NTWF Mafia: The Little Country Town

[Ginz ❤]

Jul 3, 2011 18:37:19 GMT -5 @saeryena said:

Ariana sat down in the chair across from Ginz.

"I need to know what will happen to me," she said.

"Very well. I figured as much."

Ginz dug around her pockets to find her trusty deck of cards. They were old and slightly tattered from use. She shuffled them a couple of times and then placed them all face down on the table.

She asked Ariana to hand pick three cards, and after she did, she revealed the first one.

"The weewoo," Ginz said, looking at it. "It means you will receive a message, maybe some unexpected news. I cannot tell if the news will be good or bad, but given the circumstances..." her voice trailed off. She moved on to the second card.

"The moon," Ginz started intently at the card, in which the drawing of a full moon could be seen. "The moon can have many interpretations, but I think this is a warning. The moon repeats its cycle indefinitely. I think we can be sure that the events we found about this morning will repeat themselves. Miss Kellan, the full moon will be high in the sky in just a few days from now. Be especially careful that night! Something might happen."

Ginz turned the last card around, both anticipating and dreading the fate she would find in it. "The shield," she said, unable to suppress a sigh of relief. I think this means you will be safe for now, Miss Kellan. But whatever you do, do not let your guard down."

Madame Ginz started picking up her deck of cards to put them back into her pocket, but as she was doing so, she experienced a vision. She had seen someone's face for a split second, just long enough to recognize them. She was sure it was a bad premonition about them.

She gasped and dropped the cards she was holding.

"Miss Kellan... please excuse me. I just remembered an urgent matter I have to attend to."

And without another word, Ginz stepped out of her tent, adrenaline pumping, determined to find the subject of her premonition and warn them. But after some walking, she stopped in her tracks. Should she do it? It could be more trouble than it was worth.

She stood right on Town Square, her gaze lost, not knowing what was the right thing for her to do.

[Jayeee]

Joseph Maximillian III was, quite frankly, not surprised in the least when he’d been rather hastily awoken to the sounds of his butler, Meowington, stammering about some sort of horrific murder. Naturally, he’d demanded his cup of tea before hearing any more nonsense as he was carried out of his bed by no less than five of his servants.

“She had it coming,” he’d said nonchalantly as he was fanned leisurely from every angle surrounding him. “Netwaffle can most certainly do without that dastardly floozy. Splendid to see the town getting better.”

“But, Sir,” one servant had piped up cautiously, “There was a murder. How could that possibly be splendid?”

“Oh, of course it’s a most heinous crime committed to that poor young lady. I’m just thankful it wasn’t me. I’m not sure what the chaps in this town would do without my spiffy countenance.”

Later that day, after thoroughly checking the days forecast from the local Meteorologist, Joseph Maximillian III had decided to take a casual stroll to the town square, making sure to avoid any blood stains at all times – his boots were new!

“This town is utterly perplexing,” he said after sitting down on a bench, and sipping a cup of tea. “A weatherman who clearly can’t tell the weather; a Fortune Teller who I’d not trust with my gloves, let along my fortune. With these murders going on too, it’s any wonder that Netwaffle is managing to stay afloat,” he ranted to his staff, who were carrying an umbrella each, for fear of rain. “Be prepared for a storm, workers. I fear that the worst is yet to come.” He lowered the brim of his top hat and shivered.

[Deleted]

Ari breathed a sigh of relief after hearing of the shield. There was no way she was going to die today.

"Th-thank you, Madame Ginz," she stammered as the fortune teller stepped out of her tent. Now she was alone.

She had always wondered where the power of prophecy came from, and was tempted to look around, but Ginz was her friend...

She stepped out of the tent, her mind at ease, and sat down to paint again.

[Tam]

When Mr. Amati head the news, he didn't know what to think about it. But then, he rarely knew what to think about anything, so it seemed to him the best thing to do in a situation like this would be to forget the news as soon as he possibly could. Cupcakes. Cupcakes would cheer him up.

And so the stooped little baker spent the remainder of the morning bustling around his tiny kitchen, measuring ingredients, beating batter, and sliding trays in and out of the oven. By the time he had finished piping the icing onto the last golden-topped cupcake, he was feeling quite good about the state of the world. No one ever said Mr. Amati was a smart man. But he was a happy man.

After his cart was loaded with as many cupcakes as would fit on top of the usual supply of bread, rolls, and biscuits, the baker put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. A striped feline head peeked sleepily over the top of a nearby cupboard.

"Bad business out there today, Sugar," he said. "They'll be wantin' cupcakes."

The cat mrowed obligingly and leapt down to the floor beside him.

"We'd best be on our way, then." Mr. Amati pushed against the handle of the cart, smiling past the creaking of his bones like only someone with decades of practice could. The cart slowly rolled into motion, and, cat in tow, the baker trundled off into the street to sell his goods.

[Luna]

Luna was taking an order to make a shield out of bronze when she heard the news. "I'm not surprised." She said to herself when she was back in her work area starting on the shield. "No one in this town really liked her, at least I didn't anyway."
Luna Eevsdeer was the town blacksmith, and a very skilled one at that. She knows her way around town, but she didn't talk to others very much.
She finished the shield after a good while and place it on an anvil to cool.

"Enough of that." she said, taking her gloves off and dropping them down on her wooden desk up front where she took orders. The gloves meant she was closed, and the townspeople knew that by now. "I need something to eat." she told herself. She grabbed her wallet and put it in her pocket. "See ya later, Spots!" She said to her large spotted mutt that she had found on the edge of town. She patted him on the head, then she was off to see the baker.

[Draco]

Drake excepted Candy's help and took her hand. Standing up he looks around a little, they were in the town square. He looks at Candy.

"You didn't hear any voices from the sky today did you?"

He waits for a response, then pretends he didn't say it.

"I mean, you don't happen to have candy on you do you?"

He waits for a response, then glances at his paper.

"So, did you hear about the murder? This town is starting to get bad I think."

[Deleted]

Ari looked up from her painting. People were talking about the murder again, and it made her uneasy. She was back at the cafe, where Drake and Candy were.

She turned.

"Um...excuse me, but could you talk a little quieter? I'm still pretty freaked by this, even though I know I'll be okay..."

She gave an exasperated sigh. Why was it that people had obsessions with creepy things?

[Lizzie]

Candy looked at Drake and tilted her head.

"Voices from the sky? I don't think so... Why, did you?" she blinked a few times before she said, "Um, I might have some twizzlers." she rummaged around in her tote bag before holding out a bag of twizzlers, unopened.

Candy grabbed the paper, and said, "Yeah, I heard about it. I overheard someone's conversation... I was wondering if it was true."

She hit Drake with the paper, with all of her face serious except for her eyes, which smiled at him, or whatever they say they do when they look like they do when someone smiles.

"This town is not bad! Every town has murders!"

Candy glanced at Ariana.

"Hey, if you don't like it, walk away. Tune us out. Something. You can't expect us to not talk," she murmured.

[Terra]

Terra jumped when she saw Candy and Drake collide with each other. It looked painful, but they seemed unharmed.

She walked up to them in time to hear them talking about the murder. Terra shuddered slightly, but hoped that it would be taken as a shiver in the cold.

"It's terrible, what happened, though, isn't it?" she said. "This town is getting less and less safe...don't you think we should try to do something?"

[Nova]

Mr Meowington's master, Joseph Maximillian III, left for a casual stroll in the Times Square. While it was expected of him to join along his master and the rest of the staff to make sure Master Maximillian, Meowington carelessly assumed that Joseph (whom he calls when he's not around) wouldn't be attacked by the mafia after themselves just attacking the Floozy. He decided to hang back and "look after" the manor.

With Joseph gone, Meowington was free to snoop around. How else would he get his information? Nobody tells the staff anything at all, so it's up to him to go through the mail, business documents, notices etc. just to see what everybody is up to. Looking over the financial documents, Meowington was pleased to see that Joseph was doing much better financially than he was just a few months ago. Unfortunately for him, there was nothing detailing the recent murder, except for the daily paper. There is always the option of it being in the wall-safe, but not even he has not been able to crack it open.

Grabbing his coat, Meowington took to the streets with pride (well, as much pride one can have being named "Meowington") and somehow ended up at the Town Square. He calculated that Joseph would be at the other end of town by now - though he wasn't exactly sure - he wanted to talk to some of the locals to see if he could scrounge up any information or hear various gossip that might be floating around.

Ah! There she was; the fortune teller. She had been stunningly accurate foreseeing certain events in his life, which garnered a generous amount of respect for the woman. Though, seeing her outside of her tent meant that she wouldn't be up for a reading, she had quite the worried look on her face. He decided to say hi.

"Madame Ginz, how fortunate for us to meet again," he said.

[Ginz ❤]

Madame Ginz was startled by the voice calling her name, but she tried to hide her surprise.

"Mr. Meowington! I expected to see you," she said with a little wink, as if she had known about the encounter all along.

Ginz was in very good terms with Mr. Meowington, but not so much with his master, who tended to treat her with disdain. She was glad to find that Joseph Maximillian III was nowhere to be seen.

"Have you heard about the terrible incident? I wonder what fate awaits us all now!" Ginz tried to look natural, but she wasn't very succesful, as she kept glancing around just in case she saw the face she had seen in her premonition earlier.

"Anyway, what brings you to the Town Square today?" she said, conversationally.

[Strife]

"Impossible! IMP POSSUM BOWL!" he shouted, slamming his fists on the wooden desk. The various tubes, flasks, and other laboratory equipment wobbled in place.

Netwaffle's resident alchemist, Dr. Strife, had just learned of poor Hunty's untimely death. He had been plotting revenge against her for weeks for stealing his freshly-patented Norris Tonic along with the formula required to make it. The hours upon hours of chemical exposure in his laboratory caused him to jump the slippery slope from typical mad science into cartoonish supervillainy, and without the tonic, his mind would be stuck this way.

Dr. Strife stood up and paced around his room swiftly. "With the Floozy's death, the formula is lost! My plans have been mooted!" He clenched his fist in anger.

"But Doctah Stwife," said Mawk, his pet parrot-cat hybrid, who had developed an Elmer Fudd-esque speech impediment, "We could wemake deh formuwa fwom skwatch."

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm losing my mind to SCIENCE! We haven't the time to remake the forumula from scratch!"

"Okayw. Well, deh formuwa couwd stiw be owt dere, den?"

"I'd have an ember's chance in snow of finding it. The Floozy could have put it anywhere, and if she had it when she was killed, the killer could have taken it, or the city, or anyone!! GAAAAHHH!!!"

Dr. Strife screamed and hurled a large flask at the wall. It smashed into pieces, spreading a green liquid in the corner that quickly blossomed into a patch of grass with beautiful flowers.

Mawk's cat ears and bird crest drooped simultaneously. "Yew need west and wewaxation..."

"West... That's it! Mawk, you're a genious!" Dr. Strife pointed triumphantly towards the staircase. "We'll search the western district of town! Follow me!"

[Pacmanite]

Pac the labourer wasn't from around here. She simply moved wherever the work was. And when she heard that some small, idyllic town had a growing problem with vandalism... well, all she thought was that there might be some odd jobs there for her to do, fixing street signs, replacing smashed windows, what have you. Maybe some of the locals had just gone a bit wacky, and all the town needed was a little patching up.

This all changed after the first murder. When she saw the state of the Town Square - closed off with brightly-coloured rope, the townsfolk drifting about with their faces aghast - she knew this could not have been just a random act of violence. There were murderers in this town, murderers, and that word sent shivers down the labourer's spine.

"Netwaffle," he whispered to herself, but the hush of the town made her voice carry uncomfortably far, "you poor, idyllic town, if you can't catch these evildoers, there isn't a hope for you."

In all defiance to the weatherman's forecast for the day, a plume of grey clouds appeared at the horizon's edge and began to grow steadily larger.

"You'd better start thinking, now... who will you trust, Netwaffle? Do any of you have even the faintest suspicion of who could have done this awful, awful crime?"

((For the record: I'm also an extra, an outsider who has no control over the decision))

[Deleted]

Ariana had decided to tune Candy's discussion out, as she did just want to paint the overlooking stream. However, something started to block the sun. As Ari looked up, she saw that it was a storm cloud.

Great, she thought as she gathered up her things yet again and began to walk home. As she did, however, she noticed Meowington talking to Jinz in the town square.

She sat on a bench that was faced away from them, trying to overhear the conversation. She kind of liked Meowington, though she would never, ever admit it, even to him. She was too proud of her status for that.

[Deleted]

Rain was approaching and, at this time of day, the townsfolk would likely be hungry and wanting shelter. Noting this, Chane Moura strolled through her deli and began setting things up--patting the bags of chips to make them look fuller, taking out the enticing samples, turning on the fluorescent lights, and sweeping the floor. Most importantly, she went to the front door and spun around the marker-marked sign to read "OPEN =)". She hoped for the smiley face to bring in more customers, as it would surely establish the deli as an independent, warm haven untouched by corporate facelessness.

She walked outside, holding the door ajar. She scribbled on the giant sandwichboard out front: "Today's Specials: Deep-fried ch'ikken leg drizzled with mayo. Gribenes. BLT sandwich with fresh tomatoes and lettuce. Other delicious food."