The First Contest

“Luccio…. Slow down the connection is bad… Jim Sheridan? No, never heard of him, antique dealer you say… an auction here? Ritual Knife… yes that could be a lead. Okay, I’ll check it out… just arrived by plane, do we know where he’s staying? Hold on…”

Luccio gestures at Mac, indicating pen and paper, he reaches under the counter then slides a pen and tablet of paper too her.

“He’s staying where? Oh, the name sounds the same, you confused me … No, I don’t know the airport area well. East?... Okay, North East of O’Hare on Fourty-Five before Seventy-Two, opposite corner from… Shoeless Joe’s? That’s a funny name for a bar… No, I can’t google it, are you stupid? Okay, we’ll head over to talk with him. What? Burt Decker… yes I’ve heard of him, runs a store called Left Hand Goods, sells a lot of trash catering to people who don’t know anything and want to do Black Magic… Is that so? Well, If he’s wrapped up in this I want to know how, I’ll send one of the Warden’s to speak with him. Goodbye”

Luccio hangs up and looks over at you. “I have some matters to attend to, you can stay and keep discussing matters or you can go home and return here tomorrow. I won’t rush you but you should know I have reason to believe our killer or killers may attempt to strike again at the New Moon, not many days off. So if you can’t figure out which of you is the killer by then, I think it very likely one of you will die.” She turns to her fellow wardens. “You, come with me, will go have a word with this Sheridan, and you, go talk to the slimeball Decker and find out what he knows.”

With that, the wardens leave. As you sit there, trying to think of your next move, it occurs to you that the wardens don’t know the city well, and will probably take quite a while to get to their destinations. Mr. X goes over to the bar for another drink, but looking around you think you’re probably not the only one contemplating doing a little investigating of your own. You can’t possibly get to both places ahead of the wardens but you could get to one surely.

So here’s the deal, you have 48 hours (real time) to choose your course of action, and will have received a NB from me detailing specifics which you may share or not share as you wish so long as you don’t modquote or attempt excessively accurate paraphrases. To reflect ‘initiative’ without penalizing players who may be busy today or be in different time zones, your initiative will be determined by the two digits representing ‘seconds’ on the time stamp of the NB you send me saying what your actions are. The actions available to you will be detailed in your NB from me title “Contest 1 [Insert Name Here]”, which you have either received or will shortly receive. For game purposes the time stamp’s seconds roughly represents minutes of game time as you rush to the destination ahead of the wardens and hopefully ahead of anyone else who tries. If you have the ability to go looking for Sheridan, you will gain 10 to your initiative by naming the Real Life Hotel he is staying at. Posting the name of the hotel to board during the contest, directly or indirectly, will cost you 5 to your initiative for any action you take, as it is assumed you delayed to tell people.

For this contest the winner and rewards are secret, the winner will know they have won of course. Remember you have 48 hours from the time of this message to submit your action(s), if you have any available, or you are assumed to have declined.

Deadline for NB decisions is 9 PM EST Friday, contest concludes then or when all players send in NBs, this does not interrupt gameplay and you may continue posting and discussing.