

The girl raised her eyes momentarily from the magazine she was reading and glanced up and down at Lourdes, then uttered plainly and almost mechanically, "Welcome to the General Store the best store in Hemlock Falls, Eggos and Dash are on sale and we have home baked cookies on aisle 4 get some for your friends and relatives."
That said, she turned back to her magazine and flipped a page.

 

[Klaus von Richter]

((Reposting here!))

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.

 

[Antistita]

"heya, I'm Lu, you are right there, grocery shopping alone sucks, and it won't be a mob." Lu let the guy catch up. "I don't have a lot of skill at getting people to talk and all but I helped feed 200 people on a really tight budget once and I can cook over a campfire, so I figure we'll get enough to go a day or so, simple stuff can go a long way. We aren't nearly as many, and I dunno who has US money on them. How many of us are there?" She had fogotten to count.

 

[Klaus von Richter]

With her kind gesture, Klaus felt far less suspicious. "I am Klaus -" he began to offer, only to stop and stare off in thought for a time at her words. After a brief moment of interlude, he resumed. "...I do not actually recall how many of us are currently with us, and most went to eat at what I assume would be a diner primed to make me very, very sick."

It took another second. "Two hundred on low budget is very good! And did you hear?"

Klaus beamed with excitement as he lead in to the next statement. "Homemade cookies!"

 

[Antistita]

Loudes giggled. "we'll see if we can fit some into the budjet. I need a pot and tripod so we can cook. And a jacket so Matt don't freeze." She headed for the rear to see what could be found. A bit of searching netted her a poofy red jacket with decorative zippers from the 1980's for 12 bucks. It fit and seemed warm enough. Red was lucky too, Daisuke had said so.

 

[Atrus]

Lourdes found just about everything she was looking for, even if she had to dig in the packed aisles in the back for some of them.

Klaus would be confronted with a solid range of cookies to choose from: chocolate chip, butter toffee, peanut brittle, oatmeal raisin and - Just in for the season!, or so the handwritten sign said - gingerbread and maple/apple/walnut. Each packed seemed to hold a dozen or so cookies, with a neat, home-printed label glued on the transparent wrapping.

 

[Antistita]

Lu emerged from the back, sneezing a little.She had found an enamel kettle, a camp pot that would hold a big load of chili or oatmeal, had a lid, and a handle to hang it from, and a steel pipe in the plumbing section. A box of biggish nails, tin foil, and a pair of ugly old ceramic mugs. She proudly showed her prizes to Klaus, then headed to the cash register. “Hi! Can you ring this up, I gotta know how many cookies I can afford. “ she said to the cashier. ((gonna pause to let others post))

 

[Atrus]

The cashier raised her eyes from the magazine, looked at the various assortment of items on the counter, then at Lourdes, then at the items again. "Uh, sure," she babbled, before starting to ring it all up. "Lost some stuff on the Trail?"

 

[Antistita]

Lu groaned "Zomg. Worst hiking trip I ever been on, worse than the ones involving sand in all the wrong places. We got some good storytellers, come by the camp later and get onea them to tell you the epic. None of us is a pro and so I think we're doing ok considering. I just gotta feed everyone something basic, so I need a chili makin pot." Yammer had to bite her lip to control the urge to keep talking, but as they had had no time to get a story straight, the less she should say.

 

[Atrus]

"Yeah, okay, sure," the cashier replied in the tone of someone who was most definitely not interested in swinging by a hiking camp or listening to tourist stories. She scanned the last item and pressed a key, so that Lu could see the current total. "I can keep the transaction open if you want to look at the cookies. It's not like there's a crowd."

 

[Antistita]

"Cool, give us a few!"

"Mr Klaus, will you please pick out two packs of cookies?" Where Lu came fron, you Mr'ed.

 

[Atrus]

Klaus came back with his cookies of choice. Lu paid for everything, then the two joined the others back at the diner.

((Closing this one down since Klaus hasn't posted in a good while))