NTWF Mafia II: The Idyllic Village of Wafflenet

[Avery]

((Just as a heads up, the mafia's kill is due tomorrow afternoon at 2pm EST (11am NST) at which point round 2 will commence. There will be a time-shift in the round two initial post. After all, the mafia can't very well kill endless amounts of people in one day. Therefore, round two will take place the morning after round one. Ergo, if you have anything important to wrap up, please do so soon!))

[Terra]

Blaze sat on the steps outside Waffles, No Nets, staring out into space. She’d just watched her fellow townspeople kill someone. As if two dead bodies in one day wasn’t enough...

At first she’d been enthusiastic about the idea. Yes, let’s FIND the PERSON/PEOPLE WHO DID THIS. LET’S MAKE SURE THEY’RE JUSTLY PUNISHED FOR WHAT THEY DID. LET’S MAKE SURE THEY NEVER DO THIS AGAIN!

But things started getting out of control. She started to realize that hey, we DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW that THIS GUY COMMITTED THE CRIMES, WHY ARE WE ALL GOING TO HIS HOUSE, WHAT’S GOING ON.

And then, as they dragged him into the town square, she was wondering, WHERE DID THIS HANGING CONTRAPTION THING COME FROM, DID SOMEONE JUST BUILD THAT.

And when they started to hang him...

She could only hope that he was actually involved in the crimes somehow. But they didn’t KNOW, did they?

She heard voices inside the diner and thought that maybe she should go inside - she’d never gotten that meat omelette dish from earlier, and she was hungry. But she wasn’t really in the mood to talk to people.

And her throat was kind of hurting, anyway.

She forlornly opened up her backpack and pulled out a can of beans and a can opener. She opened the can, took out a spoon, and started eating.

The taste just made her miss the meat omelette even more.

“WHATEVER,” she screamed into the open air. “GO BACK AND GET YOUR MEAT ANOTHER DAY.”

Pain tore across her throat and she immediately regretted saying anything.

[Gav]

"No problem," Birch nodded, fishing out a couple of crutches from his supply closet. "Just let me make sure they're at the right height..." he said, getting O'Hara to lean up slightly. "Okay, now try walking with them a bit."

Whenever the latter felt she was ready, Birch nodded. "Looks like you can handle yourself well enough. My receptionist isn't here so I'll keep in touch with you about any payment, and I have your addresses anyway so you can't get away." he flashed a grin. "Now be careful out there tonight, alright? With all the mess going around town I wouldn't want to treat yet another person."

[Celestial]

Diana wrote down everything Britknee said. On its own, the information was useless. It was a snivelling mess, full of conversational slang and almost no information about the hanging itself. That is what most people without her training would say. If she were a journalist, it would have been a failed interview and she would have to find somebody much more interesting than Britknee, either that or take the even lower route of putting the interview on air and having people laugh at her. Diana, however, being a historian, could make connections between Britknee's state of mind and the wider question she was investigating. Only the historians of the future would be able to make such connections or at least interpret this poor excuse for a conversation into something useful. It tells her that the town was unaccustomed to violence, that this event was a short, brutish example of mob mentality.

And then Britknee threw up all over Diana's shoes. She lifted up her skirt slightly to look at the sick, which thankfully was just all over her shoes and socks. She put her notes into her inner pocket with her pens, paperclips and various other bits of stationary.

"No fuss, you've had a rough day and you have given me enough insights on your state of mind, which is important. Go home now, that will be enough," she urged the girl and calmly took off her shoes and socks, putting them beside a bench for her to pick up later once she was done talking to everyone else about the execution and garnered enough evidence to formulate a theory. Whatever happened here in Wafflenet, it was due to short-term factors as the town does not have a history of violence or any propensity towards violence any greater than the surrounding area. Netwaffle may be worth looking into, since a similar event occured at that spot two years ago but for now, she had to get the eyewitness accounts over with while the event was fresh in everyone's minds to avoid distortion of facts.

The shoes? A necessary sacrifice and Diana liked being barefoot anyway. She adjusted her glasses and looks around for the next person to talk to.

[Dan]

"Where's Ginz? I don't think I've ever seen you in here without her."

"She's at home, where I should be too," he replied, watching Mick pour the coffee with bloodshot eyes. "But I needed some time to think."

Don Dan thanked him for the coffee. As the boy returned behind the counter, his comment rattled around in his head a while longer. It was true that Don Dan and Ginz had been nigh inseparable since she had brought him home after their whirlwind of a marriage. Basking in the afterglow of their elopement, he supposed. He enjoyed every minute spent with her, it was true. Even when they were both working on their own projects, their own job assignments, they still found time for each other. She came to him to help analyze the molecular structure of the squashes and carrots she was trying to explode to fifty times their original size, and in return he showed her the blueprints for the new shoe model he'd been assigned to prototype for his company, a type of sneaker made out of that ever-cheap material, concrete. (Don Dan had discovered with more than a hint of disappointment that even his employers were not immune to these astonishing oversights in mafia cliches, but there was nothing to be done about that). No, things had been good these past few months. So it was all the more troubling that he did not feel he could return home with her that night. But maybe he was making a big deal of nothing. To say that the day was troubling was the understatement of the century, he supposed it was not worth overanalyzing behaviors at this particular moment.

He glanced up at the clock once more. Quarter past twelve. He didn't feel he had the energy to return home, but perhaps it was the best thing to do nonetheless. He left a few coins on the table, nodded to Mick, and headed for home.

[Avery]

"Here." said with growing concern. "I've got you some water, maybe it will calm your stomach."

Britknee clutched the water and swallowed it down in one giant gulp... then realized like, what if this lady was like, a mafia person, and this water was so totes poisoned? Which just made her cry harder. Thankfully, she did not vomit again, though she did totally like, imagine her insides being like, eroded by acid and stuff from the possibly-poisoned drink. Still, she decided, she had to like, thank the lady for the drink, 'cos what if she like, wasn't mafia, but mafia was watching them and like, decided to kill Brit next 'cos she was ungrateful or something?

"Ummm," she bleated, "like... thanks."

At least Diana hadn't reacted too poorly to Brit throwing up. That was like, totes a relief! Handing Penny back the water cup, Britknee decided today had been like, enough. She needed to get home, get some sleep. And maybe when she woke up in the morning it would like, turn out that this whole horrible murder-fest has been a dream! Yay!

((Narrator Note: The next round shall be up very soon, probably by 2:30pm EST at the latest. So if you have any last-last minute things to get out of the way prior to the time-shift, speak now or forever hold your peace! ... especially if you end up dead!))

[Mostly Harmless (flufflepuff)]

Fluffle pulled out two hooffulls of fluff out in frustration.

These cows were useless! They kept saying "one of us is going to die". Of course. That was what these cows were bred for....right? Fluffle could go for a burger, or perhaps even a waffle, but she'd probably break down in front of everyone. Wet fluff was not a pretty sight.

Fluffle patted each cow's head in a feeble attempt to cheer them up, and headed to the floor above the bakery. She walked around the rug in the center about four to....eighty-seven times, then lay upon it, her mind swirling with the recent events...

[Chao]

Kay O thanked the doc and hobbled home. Really, crutches were a little awkward but not too bad for keeping her mobile. As she made her way through town, Kay noticed an eerie mood, which seemed to have settled over the town and it did not take her long to gather from words and fragments of sentences floating through the air, that her fellow citizens had taken matter of justice into their own hands and had killed Thundy... executed him in the name of the people... hanged him.
Kay shuddered at the thought and was suddenly glad for her broken ankle as it had kept her busy all day and far away from the lynching mob. A shudder ran down her spine. A mix between hope and fear. Had the mob killed the right person, had the mob by hanging a killer put and end to the murders in town? Or had they killed an innocent and the true culprit was laughing secretly at their bloodlust while planning the next coup? If the latter, she'd better not be out on the streets, offering herself up as victim!
With this Kay hurried (as much as one could hurry with crutches) back home, mounted all those steps and locked the door behind her.

[Avery]

Round: Two
Round Name: In the alley where the Salesman died...

It all started with an off-hand comment, made by one mafia member to the others, as they covertly gathered the night after they'd unleashed such havoc on the wee town of Wafflenet: "Man, I sure am hungry!"

"I'm not," replied another of the criminals. "I got some free waffles, you see. From Mony, at Waffles, No Nets. He's been awful nice to me lately! Discounts, comped meals. It's funny really; apparently she's got a thing for me!"

"That's odd," said the third. "Mony has been very nice to me lately, as well."

"Same here," said the fourth. "It happened very suddenly... right after we got the four of us together and formed this lovely criminal enterprise, in fact..."

"If I think about it," said the first mafioso, the one who had commented about being hungry, "Mony has been overly friendly to me lately, as well. In the past, she's always been pleasant but formal with me. Lately, though..."

The four murderers exchanged uneasy looks. What sort of person, after all, suddenly became excessively accommodating-- free meals, compliments, overly bright smiles-- just after the formation of a nefarious criminal organization? Why, someone who knew what they were, and was terrified of them. Someone who was trying to get on their good side, lest they become the mafia's next victim. And people who knew told. People who knew could not live much longer.

The one mafioso glanced at their wrist-watch. "It's about closing time at Waffles, No Nets."

"Which means Mony will be there alone," commented the second.

"And doesn't he take out the trash right around close?" asked the third. "In the alley where we killed the Salesman?"

"Yes," said the fourth. "And I think we ought to pay old Antimony Parsimony Alimony a visit."

**

It was true: Mony had been awfully nice to the mafiosos lately.

But it wasn't for the reason they thought.

It had all started a few months ago, when the mafia was in its early stages. Like now, they'd met fleetingly then, in obscure places-- cornfields, sheds... alleys. And so there had been Mony, minding her own business and taking out the trash one night, concealed by the dumpster, when he'd heard people talking. Mony froze and listened, and soon realized that they weren't just talking, but planning. Crimes, no less! He recognized their voices, but dared not reveal herself. Wouldn't want to meddle, after all!

Still, Mony's heart had swelled with excitement. She'd smiled. Oh, Wafflenet was usually such a boring place... but now something exhilarating was about to happen! Oh, Mony was so thrilled, so so thrilled! Wafflenet, with its very own criminal enterprise!? This was awesome! And that's why he'd been nice, after. Not because he was terrified, but because she was so dang excited, and so in awe of the criminal kingpins. You might call him a fanboy.

Or a Benedict Arnold.

Mony's love of the mafia was why he wasn't too concerned when, on the night after three had been slain, he noticed the four mafiosos in the alley beside Waffles, No Nets as she took out the day's rubbish. This time, though, it was his clear that their presence wasn't a fluke: they'd been waiting for Mony. Were, in fact, angled so that they stared past the dumpster and right at him.

"Oh," she said, dumping the trash bag into the receptacle. "Hi guys!"

"Mony," said the one stiffly.

"Do you need anything?" asked Mony. "I mean, we're closed, but I could get you some waffles, or I'm having a fire sale on ice cream, what with the freezer stuffed with the bodies--"

"No," interrupted another of the criminals. "We don't need anything, Mony. Nothing at all."

And that's when Mony saw the gun, and noticed it pointed at her, and watched in horror as one of the mafiosos depressed the trigger. His last thought was: No! I love you! Don't kill me!

Then the bullet tore into him, and Antimony Parsimony Alimony hit the ground with a thud.

**

It was the town hobo, Chet Flash, who found the body the next morning, slightly after dawn, during his daily ritual of "rummaging through dumpsters for shiny treasures". At first, he was horrified by the sight of Mony's corpse, blood-spattered and pale and ice cold. He was about to run and scream to the early risers about the horror, when he noticed something sticking out of Mony's coat pocket. Envelopes, he realized. They were envelopes.

Hesitantly, Chet leaned over and slid the envelopes out. There were about a dozen of them. They weren't sealed, and Mony was dead, so it wasn't really snooping to open them... right? That's what Chet told himself as he opened the flap and withdrew a note, which said:

OMG *squeals*
I mean seriously

you mafia guys are like

SO COOL.

I want to, I don't know, send each of you ice cream or a puppy or something because of how awesome you are XD

I'll support you all the way, just don't kill me, OK? Or if you do, just make it a really cool death or something.

Love,

<3Your Biggest Fan<3

Chet's heart seized. He slipped the letter back into its envelope, then went to the next envelope and took out that note. It was the same. Identical. Chet vaguely knew that several townspeople had been given letters like this yesterday, but only one apiece. So someone with a dozen of them... that meant... it had to be the author...

Chet ran to alert the townspeople: the Benedict Arnold was dead!

Antimony Parsimony Alimony was the Benedict Arnold.

[Mostly Harmless (flufflepuff)]

Fluffle galloped back to the cows, with several cupcakes and OF COURSE her bow and arrow stashed safely in the fluff.

Bribing the cows with a bunch of cupcakes at once, she had her information confirmed: Mony was dead.

An offscreen bleating sound rang out, and, as though predetermined, Fluffle's legs grew stiff and she toppled over in shock.

She ignored the braying laughter of the cows. No more competition...they'd have to come to her now.

This was bad.

Mony did scare her with his unusual gender, but she did seem like a relatively pleasant person. After all, it was he who had taught her the gentle art of waffle-making and opening up a business. However, their relationship was rather strained once she became his competition. Well, she thought, it's not like I was that much competition anyway. Someone else would take over Waffles, No Nets, and would....stuff Mony into the freezer. Fluffle pulled the fluff over her eyes in horror. He didn't deserve that!

Then again he'd been the one to support the mafia. The ones who started this whole mess.

She'd probably make a nice addition to her cupcakes though.

Blergh! Fluffle made a face. She wasn't Pinkie Pie!

Either way, The Fluffy Bakery was in danger. She scurried back home, and made sure every single lock that was on her apartment door was locked. She headed to the first floor and began to tidy up the bakery, making everything appear nice and neat. There was no suspicion to be had here.

Fluffle stopped sweeping. Too much activity would make her look like a target. Too little activity would make her look like....a killer!

Fluffle sighed, and resigned to sitting behind the counter, waiting to take the next person's order. Her bow was nestled deep into her fluff, just in case she had to use them...

[Terra]

Blaze marched into the town square, holding the leash of a wolf in one hand and brandishing a letter in the other.

“SOMEONE SENT ME THIS LETTER SUPPORTING THE MAFIA,” she said loudly. “I FOUND IT IN MY MAILBOX LAST NIGHT! I’D VERY MUCH LIKE TO KNOW WHO SENT IT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH -”

Suddenly Primrose, the wolf, started pulling at her leash.

“HEY,” said Blaze. “NO. STOP. NO.”

The wolf didn’t stop; on the contrary, she started dragging Blaze toward a side street. Blaze resisted, trying to pull the wolf back.

“NO,” said Blaze. “BAD WOLF. NO.” It pained her to say this, as she didn’t like calling her wolves names; she consoled herself by thinking that it sounded rather badass, at least.

In any case it was rather ineffective, as Primrose kept right on pulling at the leash.

A hobo - Blaze thought she recognized him, though she couldn’t remember his name (Chell? Trent?) - ran past them, yelling something about how a Benedict Arnold had been killed by the Mafia.

“WHAT’S A BENEDICT ARNOLD,” she shouted after him. “IS IT CODE FOR SOMETHING? ARE YOU SAYING HE WAS A MILITARY GUY? I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WE HAD ANY MILITARY GUYS IN THIS TOWN. DID HE SELL OUT THE GOVERNMENT OR SOMETHING?”

The hobo didn’t bother answering any of her questions.

“YOU CAN’T JUST YELL SOMETHING LIKE THAT AND NOT EXPLAIN YOURSELF,” she bellowed at him as she was dragged a couple feet further away by Primrose, who was sniffing the air intently.

Wow, thought Blaze, it seems like whatever Primrose is after is REALLY IMPORTANT. Normally she’s not like this!

“UGH, FINE,” she grumbled, and she began to follow Primrose to wherever she was sniffing her way to.

Which happened to be a dead body in a dumpster.

“Oh, no,” said Blaze. “OH, GOD.”

Whatever had happened with killing that Thundy dude, it hadn’t stopped the Mafia from striking again.

“HEY, THE DEAD GUY IS OVER HERE, IF ANYONE’S LOOKING,” she hollered, as Primrose started sniffing at Mony’s dead body, licking the dried blood around their wounds.

[Lizica]

The early morning shrieks jolted Tracy awake, and she gazed around in a bleary, terrified haze. She had spent the entire night tossing and turning over nightmares--nightmares about teetering at the edge of a cliff, ready to plunge into the distrust and bloody mayhem of the dark chasm below.

The bad dreams were almost certainly due to all the murders. Wafflenet was on the brink of disaster.

Of course, the dreams might also have something to do with the fact that Tracy had slept all night on the roof of the Shipshape Shop. But that was far less likely.

She usually only set foot on the roof during her monthly tin foil shingle maintenance, but yesterday evening it had felt necessary to stay all night there. After repairing the radio tower, Tracy settled herself against the chimney, armed with her sleeping bag, radio, notebook, and of course her telescope and binoculars. The sky was clear, and if there was to be any sort of alien activity--intercepted transmissions, UFOs, or otherwise--she would be there to pick up on it.

The screaming person down below had passed, and Tracy presently directed her tired eyes to a quartet of pigeons next to her pillow. One of them was pecking at her bag of tin foil hats.

"Stop that!" she said, and swiped the bag aside. The birds fluttered away in indignant surprise.

She had decided while nodding off under the stars that she should finish distributing the hats she had made. Maybe they didn't do any good. But she couldn't bear to get rid of them. If nothing else, they were gifts to the people of Wafflenet that said she wanted them to be safe. And well...better safe than sorry, right? She should give her tenant, Mr. Osilon, his hat, especially as thanks for the bread he'd offered yesterday. He seemed like a nice guy, quiet and observant of birds, even if he did bend her radio tower out of shape. Tracy wondered idly if his birds could sense extraterrestrial interference.

"HEY, THE DEAD GUY IS OVER HERE, IF ANYONE’S LOOKING."

Tracy rubbed her eyes. What? No. No no. They must have struck after she'd fallen asleep! She swept up her notebook and flipped through it, trying to find a pattern in the radio signals she thought she'd heard. There had to be some way to crack this, to prevent this from escalating any more.

[Avery]

Britknee's sleep had been like, awful. She'd spent all night drifting in and out of slumber, plagued by totes horrific nightmares. She snuggled Snuggles with like, a death grip, and kept hearing imagined noises, and then like, was totally convinced at all times that someone was about to climb in through her window and murder her. Urgh! By the time dawn came, Brit was like, eager to get back into town, which was crazy in itself. But, she'd decided, at least in town she wouldn't (probably) be like, murdered... unless the mob from yesterday turned on her, which like, she hoped they wouldn't.

Bleary-eyed, Brit stuffed Snuggles into her purse and then started down the road to the town's center. But like, as soon as she got into town, the yelly lady was there... and was yelling! OH EM GEE! And also she had a wolf with her! Britknee gasped and like, patted Snuggles on the head. Gosh, what kind of person had a man-eating wolf as a pet!?

“HEY, THE DEAD GUY IS OVER HERE, IF ANYONE’S LOOKING.”

... d-dead guy? Before Brit had even completely digested the words, she felt tears automatically pricking at her like, eyes. How could there be more dead people!? Three yesterday, one today... and it was only 6am.

"Ummm," she said to the rapidly growing crowd. "I like, hate this town, for reals now! Will someone like just buy my farm already so I can leave?"

Then she began to sob full-fledged. Like, this day was going to suck even worse than yesterday!

[Draco]

Alex Louis Rockefeller paced back and forth in the town square. He had challenged that snake man to a duel the day before. Really? What was he thinking?! And he let HIM decide on the way they would duel! This was not going to end well for him... That man had a gun the day before! At this rate he was bound to die! It's not like he was going to be challenged to a children's card game! Even if he was, he never played one!

Now as he was pacing he was starting to hear word of another death. Great. Just what he needed, someone else to take him out of the spotlight!

[Chao]

Kay O had slept soundly that night, thanks to a nice pain killer right before going to bed. Consequently the wake-up call she received was rather harsh. During that night there had been a third Mafia kill! And not just someone you knew from passing in the street, but a truly prominent member of the community: Mony!
What would now become of the diner? And she had so hoped to get waffles that morning... well, at least till she recalled that there was no ice cream to be had with the waffles because the freezer was used to store the corpses... and now the diner's deceased owner. How ironic.

Now that a visit to the diner was out of the question, Kay wondered how to occupy her day. Preparing medicine was possible only for limited amounts of time thanks to her ankle, so she needed something to keep her busy while sitting at the counter in her office chair. Those tiny wheels would come in handy, no doubt. O, and she'd have to request the messenger to drop by and take care of the medicine which needed to be delivered that day. She could not do it herself after all.

It took Kay about two and half cups of tea to come up with an idea of how to spend the day she liked. She would set up a homepage where she'd offer astrological services to her fellow townspeople, including a calculation how possible - according to the stars - it was that they were the next victim... either of the Mafia or a lynching mob. Kay was realistic enough to think that the mob would retaliate once more after Mony's death. Hm, perhaps she should put the killing faction as option for her website's visitors to choose. Most likely the stars had to be read differently for 'prefer to be killed by Mafia' and 'prefer to be lynched by enraged mob'. Arithmancy alone for those options was different...

And so www.starswontkillyou.waffle.net was born...
(If you can't access the homepage you seem to be outside of Wafflenet's own net-sphere...)