ic The Case of Captain Carver (IC)

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

Late November, Early December, 2024

 

Atlantis Casino

 

The sights and sounds of Atlantis were going.

 

It had always struggled on the Boardwalk; it attempting to portray itself as a blistering summer paradise when it was in New Jersey was constantly a source of trouble. They had to spend a lot of money, especially in Winter, to keep the temperature in the building at the climate of a tropical vacation. They had to import sand, exotic plants, have fire dancers and hula parties, all things that were simply extremely expensive when it was freezing cold and snowy out in New Jersey, and it meant people staying often had to bring two sets of clothes, one for outside and one for the casino, or be miserable in one environment or the other. It would, ideally, be used to corral people into staying specifically in the Casino, but given that it was Freedom City, the City of Tomorrow, that wasn't something that was reasonable most of the time.

 

But they were running a special promotion now. A treasure hunt for 1 million dollars; claiming for it to be the treasure of the cursed Captain Carver, the deadliest pirate Freedom City ever saw- existence unverified-. That it had been hidden somewhere in the Casino, and all one had to do was follow the clues and solve the puzzles, and they could inherit the treasure of Captain Carver. It was a type of promotion that casino's often ran, usually resulting in more visitors.

 

And more visitors were coming to visit Atlantis, hoping to find Captain Carver's treasure and finding the fun in the paradoxical tropical paradise casino in the middle of freezing New Jersey.

 

It was one fine day in Atlantis, the air filled with tropical music; waiters in hula skirts and coconut bikinis delivered drinks in tiki containers. There was sand scattered across the 3rd floor's slot area, with visitors forgoing their shoes to wander on the sandy 'beach', filled with slot machines.

 

Then the rumble started. Quiet at first, low and slow. People didn't notice. Especially as someone had just gotten a massive jackpot, and the dancers and lights and sounds were going wild.

 

But then it got too large to ignore, strong enough that people were shaken entirely off their feet, falling to the ground. The elevator opened, and a flood of water poured out of it, soaking into the sand, frying the jackpots.

 

Riding the waters was a ghostly pirate; pale, wrapped in seaweed, swinging a cutlass.

 

"YO HO! I BE CAPTAIN CARVER, AND I NOT BE LETTING ANYONE ELSE BE HAVING MY TREASURE!!!!"

 

-----------------------------

 

One Week Later

 

Lulu Beaumont and Niki Dee have both been hired, requested, and paid well to come and visit Atlantis; to try and come to understand why there was a haunting going on at Atlantis. They had been invited to a meeting in a beautifully decorated office; filled with tiki masks and other culture artifacts, and fish swimming in a tropical tank. The chairs were comfortable, but for the moment, the desk was empty, waiting for the person they were supposed to meet.

[Tiffany Korta]

Nicki Dee

 

Freedom City was probably one of the few places where you could be hired to psychologically profile the undead, so much so that the University offered an elective in psychology. Nicki didn't advertise that she'd aced the class, having worked with a few undead helped, but she'd spent enough time helping supers and other "unusual" people to get a reputation. Not that she minded, even with free help for superheroes she was still doing very well for herself.

 

This being a business consultation, she was dressed conservatively. She wore a charcoal grey pantsuit, with her hair was done in a high bun, and she wearing a pair of cat-eye glasses. It added about a decade to her apparent age, which helped as she hadn't aged in the preceding decade. After a short wait, just enough to avoid any feelings of backwardness, she turned and offered a hand to her apparent partner in crime (so to speak).

 

"Hello, I'm Doctor Nicki Dee, though Nicki will do! I guess we've been asked her to work together on this?" compared to her alter ego(s) her local accent was quite subtle.

[Heritage]

Crystal-Gazer

 

Lulu Beaumont felt very out of place; she wondered if she would ever outgrow the feeling. She'd been working for DI for a while now, but technically she was still only a junior in FCU's psychology department. Sure, the telepathy angle was impressive, but that actually scared more people than it impressed. She sighed to herself; this was the life she chose by being an open telepath. She wore a simple black sweater under a sharp navy blue coat, paired with black slacks and low-heeled boots.

 

When Nicki introduced herself, Lulu turned to accept her handshake with a smile. "Ah 'spose so! Hi, ah'm Lulu Beaumont, with Danger International. It's a real pleasure to meet you, Nicki. And Lulu's fine." There was no way to hide her rural Alabama accent.

Edited December 6, 2024 by Heritage

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

After only a few moments of introduction between the two, the door opened again, revealing two people. A man in a dark blue suit with a some-what festive looking pineapple tie completely against the otherwise absolutely serious business image he was projecting. The other was a woman who looked like a tropical tourist; a Hawaiian shirt, a straw hat, khakis and flip flops.

 

"Ah, good. You're both on time." The man said, standing next to the table. The woman sat down at the desk. "This is Cilene Josephs, owner of Paradise. I'm Derrick Strong, head of security." Cilene smiled; she could be friendly, because Derrick had the look of a man who ate gravel for breakfast and showered in cement.

 

"Dr. Dee, Lulu. I'm so thankful you've come to give me a hand." she expressed; she was a motive talker, moving her hands as she talked. Derrick walked to a nearby table and produced vacation cocktails for the three of them. "So, this has been a liiiittle quiet lately, but I wouldn't be surprised if you've heard; my slice of Paradise is currently being...well. I don't know how else to explain it other than haunted." she said, shaking her head. "Now if it was a Supervillain, you know, you'd just ask Ghost to come root them out, or pick up some Hero or two to give them a big punch up, maybe cause a little damage but that's what insurance is for, stir up a little interest in Paradise, everyone goes home happy. But this isn't Supervillain work." she explains.

 

"Four of my playrooms have been drenched in water. Like flooded; water erupts out of the elevators, some ghost pirate shows up, yelling that he's 'Captain Carver', scaring off all the customers, then disappears. Now I'm not even going to bring up the fact that Captain Carter may not have even existed, but he doesn't even take any money that I've seen. He just causes mischief. But the mischief is actually causing damage to the casino; water is heavy, and it's straining the floors of those rooms, and even when it's cleaned up, the water has soaked through the floor and caused water damage. These are all problems, but they're so utterly mundane as to be...difficult for a Superhero to solve. Unless you ask like The Construction Crew or something." she sighed.

 

"Business has always been hard on Paradise; people just don't seem to enjoy the tropical theming as much as I'd hoped when I got into the game, but I was making it by. How ridiculous to be one of the only people ever operating a Casino that barely scrapes by. But if this continues and more customers get driven away, Paradise is getting paved and parking lot is going over it."

[Heritage]

Crystal-Gazer 

 

Lulu listened carefully as Ms. Josephs described her current dilemma, recording their discussion on a small digital recorder for later transcription. "And this so-called 'Captain Carver', is he makin' any demands or threatenin' your customers in any way, or is he just sorta makin' his presence known? And is it just water damage, or is there any other physical damage or evidence left behind?"

 

Despite what the casino owner believed, the telepath was not going to rule out supervillain activity; bad guys are nothing if not unpredictable.

Edited December 17, 2024 by Heritage

[Tiffany Korta]

Nicki Dee

 

Nicki watched the pair for anything tick or sign that they were leaving off any information, already she had a Merge on-site checking things out, a portion of her hearing and feeling the signs and sounds of the floor. She wondered how her carefully curated brain, full of one or more Merges and sometimes a Cam, would look to a telepath rummaging through her thoughts. Maybe after all this, she could ask one professional to another!

 

"Pave paradise, put up a parking lot! how very droll Mr Strong!" she liked to play the part of a slightly stuffy professional woman, it put people off and allowed her to pick up things they might not have realised they'd said or even implied

 

"Maybe we should see where all this happened, to get a feel for what has already happened?"

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

"Yes, yes. Big Yellow Taxi is a wonderful song." said Mr. Strong. He seemed very whatever about his boss' more relaxed nature. Enough to be suspicious? Perhaps, but what would he gain by having his security team look incompetent.

 

"Come now, Strong; that's the point of Paradise. We're already at a disadvantage, so we need to live the gimmick." Cilene said, admonishing him lightly. "As for the questions; He's threatening people, but he doesn't act on it. You know, the whole 'get away, stop trying to look for my treasure!', then he waves his little cutlass around and disappears once everyone has been scared enough for it's reckoning, I guess." The owner said, shaking her head. "As for the damage, it's mostly water damage, but if you can see something else in it, I'll gladly let you." she explained. "I'll show you to the first place he attacked, on the 3rd Floor Slots.

 

And so they went to the third floor slots; a lot of the room had had it's flooring peeled back, exposing water logged insulation and piping, dripping down into the gaps between the floors. The room was closed with caution tape and locked, so Strong had to let them in, and he stood at the edge of the floor while the other two were let in. "He came in through that elevator there." he pointed. "And then the cameras went on the fritz. We didn't get visual or audio back until after he had left.

 

Meanwhile, the other Merge was able to tell that, while Captain Carver may have been shocking people, plenty of people were still trying to figure out the scavenger hunt.

[Heritage]

Crystal-Gazer 

 

Lulu's nose wrinkled at the familiar sights and smells of water damage; growing up in a ramshackle home with the Chattahoochie River in her backyard, she was no stranger to flooding. For most of her childhood, all her clothes were kept in plastic storage tubs, and they still smelled funky all the time.

 

"So if you don't mind me askin', exactly where did you get the idea for the Captain Carver promotion? Did you do any research, or did you make most of it up outta whole cloth?"

 

As she spoke, the young telepath extended her senses throughout the slot room, rapidly trying to absorb fine details on the floors, ceiling and walls, hoping to spot something a normal search might have missed.

Edited December 29, 2024 by Heritage

[Tiffany Korta]

Nicki Dee

 

"At this point, it really doesn't matter, enough people believe it for it to cause the casino problems. I assume you don't want to create a treasure to cap off this marketing promotion?"

 

This was Freedom City there was always more going on under the surface, and the strip had a long history of Mob involvement. And if you went back long enough Freedom City might even have had real pirates bury something or other on the shore, but probably not deep enough not to be found when sinking foundations.

 

"For us to help you we need full honesty over what happening here!"

 

 

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

"Alright, so. Technically the gambling board regulates us and if we made a competition that you absolutely could not win, they'd come down on us and shut us down." Strong explained. "So yes, in THEORY you can win the scavenger hunt. But in practice, it's basically impossible. We don't want to have to pay out the big prize, casinos make money by taking it from others. It's not the most honest job in the world, but it's the thing we all agree to play the game with. The only way you could actually win the prize is if you showed up here for 4 straight weeks and gambled on all our different floors; or be a super genius who can solve riddles with half baked clues." he finished, poking at the detritus on the floor.

 

"As for Captain Carver...I'm pretty sure he doesn't exist. I'm not saying I'm an expert on pirates or anything, but I, like a lot of kids, had a phase where I loved looking up all the pirates and all their fun ships. I knew a decent chunk about Freedom City pirates, and I'd never heard of a 'Captain Carver'. I am pretty sure the marketing dudes just made him up. If you wanna check, you can ask Henry. He's somewhere around here, I think his office is on level 5." Stone explained. "As for this room, let me know if you need something, and I'll give you a hand."

 

Lulu's ESP could let her know; someone was watching them.