NTWF Mafia II: The Idyllic Village of Wafflenet

[Mostly Harmless (flufflepuff)]

Fluffle felt a sudden urge to check her mail, a tiny candle flame of hope flaring up inside her. The letter wasn't from her lost love. How disappointing.

She read the mysterious letter, then dropped it. Mafia? According to the sender's logic...she wasn't cool.

Her fur stood on end. "That's not fair," she thought, "I deserve a puppy, too!"

Fluffle decided the best way to negotiate was to ask this fellow directly.

She stared at the envelope, turning it over, trying to find an address to reply to. The envelope wasn't even addressed to her! The postman would hear about this.

Frustrated, Fluffle did the only logical thing she could think of to do:

She picked up the letter and the envelope, and stuffed them into her mouth. Mm. This paper tasted of danger, a little spicy, a little sweet...

[Avery]

((Reminder: round one will officially start tomorrow, with the first death. So if you haven't yet posted and would like to introduce your character, please do so! Or if you want to advance your character further before the bodies start piling up, also do so. ))

[♥ Azzie]

Nora Williams was eating her lunch in the cafe as usual when she heard the first scream.

"What in NTWF-" she wondered, jumping up. Wafflenet was a peaceful town, a lovely town. Nora had lived there for many years now, and she'd never once heard spontaneous screaming in the middle of the day. Naturally she ran out in the direction of the scream.

When she found the crowd standing around, and managed to gather from their nervous conversation what had happened, she was very alarmed indeed. If there was truly a murderer here- why, they wouldn't stop at animals, would they? She immediately ducked into the cafe and put some money on the counter. "I've got to go check on my precious chickens!" she said quickly, by way of explanation, and darted out again.

"Must make sure my darlings are all right!"

[Draco]

Alex Louis Rockefeller folded his arms when no one paid attention to him. How dare they, he was royalty (or so he thought)! He stares at THE PYTHON and his posing. That might be a good idea... Nah, maybe another time. People might faint from shock and amazement if he posed for the masses.

"So no sandwich? Fine then."

He walks through the town. It would seem he would actually have to spend money somewhere. Now what did he feel like. He did just finish a small breakfast, so he wasn't that hungry. He would have probably just thrown away the sandwich after a bite or two. Hmm, maybe something sweet. He looked at the Fluffy Bakery. Yes, this might do well. A pastry or cupcake could hit the spot while things got sorted out about the dead man.

"The nerve of some people, leaving dead bodies on the ground when they should have been cleaned up before I, Alex Louis Rockefeller, arrived."

He walked over to the bakery for a mid-morning snack.

[icon]

Osi could hear the rumblings. Dark, uncertain. Ominous, foreboding tones, rolling over his ears, warning him of the dangers yet to come to this town--

oh wait no, that was his stomach. He should probably get some food, he hadn't eaten¹ in a few days.

He glanced around the town from his perch on the roof again, then turned raised his goggles, climbed down the side of the Shipshape Shop.

For some reason Tracy Chaetura, the odd lady that she was, had decided to build a giant radio tower in the shop's backyard, a hulking satellitic behemoth of scrap metal and wires. Osi used it as a ladder; Miss Chaetura had told him not to climb on it, but the birds often perched there, so it was okay.

He reached the bottom, headed through the shop's front door, got a ground-level view of Wafflenet. The birds were still nervous; Osi could see pigeons huddled in the roost atop the coffee shop across the way, even though they should all be out on the streets by now.

He adjusted his goggles, searched for food. Diner, coffee shop, cafe... the bakery was open. Might as well grab something there, plus he could check on the finch nest in the tree in front. He made his way over.

¹Hadn't eaten much, that is. The majority of Osilon's diet consisted of birdseed and breadcrumbs.

[Avery]

The scene was getting very confusing, what with the yelly-lady, Blaze, and another woman-- Nora, Brit thought-- wailing about needing to check on her chickens. Ew, chickens! Who could possibly care about chickens in a time like this, when there was a dead guy on the ground who still no one was moving? Gosh, Britknee needed to get away from this crowd before she started crying! Not because of the dead guy, like, she didn't know him, but because everyone in this stupid country town was just so weird!

Poodle still in her arms, Brit was debating where to go when she noticed a few people-- apparently bored by the dead guy-- drift towards the bakery. Yummy! Oh, she loved bakery foods! In the City there'd been like, the most delicious bakery, with cupcakes and other great baked treats. Of course, Britknee had never really bought something there so much as stood there wistfully smelling the frosting and cakes and things (she couldn't afford the calories and stay a size quadruple zero, jeesh!). But right now, the idea of something sweet was overwhelming to Brit.

Plus, she thought cheerfully, maybe the owner would buy some of her strawberries! (She'd given up the idea of gifting them to her fellow townspeople; the stupid townspeople didn't deserve any gifts!)

"Let's go get some cupcakes, Snuggles!" she said to the poodle and then skipped merrily into the bakery, following the weird bird guy, Osi, and the dumb rock farmer (Alex?) inside. Oooh, she thought, maybe if she batted her eyelashes real cute-like, one of the stupid guys would buy her a treat so she didn't have to waste her own money.

"Like, isn't this so sad?" she said to no one in particular as she sidled up to the counter... but hoping to catch either Osi or Alex's attention. "Like, that guy is so dead, and it's so horrible, and oooh--" she forced a swoon and hoped dearly, as she fell towards the ground, that one of the silly countryfolk would save her.

[Draco]

Alex Louis Rockefeller didn't turn towards the lady with the dog. Brite? Bite? Britz? He couldn't really remember her name well. He wasn't sure, but maybe she was a dog groomer? No matter, she was talking... And she was talking NEAR him. He was unsure what to do exactly, so he stepped closer to the other person in the room.

He decides to call out for some service.

"Excuse me! Food Monger, where are you? I, Alex Louis Rockefeller, wish to grace you with my presence and purchase a sweet."

Just in case he scoots away from the talking, now falling, lady a bit more.

[Lizica]

"But to go back to your topic, you can trust your fellow human beings if they have the sources to back them up and probably if they have been sufficiently peer-reviewed."

Tracy frowned as the scholar walked away. "But--sources are far from trustworthy!" she said aloud, to no one in particular. "They can be easily forged or hacked--and most of them already have been."

But no one was listening. Others in the crowd were yelling, screaming, even advertising. And now that the noise had died down a little, the crowd began to disperse. A few were dashing back to their homes. Others made their way into the diner or the bakery, moving on from this awful scene of the crime, some still furious, some apathetic. It didn't feel right, somehow. Tracy had lived in this town her entire life, and nothing like this had ever happened before.

And then it hit her--nothing like this HAD ever happened. This was an instigated setup! The aliens had a more diabolical plan than simply decimating the town. They must have already infiltrated Wafflenet through her fellow townspeople. All this yelling and crowds--it was unnatural, and they were using the divide and conquer strategy from within. She could not let it happen. Tracy's tin foil hat was the only thing protecting her. If she didn't do something quick, soon nothing of the town would be left.

"Don't worry, everyone!" she cried suddenly, making the last stragglers of the crowd jump. "I'll defend you from these infiltrators! I'll make hats for all of you!"

And Tracy bounded back to her shop, the "open" sign flipping back over with the slam of the door. She plucked up three rolls of tin foil and began making hats with fervor. Maybe if she folded them into cool shapes, fewer people would scoff at the idea of wearing them? She molded a bird-shaped one for her upstairs tenant, and a beret for the musical messenger, and a tricorn, and a crown, and a pyramid--she'd figure out who got what later. Right now it was just important to make. hats. Time was of the essence!

[Dan]

"No. You won't have to," Ginz whispered back. "Not if I can help it."

It was as if her words were magic, or at least in his mind they were. Not minutes after she'd come to his side and grasped his hand tightly did the crowd begin to disperse. Perhaps they were turned off by the showboating antics of Melvin (he refused to call him by that ridiculous stage name), or the odd paranoid screaming, or maybe they just couldn't bear to keep looking at the body. Whether or not anyone would come to remove it, he didn't know, but he certainly hoped so.

But the important thing was, no one had pointed any fingers at him in the heat of the moment. He could go about his business without a mob turning on him. For the first time since approaching the crowd, he felt he could breath a small sigh of relief. Maybe his wife was right about this town after all. Already people seemed to be anxious to get back to their normal lives, and he counted himself within that group. What happened in the alleyway was an unfortunate, grisly twist of fate, but nothing more had to come of it if everyone just let it lie and got back to farming and waffling, the town's two foremost pastimes.

"How about some breakfast?" She offered, trying to take both their minds off the nasty happenings. "We could go to Waffles No Nets, or Penny's Coffee Shop, though I don't know what she might be serving today."

"Sure, that sounds nice," he replied quietly. "Let's see what Penny's got cooking today. It's Thursday, isn't it? If the temperature's over seventy-six degrees when we order, she'll top it off with a peanut butter cup."

[Robyn]

Dove nearly thought she'd burst an eardrum after that wolf-runner girl screamed at her.

“STOP TALKING,” she shrieked. “OR I SWEAR FOR THE LOVE OF GENETICALLY-MODIFIED CUCUMBERS I WILL TAKE YOUR PROCESSED WAFFLES” - she glared at the owner of the diner - “AND MAKE THEM MAKE YOU” - she pointed at the Japanese-animation girl - “A DYING POSE AND SEE HOW YOU LIKE THAT, HUH.”

"Cool it, baka," Dove said with a quick roll of the eye, "You're yelling so loud you can't even understand yourself; that made zero sense."

After contemplating all of the different ways Stal could have chosen to drop dead more aesthetically, Dove hated to admit that the impact was beginning to get to her. A man was dead, one they all knew, and the fear lingering on near everybody's face spoke to the levels of distrust that were already growing. She cleared her throat, dark eyes darting away from the hole in Stal's head.

It was probably time for some breakfast. Anything to make a hasty escape.

With a quick glare to that unsugoi sexist gaijin, Dove tossed her beautiful, flowing blonde hair over her shoulder (it ran in the family) and marched off to the bakery. They usually stocked a selection of Pocky and Japanese goodies on her request, and her stomach was rumbling for something exotic.

"Stal, dead," she muttered as she walked, "I can't believe it. I'd use my Ultra Repair Gushing Cute Kiss on him, but the last three guys I tried it on ran away after I tried to revive them!"

The bells on the door tinkled merrily as she entered, and the worried look on her face twisted into a sneer when she saw who was standing near the counter.

"Oh. Hello, Osilon."

Dove roughly brushed past his shoulder and began to examine the shelves housing her treats. She did not care for that man, not one bit. One would think that their mutual love of birds would endear them to one another, but in fact, the two's personality differences had proved too great, and a small, unlikely rivalry had formed between them.

She still hadn't forgiven him for the whooping crane attack she'd suffered through last Monday.

Rifling through packets decorated with cutely drawn puppies, Dove sniffed, "So, how goes the bird-watching? Or does Miss Chaetura still have something against you trespassing on her personal property?"

[Chao]

And suddenly the regular small town crowd became the regular small town pandemonium before evaporizing. Someone had covered the body, the doctor arrived at about the same time that Melvin Mahb had arrived and began his stupid act of sexist sexiest guy alive... yes, Kay O'Hara knew his real name, had gone to school with him after all, but that was in another life and now... well, he was none of her concern, though she felt for his sisters. Spotting in the crowd that self-named Rockefeller boy she knew that there was already someone in line to replace Melvin... but that was small town life for you, odd personas got recycled all over. And that was the latest point where people realized that while the dead might not be hungry, the living could do with breakfast. All the more reason for Kay O to make an order for more stomach soothers.
Nodding politely to the crowd she made her way back to the pharmacy and her now bitter and cold tea. Well, she'd simply have to brew another cup.

While the water was heating, she got out her writing pad and made a list of the things she had done and the things she should have done in order to make a better impression in the situation.
1) She should have recalled the endless hours of watching crime series during her time in the city. Then she'd have known what to do. Things such as
a) asking for someone with a camera to take pictures. This was one of the main differences between city people and small town people. In the city ever so many people would have pulled out their mobile phones to take pictures of the dead Stal.
b) ask around if someone had a chiller in their shop large enough to store the dead body in case the coroner actually made his way to Wafflenet for an examination of the body.
2) Instead she had muttered about ordering more medicine and then... done nothing. She had not even shown respect in terms of offering a short silent prayer or something.
3) She should have at least tried to strike up conversation with someone in the crowd to become an active part of the crowd...
4) She should perhaps have gone to the bakery or the diner or wherever most of the crowd went for breakfast. Strike up a conversation there. Or at least listen. Keeping up with the situation.
5) Instead she had gone straight to the pharmacy... to do what? Write down a list. Wouldn't that seem suspicious? Or at least uncaring? Suspiciously uncaring? And what if anyone found the multitude of lists she kept? The ones with small details of her neighbours she noted down?

Kay O felt slight paranoia set in. Those lists were her lifeline, her secret...

[Mostly Harmless (flufflepuff)]

Fluffle stared down at the haphazard grave. From her feeble digging skills, it looked more like a trench, really. A trench a puppy could have dug better than she could.

She returned to the bakery, thinking someone else could dig a grave for the annoying salesman, and was surprised to see a customer, falling to the floor.

Fluffle dashed underneath her, burying the customer in her thick pink fur. She probably crashed from a lack of blood sugar, she was so skinny!

Fluffle grabbed a cupcake from her seemingly endless stock, and pushed a piece of it into Britknee's mouth...

[icon]

There were more people in the bakery now, Osi saw. He didn't really pay any attention to most of them.

He scanned the racks of baked goods... sugar cupcakes, sugar cookies, sugar pastries... oh, and now she was here.

Dove sniffed, "So, how goes the bird-watching? Or does Miss Chaetura still have something against you trespassing on her personal property?"

Osilon sniffed back, just as hard. He didn't care for Dove; wrong birds, wrong mindset, wrong colors it was wrong wrong wrong--

ah, there was the bakery owner. Osi smiled a bit, adjusted his goggles; tapped fingers on the table, point to a loaf of bread, hold up two fingers. Grin. Wave arms a bit.

The thing about Osilon Crane was that he never really said anything. He just gestured and waved his arms and everything just sort of... worked out okay. But the thing about that, was that most people never really realized that he didn't talk, either, just chalked it up to idiosyncrasy or something, even if they started every conversation with "Alright, how many words? ...How many syllables?"

He waited, a bit uneasily, for the bread. There were an awful lot of people here, and the sooner he could get back to the birds the better.

[Mostly Harmless (flufflepuff)]

Fluffle looked up. LOTS of customers were in the bakery now!

She gasped happily--and her eyes swiveled to a customer that was waving his arms. Weirdo.

Fluffle considered this. No, not quite. She wasn't much of a talker either.

Two loaves of bread? She was happy to oblige. The fluffy pony carefully handled the bread into a pink bag with her gloved hooves (sanitary!) and gave it to...Osilon, was it? The name was hard to read on the goggles.

As she handed the bread to him, her eyes met his. He appeared sad, uneasy, as though he wanted to leave immediately.

Fluffle knew what had to be done.

She clip-clopped to the front of the counter, and enveloped Osilon in a giant, fluffy embrace...

[Jayeee]

THE PYTHON furrowed his brow in confusion as Diana Pallada spoke to him. He had tried to listen as best he could, but really, women's voices were so dull. Besides, women were to be seen and not heard, that was his number fifty-seven rule in the proper presentation of the female race, (because in no way were they the same species as the dominant men). When she finally stopped talking, THE PYTHON took a step towards here now that there was space in the dispersing crowd. His little show sure had got them hungry, but he couldn't understand why they weren't all getting their women to cook them a meal, but were rather going out to eat. If you treated a woman too much, she'd never learn obedience - rule ninety-four.

"Source?" He questioned the scholar with a raised eyebrow. he thought about this for a while. "You mean like ketchup? Babe, THE PYTHON loves ketchup!" He punched the air a few times in excitement, but stopped mid-way as he realised something new. "You know, you use a lot of big words for a woman, dollface. It's just not you, you're not that civilised, see."

THE PYTHON gave a shake of his head. "THE PYTHON is most heinously disappointed, because you were doing so well at the start, what with the sauce and all. You almost avoided being crossed off THE PYTHON's marriage list, baby. But you totally didn't bow your head to THE PYTHON when you spoke. That's so basic, dude!" he exclaimed.

"But, THE PYTHON is a totally nice guy, and he's noticed your progress." He swaggered over to Diana, flipped out his phone, and placed an arm around her shoulder. "THE PYTHON will take a photo and put it on THE PYTHON's ugly-but-getting-there wall. How's that sound, dollface?" With a broad grin, THE PYTHON attempted to pull Diana against his chest and then took the photo - making sure to cut out most of her face, because who wouldn't want to get as much of his into any photo?

He removed his hand from her shoulder and pulled out an anti-bacterial wipe from his front pocket. "You never can be too careful around women, dollface. You know, THE PYTHON once got some disease from women during one of these meet-n-greets. Isn't the totally uncool? The doctor said it was just a cold, but he worked with women, so he was obviously contaminated or whatever. That was serious!" he explained as he wiped his fingers.

"And finally, so you can keep moving forward, how about you take this," THE PYTHON said, pulling out a rolled up magazine from his back pocket and slapping it on top of the research papers she was holding. It was called, 'How you can change for me!' and had a picture of THE PYTHON on the front. "There's a totally rad article in there called 'Why you're not worthy of the men in your life.' It totally applies to you, dollface."

With judgement and advice having been given, THE PYTHON stepped back to his initial spot in front of the dead body. "BOOM," he shouted, and made a muscle pose.