Test story: The good, the bad, and the not quite there.

Myra decided making eggs is as good a cover as any. She begins to whistle and bounces downstairs towards the kitchen. On the way she pokes her head in to ask Cathy and the mystery man if they'd like some breakfast.

You notice that the two of them look very tense, but Cathy puts on a forced-looking smile. "Yeah, eggs or pancakes or whatever you're making would be great."

The man shakes his head. "No, I...I should probably get going now." He turns back to Cathy. "Can I contact you again at some point?"

Cathy looks coolly detached. "I'm sure you know where I live by now."

He smiles. "Yeah, we tried going there a few times but you never seem to be home."

"Then contact me at the station. I'm there often enough."

The man nods at her and then at Myra in a farewell type of gesture then briskly walks out the front door.

I come back up from the basement and go to the kitchen as well. I go through the cabinets and make my self and sandwitch for breakfast. If I get there in time I listen in if not I'm sure I have a Kitty trying to get some of my sandwitch.

I try to give Cathy a reassuring smile. "Well, he seems nice. Was he giving you guys a hard time about something?"

Cathy looks thoughtful. "No, not exactly. He wasn't here in an official capacity. He came here looking for Justain because he knew that Justain was my old partner. He really wanted to get in contact with me but obviously I wasn't home. He was just lucky that I was here instead.

"He was asking me about some of my previous cases, particularly the one I was kidnapped during. He kept asking if I'd noticed anything 'strange' or 'unnatural' at the time. I think he was trying to weedle something supernatural out of me."

She pauses. "I was babbling about vampires for a week or two after I was rescued. I wonder if this guy wanted to confirm that I was crazy...or maybe confirm that he wasn't."



(Psst! Myra! Don't forget about the other character threads! There's two that I'm waiting for your response in.)

(Also, a note for everyone: Now that I'm the general storyteller we can begin to progress this game much more quickly. I encourage all of you to start coming here several times a day if you can because I'll be updating as soon as you do. I also plan to keep things moving by giving everyone their own threads. I have a big plot planned and everyone will have something to focus on on their own, though you can of course go into each other's threads. Let me know if there are any questions!)

(I replied yesterday and it's not here...wtf?!?!)

Riley comes out of the bathroom, re-dressed in pyjamas, toweling off her hair (just in time to hear Cathy explain, because if my post had come through before she totally would have been sitting right there). She plops down next to Cathy.

"Myra, eggs? Love you!...Oh, I mean, of course you're not crazy Cathy! We all know there are vamps and junk, just don't tell the normal...oops...I'm just gonna stop talking now..."

Simon and Dorothy have also joined the group in the kitchen now.

Cathy smiles. "I know I'm not crazy. I never doubted it. It's just that some guys at the force heard me talking about what happened before I was coherent enough to think better of it. What I meant just now is that I wasn't sure if that officer who was here was one of the force who thinks I've got a screw loose now, or if he wanted to see if the stories were actually the truth."

She pauses and looks around at everyone. "I think this guy may have stumbled across something supernatural. He may just be looking for a friend or he may be trouble himself, but I think you all should look into him. Just to be safe."

"Well, I'm up for it," says Dorothy. "I haven't got anything to do for the next few days and unlike the rest of you I'm not hindered by a regular employment schedule." She looks around. "Does anyone want to help me though?"

Riley wiggles her fingers in front of her, points to her brain, and winks

Dorothy chuckles. "Alright Riley, how about we have a Girl's Night Out/Stealth Recon Mission? When are you free for it? Do you have to go to work today?"

(Riley is scheduled for today. It is in fact her first real day on the job since she's been in a paid training seminar for the past several weeks. Avion is serious like whoa about their employee training. However her shift ends around five o'clock.)

To Dorothy: Yeah, you're so lucky to have an independent, freelance type job! I know journalism's probably really difficult too, but it must be nice being able to set your own hours! Ever since the hospital started back up I've been having to work all sorts of odd shifts...the nurses union is boycotting the hospital until we give them accident insurance.

To Cathy: Maybe we should take the hands on approach! If he's looking for a friend, maybe just having him over for dinner could loosen his tongue enough....
*looks down at the apron and frying pan full of eggs*

...good lord. I've gone domestic.

Dorothy and Simon laugh, but Cathy keeps a straight face.

"I don't think you're taking this seriously enough," Cathy says. "This could be someone dangerous. What if he's the next bad guy on the block looking to pick up where those vampires left off? Or what if he has noble intentions but doesn't know that not every werewolf is the kind of creature that would massacre a hospital full of people? He might want to befriend me but that doesn't mean he wouldn't try to kill any of you."

She reaches into her pocket and hands Dorothy a card. "He gave this to me to contact him if I wanted, but you might need it more. His name is Officer Jonathan Norrell. I've seen him at the station. He's pretty new still and he works a lot of night shifts but that's all I know."

Johnathan Norrel...seriously?

*Grabs eggs, thanks Myra hastily, and digs in!*

*Mouth half full* "I mean, what would it hurt to give him a shot?" *swallows* "Sorry, um, I mean, if he's investigating us anyway, either way, for good or bad, he's bound to find something. We have a lot of dirt on us. So meeting him to try to suss out his intentions will only give us more of an edge. Besides, if he had nefarious intent would he really have exposed himself to us this early in the game? OOh, unless it's not early in the game for him and he's just looking for confirmation. Sneaky!" *Looks around room, blushes* "I think I've been watching too many spy movies recently..." *sets back in on eggs with a vigor*

This time Cathy can't help it and she laughs out loud. "I more got the feeling that he didn't know about any of you yet. He was asking about me personally because I have a bit of an oddball reputation at the precinct."

"Well...maybe it would be better if he continued to not know the rest of us. We can sleuth from afar, but I still think it would be a good idea if you met with him Cathy, to get a feel for his intentions. Maybe Justaine could go too, because he's sorta known to be involved as well..."

Cathy barks out another laugh. "You obviously don't know what I was like before I got kidnapped. You see, I've known about the supernatural for most of my life. My mom was part of a sort of Scooby-Doo gang that would hunt down ghosts and other stuff and she always used to tell me bedtime stories about it all. She wanted me to be prepared.

"She was a cop too though and having the two jobs always gave her a hectic schedule. She got a bad reputation for running off while she was supposed to be on duty. Eventually she was on this one really important case where a bunch of people were going missing or turning up dead with no visible cause.

"She figured out that a psychotic ghost was the one behind it and she went to hunt it down. Some other officers got involved but they never believed her. Once the killings stopped she was declared insane and put in an institution. That was where she died."

Cathy sighs deeply and Ann takes her hand and gives it a squeeze. She smiles then continues, "Anyway, I've always been determined to continue my mom's work. She never actually stopped the ghost she was after and when the same killings started again I just knew it was the same spirit. And even though that was my first real experience with the supernatural I still had a reputation for being Dana Bridges' daughter. I had always been looking for the less-than-normal angle of my cases and that put me in a lot of odd places."

She smirks. "I guess what I'm getting at is that if you were to ask all the local CPD I'd be the one everyone would point to as the official Officer Deals-with-the-Weird. Justain's still just a little kid next to me."

She turns to Justain. "Ain't that right, Munchkin?"

She turns back to everyone else. "Anyway, I'd be happy to have a meeting with the guy, but I was still hoping I could have some intel on him first. If you two could watch him for a day or two beforehand I'd feel a lot better about it. I don't like to take chances anymore like I used to."

Myra raises her eyebrows.
"Wow! I'm sorry, I didn't know you were so experienced with this stuff! Justain never mentioned it..or if he did," she looks apologetically at Justain "I don't recall. Sounds like we're all just kids playing monsters compared to you...You're absolutely right though, I suppose. It would be nice to actually know something about a potential enemy for a change! Usually it seems like we're firing magic into the darkness. I'm rubbish at surveillance, but if there's anything I can do, let me know."

She grabs a plate of eggs and toast and sits down next to Justain.

Cathy smiles and nods and all of my people sit down for breakfast. After a few minutes though Cathy looks at her watch and stands up again.

"Looks like we slept in too late. Justain and I have to get down to the station now." She looks around at everybody. "Sorry, I guess you all have to go now too. He does need to lock the house up after all."

(I'm going to take a bit of a storyteller liberty here and assume that everyone does at least leave the house. This is the stage in the game when I'm going to split everyone up for their own thread in the main story. Everything you guys do there will be connected, but will also be tailored to your specific character.

On a specific note for Al: your storyline will skip ahead a little so that it's evening and you can come out of the ground. We may need to work a bit to splice your storyline with the others because of the time difference.)